Accepted!!

Yesterday’s mail brought the  news that my piece “In Honor” was accepted for the “PaperWork In, On, and Of Paper VI” exhibition at The Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, MO.  The exhibition opens on February 8, 2013 and continues through March 22, 2013.

“In Honor” was inspired by the entertainment page from the New York Herald Tribune, July 26, 1943. The insert is the actual newspaper. One of the actors in “This Is The Army” was Ronald Reagan. The strips of textile include military prints and hand-dyed fabrics. Included are purple to signify the Purple Heart and a red to signify the life blood that has been shed. The stitching is all names of some who served from WWII through the current time.

In Honor

Just like the name of this piece…I am honored to have this one chosen for the exhibition as it honors those who have served.

(This piece can be seen in the Other Textile Art Gallery on my website)

When Life Hands You Lemons

A few years ago, I was working with a group on an art journal doing a study series on any subject we wanted.  I started with figs and have several pieces on my website which resulted from that journal. Then I started on lemons.  Got a couple of pages done and life being what it is....got derailed.  BUT....I always remembered one of the challenges from this journal experience.  The challenge was to do a piece that interacted with more than just the sense of sight.  hmmmmm...... interested me very much.  I thought and thought and decided I wanted to do a lemon piece that also appealed to the sense of taste!! Now...how to do that.  At that time I purchased  lots of various shades and textures of yellow fabric.....and it sat and sat.....waiting for inspiration.  Knew what I wanted it to look like, just wasn't sure how to get from here to there.

One day just recently it all came together.  I had always envisioned a large tear drop crystal at the tip (big drop of lemon juice). THEN there were these wonderful blog posts (at ...And Then We Set It On Fire) on beading and I saw the final piece in  my mind!! Found the crystal opalescent beads in various sizes that were perfect. Then the problem was the big tear drop.  None were big enough.  Then.....there is was....hanging on a hook.  Not a tear drop at all...but a more organic shape and I LOVED it....and bought it, of course.

Using some of the guidelines offered by Beth in this fascinating stroll through all things beads, I started out.  Got some great suggestions along the way, and here is the final result.  My goal was to get those little taste buds that register sour to start watering.  Don't know if I accomplished just that, but I have to admit....I had a ball giving it a go!!

A lemon yellow satin makes up the "meat" of the wedge, white mulberry bark for the pith and a darker yellow satin that has small dots in it for the peel.  I stitched the lemon yellow satin to muslin, manipulating it to get the puckers I wanted. Added the peel and then the mulberry bark. The next step was to add all the beads to the lemon wedge for the droplets of juice. The whole lemon wedge was then stitched to a 18" X 24" stretched and painted canvas. Finally, I stitched on crystal beads to the canvas itself.  I hope it makes your mouth water!!!

When Life Hands You Lemons

When Life Hands You Lemons - detail

Completed Today

The challenge topic - Favorite Movie

This sounded easy at first but proved to be a bit difficult. Many of the movies I love and the parts that make me love them are more concepts and not readily expressable (a new word I just made up!) in 2D art. But someone reminded me of Fiddler and I knew at once that was what I wanted to do.

I love this story. I laughed...I cried.  And many of the lines and songs from this movie are a part of our life now.  One of my favorites is when Tevia is talking to God in the barn about wishing he were a rich man.  "Would it spoil some great eternal plan...if I were a wealthy man?"  And the relationship with his wife and the loves of his daughters...so many faces of love and devotion.

Fiddler On The Roof - Kelly

This piece has all kinds of my own fabrics - hand-dyed, snow-dyed, discharged, ruching, confetti dyed, stamped, drawn on, painted. Only the fiddler is not my fabric but black Kona.

I have a couple of other pieces that will be completed by Monday. LOTS of handwork these coming evenings!

Productive Day

Just checked on my ToDo/Done list and it has been a very productive day!!

