Dockside surface design

I love this time of the year. Warm sun, cool nights and ah yes, I get to open up my beloved little Art Shack. Every year, I happily lug several bags of dye & paint stuffs some 45 steps down a ragged cliff to what was once a garden shed, now a supreme surface design lab:

Normally I only venture down here when the temperature hovers around 20C (or 80F). MX dyes like a warm humid environment. Frankly its still a bit cold – but I am anxious to get this shop going as I have a lot of work to do, it’s like camping!

Before heading down, I like to mix up all the MX concentrates that I will need for the season, approx 20 weeks worth. I don’t have hot & cold running water, only a hose with freezing cold water, but I do have a fridge. Luckily, Ann Johnson’s Color By Design has the how to for all these concentrates.

I now colour code each 500cc bottle with its own colour and recipe # (I use them over and over). These ones are the best, they don’t leak! When I think of all the junk I had to drink to get this marvellous collection of leak free ½ litre bottles… it was worth it.

Because I plan to thicken these dye concentrates I throw in a tablespoon of urea and a couple of marbles. The marbles help create the friction necessary to keep the dye in solution every time I shake the bottles, and I do this often. I found this gem of a tip from Doug Wilson from the DyersLIST.

I have also learned to write everything down on each bottle. When I need more, the formula is right there. I picked this habit up the hard way from my own experience. I like to make 8% concentrate solutions (really really dark rich colours). For a 500cc solution, that means that I put 40gm of dye powder into each colour bottle. Here is what 40gm of Pro Chem grape 801 dye powder looks like. Seems like a lot, but it goes a long way.

More to come.

Up close and personal…

The third week in May has finally arrived!

Upin the North this gives us the go ahead to start planting, and wouldn’t you know it we have a frost warning for tonight, not fair…

Most days I can be found on my hands and knees mucking about in rich soft earth. BTW, this is the only time that I actually enjoy any of this. Given my fickleness with gardening matters, I know that this enthusiasm won't last long. The intoxicating ‘garden high’ I feel will soon pass and my poor garden with so much promise will eventually take on the look of an abandoned child, probably by the first week of August.

But late in May I am completely intoxicated with the smells, the colour, the fresh earth the gentle breezes. Ah, and my garden plan…this is not unlike art, my canvas being the rich black earth. I will add colour, line, shape and texture. I pick plants and vegetables based on how they will contribute to the whole, the look -- certainly nothing practical.

Oh, and then there are visitors to the garden. In the Spring I love them all having been starved all winter. Some I manage to capture with a help of a borrowed lens... this image captured last August was languishing at the bottom of my blog images bin and demanded to be featured.

You have to admire the exquisite complexity of the bi-wing span of this magnificent little creature. If you click on the image you will see what I mean. I have seen many a dragonfly done with fabric and thread, but I wonder if it is at all possible to really capture this?

OK, back to my plantings…

Silk Garden Cloth

All this cloth I have collected this year... these were made to test colour relationships, resists etc. They sit, piling up and they languish on top of my dryer.

I feel the need to put them to use, perhaps cut them up and have them work together somehow. This green one below involved several processes to achieve the texture and layers of colour. Maybe I won't cut it up so much.


This is a multi-colour silk screen process. I have tons of this stuff, so I will cut away with little fear.


Here is more of the green. I really love this piece. It reminds me of a Canadian garden at this time of the year - full of promise.


Ah, my dot cloth. This swatch makes me want to go back to the silk screen and dye pots to make more of this in different colour combos.


See you all later...

American Craft features the work of Andrée Fredette

I am was so proud to discover Andrée Fredette's work featured in the most recent edition of American Craft Magazine.

Andrée's piece Tunicates no.1 was juried into this Quilt National '09, which opens next week. The image published in American Craft (seen below) doesn't do justice the extensive and beautiful machine embroidery that floats over these large colourful panels.

For those of you who are lucky enough to be in Athens Ohio next week, you will be able to see the real thing as well as all the other 'best of the best'. For the rest of us QN '09's full colour catalogue will be released any time now. I already have mine on order.

Congratulations Andrée!!

Calendar

Quilt National '09

Tunicates No. 1 © 2008 Andree Fredette

Dairy Barn Arts Center
Quilt National '09
May. 23 — Sep. 7 2009
Athens, Ohio
http://www.dairybarn.org

The beauty of stitching stands on its own in 85 quilts running the gamut from traditional formats to 3-D textile sculpture, realism to abstraction.

