''Material Matters Exibit'' at Columbus Museum of Art

Material Matters Catalogue

A little bit of shameless promotion...
I have a piece in this exhibit that is currently on at the Museum of Art in Columbus Ohio, till August 31, 2008.

I just visited the site. Not only does it feature many of the pieces in the exhibit but also links up several U-tube videos of artists at work on their piece. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/columbusmuseum.

More pictures to come, but first, here is an image of my piece in this show.

River's Edge 4, 2006

Back from Haliburton!

Here are some picks from this very productive week at the Haliburton School of the Arts last week 30 June to 4 July.
I was very impressed with what was accomplished by this first Quilting By Design group.

They handled a lot of challenges with interest, curiosity and good humour. Monday at noon, black & white designs show up on the wall.
Monday afternoon they worked their designs into more complex compositions.


Some turned their design into repeat blocks.

Tuesday was all about colour.
Below is a thumbnail sketch for a composition.

Tuesday afternoon they painted fabric as needed.


and that included marking fabric with coloured sticks.

Then, once coloured fabric was on the table there was no stopping the design action...


Smiles appeared. All this surface design aside, I believe that fabric artists are happiest when we are at the machine sewing! By Thursday sewing machines were whirring, some with the dogs down and some up.


Here is a shot of our room during the Thursday afternoon studio visits.

Above is a finished composition on the wall - binding on and signed by the artist.
It is seen here with it's original black and white studies.


Here is another finished quilt seen with original black & white sketches.

By Friday everyone in the group had an original quilt finished, some had two quilts and sketched ideas for more.

What a week... and what a terrific group!

Quilting by Design at Haliburton School of the Arts

Ok, I have just heard from Sir Sanford Fleming college AND I am now in teaching mode.
I am readying up for a week-long teaching gig at the Haliburton School of the Arts.
June 30 to July 4 -
I am excited not only to be teaching, but this will be my first visit to Haliburton, Ontario. I hear that the school location is BEAUTIFUL and prime Toronto cottage country.
Bring camera...

The focus of this class will be on how to get an art quilt off the ground, out of our heads and onto the wall. I plan to serve up many many exercises to help kick-start a creative process that will produce results: we will play with positive & negative space, split shapes, paint fabric and paper, express mood, emphasis, depth and perspective with colour value and temperature, create texture with chalk, paint sticks and thread. All fibre... all week.

This should be fun for all.

midnight garden...sorta

Well here they are -- altogether on a dark background (dark mulberry hand-dye) that lets their individual colour modulations peer through. This piece is off to the shop. Hopefully Jennifer can add some finishing touches. I think that it shows what can be done with Angelina fibres, which was the purpose of this piece in the first place.

I plan to pick more of this stuff as I am now addicted to the immediacy and forgiving nature of the 'hot press' process. I think that a lot more can be done with this stuff, but I have to stop. I have just received notice that my class at Haliburton is a go!!
Alright! Given that I love to teach almost as much as being in studio, I am looking forward to this week-long session later this month.
Gotta go dig up my class notes...

Glitter Wall

I am progressing with these Angelina drawings and this stuff is really growing on me (pun intended). I have bits of shiny stuff clung to all manner of surfaces including me. I have used up three bags so far with one more to go. I only have blue left. The challenge will be to alter the shades with entrapped bits of fabric, wool etc. A nice discovery has been how amenable the stuff is to recycling. The cut out bit from the previous drawing can be included and pressed down with the next piece - nothing is wasted.



The spiral above is made with film.

What to do with dreaded Angelina??

Some love this stuff, others hate it.

I know some even refuse to have it their studio. I have been among this crowd...as I am usually suspicious of sparkly stuff. So why am I wasting my time fiddling with this stuff? My friend Jennifer, who owns a quilt shop, tells me that up here in the Thousand Islands region, Angelina is hot- hot - hot. Many of her customers buy the stuff, want to use it but some run into difficulty trying to integrate it into their quilts. Others overuse it. She has asked me to try it out and ''...come up with something.''

Given that I am interested in exploring what this seduction with Angelina is all about and that I love a challenge, I have decided to take another look at a product that I have previously dismissed. So, I spent this past weekend fiddling with all kinds of Angelina, the shredded stuff the we all know and the newer film.

This is a pick of the shredded candy wrapping- paper like stuff that self-sticks when heated. And next shot is the newer film - same as the shredded angelina but not shredded. Hmm.


This was my first try. A real piece of Angelina GROT.


I think that as a base rule, ''when coming up with something...'' it is important that at a minimum, the effort MUST yield something that looks better than the original product!

Here is another example of Angelina GROT - Yuck!
From a process perspective, I can understand why this stuff tends to be overused as it is fast and easy to work with. It it sticks to itself yet is not sticky, it doesn't ravel and there are no fumes - but other than decorative applications I am having a difficult time finding a serious application.
More yuck - with this piece I entrapped yarn between two layers of the shredded stuff - e-gads!

It was time STOP and check out the garden.
I needed a little nature study to remind myself to stop what I was doing.

I discovered part of my problem... there was no way that Angelina with all its reflective surfaces, could come any way near with what is out there
Back in the studio I went for a different focus. Instead I put Angelina to the task of helping me to express something more personal, more abstract. So, I ironed several 8 x 10 sheets of Angelina, trapping bits of film, wool, roving etc. then I drew directly on these sheets with a marker. Better.

Here is another one.

I liked the drawings so I cut them out and pinned them up on the wall.


This is where I'm at with this. So far so good and I am not done yet wrestling with this stuff. :-))

A new header for the blog

My my, it has been a stretch....
Activities occur but don't get recorded -- that's how it goes sometimes with a blog like this one. Perhaps this new look will inspire more posts.

On the other hand, a lot of activities have been recorded on my other blog. We have just wrapped up this year's Art in the Islands Retreat for Fibre Artists and we are gearing up for next year's event, it should be even more fun!

Now that I am back in studio, I still have a couple of quilts to ship off, and one more class to teach in Haliburton Ontario later in June, then some quiet time to work over the summer months. Here are a couple of items currently on my table:

This past winter I treated myself to a felting machine. This piece was done with craft felt and dyed cheese cloth needle punched from the front AND the back - very different effects. This machine is an amazing piece of technology that can transform all sorts of fabric - usually the ones that would not make it into the studio, in fact the slinkier and sleezier the fabric (ie. slinky glittery knits, lames etc) the more interesting the transformation. On a painted canvas base the effects can be are magical. I am not done yet with this new tool...

These sewn strips are samples of dark brown hand dyes and black cottons and rayons discharged with bleach (coppery red) and thiox (grey, yellow and green).

These are more samples that I discharged and timed - 5 to 15 minutes.


And here is what is on my desk! My ever cheerful finger puppets.
Did I make them myself? No- no-noo - - Bought them in a shop.

An old friend

Lately I have been immersed in painting acrylic and textile colour studies. It has been a wonderful learning and discovery process but I yearn to sew. So, thanks to a short bout of spring cleaning I found this piece at the bottom of a drawer. This goes way back to my piecing days. I don't know why I turned away from it back then as it doesn't seem so bad now that I take another look at it. I think it deserves to be quilted.
It is snowing outside . I have decided to ignore the weather turn on some music and sew sew sew. But first I need to fix the perimeter...
See y'all later.