Block printed 3 wolves, 3 apples, 3 rice 

Cleaned off Island 

Prepped Brown Snow-dyes 

Cut muslin for an upcoming art piece

Decided on images for that piece

Cut muslin for Pecans – Sapling and marked off boundaries 

Chose concept for SAQA Text Speak 

Set Snow-dyes for batching 

Evaluated Show/Exhibit CFE schedule 

Stitched first piece to Up Close and Personal 

Overdyed green experimental piece 

Blogged and blogged and blogged

Here is my latest on the Minneapolis Manhole Cover Project which is one of my three series I'm working on this year.

Block cutting completed on Wolf

Background fabric (a snow-dyed piece made especially for this project. Seemed appropriate for a Minnesota project!)

Wolf printed onto fabric with Speedball Block Printing Ink.

I use an oil base printing ink so Woflie has to dry overnight

While I had the ink all out and ready...I also printed the Apple and Rice manhole covers for this project and two other prints of all three of them for two other projects.  Now I'll be ahead on those!!

Experiment for the week

After a session of snow-dyeing I had not cleaned up right away.  As a result the dye that had dripped from the snow-dyed fabric had dried to the bottom of the tray.  I thought the pattern was intriguing and "wondered what would happen if".....I just put some SA soaked fabric down on it to dye the fabric.

Here is why I was so intrigued by the patterning of the dried dye...

And here is the result of placing the SA soaked fabric onto the tray and just patting it down to connect as much as possible.

Cool or what!!!??  Now I'm going to overdye it with some light green....or perhaps a lighter blue....we'll just have to see what happens!!  I haven't decided yet.

Finishing out 2012

Yep...I'm a few days late (and after Christmas.....more than a few dollars short!!  LOL!!) but this one is my last piece to complete my challenges for 2012.

A Burning Passion - This is my last VoyageArt piece for 2012 where the theme was to be Who Am I?  After such an amazing year, I seem to have discovered that art is definitely my Burning Passion.  So what better way to complete my self-disclosure?  It also is a great catapult into 2013 because I will be concentrating MUCH more of my time on my art this coming year.

Fabrics in this piece are my hand-dyed ruching and pole shibori and a few other hand-dyed fabrics from my stash.  Size is 10" X 20".  This isn't the greatest photo....cuz I took it.  I can hardly wait to have it done professionally by Shawn Nielsen (see link in right sidebar!!) later this month!!  LOVE the difference it makes!

A Burning Passion

Now onto all my fun plans for 2013...unencumbered with any unfinished projects!! I'm so excited about my series, etc for the coming year I can hardly wait to get started!!

An AMAZING Morning!

Don't you just love how timing works sometimes?

A few of my pieces needed to be professionally photographed to submit for a publication entry.  I spoke with a photographer I know to see if he would be willing to take care of that for me.  We had a rather long coffee and by the end of that meeting I had decided to get all my work photographed!

His name is Shawn Nielsen (Nielsen Studios - you might notice the new link on the right sidebar!!) and he is amazing to work with. It was a great balance of depending on his expertise as a professional and yet having my share of input to the final product as well!  We worked together for a couple of hours this morning and  all my pieces are now professionally photographed!! (except the ones that are currently on exhibit at Crossings Gallery and won't be "home" until the first week in January)  It was quite the experience! AND...I have all the photos in three different formats so they are ready for my website, exhibit/show entries, promotional pieces, etc.  Now when I need to include a detail shot....oh you should see the detail! If you want to see the results you can check out my website in a couple of days.  I'm in the process of updating all my photos there with the shots he took today.  Hopefully next month I'll have the rest of the pieces professionally photographed!

I had made it through OK with taking my own photos for a while but they are nothing compared to this! What prompted me to even consider this?  I had read several articles on entering work to be juried for exhibits and shows AND for presenting to a gallery.  To a one they HIGHLY recommended having them professionally done.  So, as my goal is to enter more juried shows....and my goal for a solo show in 2014, it just made sense to me to go ahead and get this accomplished.

After this experience...and seeing the results...I can HIGHLY recommend Shawn Nielsen if you are contemplating professional photographs of your art.  Contact him and let him know what your needs are and see for yourself how easy he is to work with.

Thanks Shawn for beautiful work!

FULL DISCLOSURE:  I am not associated with Nielsen Studios (other than being a very happy client) nor do I receive any compensation of any kind for this endorsement and recommendation.