© 2007 AMERICAN CRAFT MAGAZINE
| Contact | 72 Spring St, 6th Flr, New York, New York 10012 | 212.274.0630 | letters@craftcouncil.org | Customer Service |

The Art of Gardening

At this time of the year, I like to escape the studio to spend time in my garden.

I love the smell of the warm earth after a long cold winter. As if reading my mind, my friend Gerry Glavin sent me this funny story.

An old man lived alone in nearby Kingston County. He wanted to plant his annual tomato garden, but it was very difficult work, as the ground was hard.

His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. So he wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:

Dear Vincent,
I am feeling pretty sad, because it looks like I won't be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days. Love, Dad

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Dad,
Don't dig up that garden. That's where the bodies are buried.
Love, Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, the RCMP and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.

That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Dad,
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now.
That's the best I could do under the circumstances.
Love you, Vinnie

Did You Know?

I came across this video on Gloria Hansens blog.

I too do not know how accurate the data is (there are some credits at the end) but needless to say I am now very alert. Watching this video is like drinking a strong cup of coffee. In fact, you may just want to grab a cuppa while watching. It's about 4 minutes long.

I found it inspiring and energizing. What do you think? Too much info?

Visual Sketchbooks - cont'd

OK now for Part 2,


But first - one more thing about the books. When assembling these, I like to use hard covers (usually heavy card stock or mat board) and I fuse hand dyed cloth to the front and back covers.

What you see in the next picture is a sketchbook open to the back page, showing the inside of the back cover.


This next picture is a page in the mid section of the same book showing the initial ink wash.

Next, I open the newly bound sketchbook either to the first page or last… not important which. Then, using a #11blade knife I cut out a shape (or two) from the page. Sometimes I use the imagery suggested by the black ink or I may have another specific shape in mind. I continue cutting out these shapes on several pages, focusing mostly on positive and negative shapes.




Using various black pens (from microns to fat markers) I add lines, textures and shapes at will to each page, going back and forth across the book. This process allows me to really develop a specific concept in much greater detail than ever before.




I end up with roughly four dozen drawings that are related in imagery, line, shape and texture. Sometimes I will fill up a book in one sitting but more often I will come back to the book several times to work a few sketches at a time. This is a very meditative process and provides rich thumbnails for future work.

Because of the way a book is structured, each cut out shape affects both sides of a page. As I turn to the next page, my cut out is still there but in a new context. This feeds the next cutout, inking and dare I say it even an occasional colour mark...

To keep things exiting, I have on occasion inserted a page or two of translucent organza or other textile into one of the signatures to allow for an occasional stitch mark to contrast with the paper drawings.


There are no end to the possibilities with this approach. Books can be made entirely of cloth and paper can be initially painted with coloured inks. I have been so busy just exploring the possibilities with black ink I haven’t yet been able to get around to colour – but it won’t be long!

My Take On Visual Sketchbooks

Lately I have been following with interest Pam RuBert’s posts about keeping visual sketchbooks organized. She collected a great list from her readers on how they tackle this – check it out HERE.


I'm no different...I too struggle with organizing and collating my sketches for easy reference. Recently I found a solution that has worked for me. I now sketch, draw, stencil and mark as I make the sketchbook….Weird huh? But this works.

Each one of my books contains several drawings related to one theme. They are all bound together into one book that is dated and signed. I got this idea from Dorothy Caldwell, whose work I love.


Here's how it works:
I start by slathering (yes, almost sloshing) black India ink on a large sheet of really nice white paper and let it dry. I work pretty fast using a foam brush, or sometimes I even pour the ink directly on the paper, let it settle a bit, tilt the paper etc.

My aim is to produce a rich contrast between the black of the ink with the creamy white of the paper. Acid free card stock quality paper or similar is very satisfying…


Then I cut the large sheet of inked paper into several 4’’ x 8½’’ stacks.

I fold these in two and arrange them into signatures ready for sewing into a sketchbook.
There are several online tutorials on how to sew these little books together.
Pam has a link to THIS ONE on her site. My favourite is a Coptic stitch bookbinding technique I found HERE. It is fast and fun to do.


Normally this would be the end of a sketchbook making exercise, but for me this is only the beginning. In my next post I will describe how the bookbinding and sketching come together and feed off each other!

Some attention is needed here...

When I decided to visit my blog earlier this week I saw a visually attractive site, but sadly one that has been neglected for a very long time. My choice was either to close it down or to breathe new life into it. I have chosen the latter option.

I am now committed to building this blog into a more vibrant site and have taken specific steps to help me do just that. So I signed up for a 4-week BlogTriage class with Cynthia Morris and Alyson Stanfield. This class began today and already they have given me lots to think about and write about.

For starters, I want to state up front that I want this site to reflect and be a record of what is happening in my studio both for me and my readers. I have discovered that it is great to go back over previous postings and see a chronological and visual record of my studio progress these last couple of years. I only wish I had more on record. I want to share this with my readers - students, collectors, gallerists and other artists - both regional and across the web. We are all neighbours through the internet! I hope that with regular practice I will be better connected with this community many of whom also work alone in their studios. I welcome feedback, enquiries

This said, I don't want my blogging practice to be some medicine I need to take daily... yikes! Instead I hope that regular blogging will allow me to share the exitement and discoveries that I experience daily in the studio. I want the blogging part to be a natural output of my daily studio practice. Let's see how it goes.

Swatch Art

Lately I have been involved in producing a gazillion silk and cotton swatches using all manner of dyestuffs. That and fabric paint, as well as discharge agents etc. I thought I knew a LOT about this stuff - not the case.

Just take this intense blue above. When it is over dyed with complements like strong orange (left swatch) or burnt orange (middle swatch) I see with 'the whites of my eyes' that the blue indeed does NOT discharge when stamped with discharge paste.
But then, I always knew that... what I didn't know was how gorgeous the blue is when peering out from beneath these complementary mixes.


Another swatch with an elastic resist. This one shows what happens when burnt orange is over dyed with mixing blue. The diagonal lines are discharged - this blue discharges.

Another elastic resist swatch showing what happens when intense blue is over dyed with grape then discharged. The discharge takes where there is only grape.

Here is what happens when sun yellow is overdyed with grape. Love the brown.

More swatches...these are silk habotai.

January makeover

The weather is frightful in this neck of the woods (-30C) and I miss my summer art shack.
So I decided to convert my smallish mudroom/laundry into a wet studio. The room is only 8' x 14' so it was a bit like organizing the inside of a boat - every square inch had to serve...

I work with largish lengths of cloth (2 metres on average ). In December I found a craft table at Joannes (in Og, NY) with drawers & shelves for $129. Collapsed, it's footprint is only 21''x 31'', but opened up it does the trick - see below.



Reorganizing the cupboards above the sinks took a lot of reconfiguration to make them really efficient. The one on the left stores auxiliary chemicals, discharge pastes and resists.

This is the MX dye cupboard - the pure dyes that I use most often are on the two bottom shelves with mixed dyes on the top shelf. Stacks of pre-washed fabric sit on top (every square inch...)

This is where I store all my fabric paints. I found this railing (above the sink) at Ikea. It saves my sanity as the myriad of utensils I need when gloved and masked are visible and easy to reach.

Oh, and even the door to the garage does double duty. It is metal! So, I bought a stack of magnets. Now whenever we enter or leave our home, we are greeted with my latest silk creation that billows in the cold air.


OK, here is a less than glamorous picture of this space in use, but it works, that what counts. It is also a snap to clean up. Its not as spacious as my shack, but its closer to the coffee maker in my kitchen:-)


Cheers all -- time to get back to work!

Hello blog...

Oh my, it has been a long time.

The time has come to get back in the saddle and post again.
This past year I decided to undertake the Artcloth Mastery program offered by Jane Dunnewold in San Antonio, Texas. The program is wonderful, demanding (I have several assignments that are due). I have been learning a lot from a great teacher and my fellow art cloth companions.

Here is a shot of the Art Cloth Studio in San Antonio. It occupies the entire third floor of an old mission church and is therefore huge.

Here Jane is setting up a class meeting

Discharged silk fresh out of the dryer with someone's respirator.

Black rayon discharged with 1) chlorine - coppery area 2) RIT colour remover (sodium hypochlorite) white cloudy area and 3) discharge paste (Rongalit) - grey stamped area at top. All three agents affect the cloth in very different and interesting ways. More to come later.

New work

Here is a peek at the stuff that currently moves from my wall to my table and back to my wall again. The top piece is finally quilted. It was designed with every shade of red that I could find in my stash. I must be anticipating a long, cold and colourless winter...



I have concluded that I don't have enough shades of red and I need to make more - a good project at this time.

This second piece was made with some hemp that I wanted hand dye.

It dyes OK, but doesn't hold a candle to pima cotton or silk broadcloth.

I joined it with a piece of burnt orange pima that I silk screened with a couple of motifs. It is now ready for quilting. I feel that this one will need about as much thread as the red one above.

Speaking of thread, I also have some hand stitching in the works.


I find that this is a great way to create a shibori resist for dyed fabric.
Here is an example of machine stitched resist underway,

And here is the result.

Not too bad. Next time I plan on using use a heavier thread to produce a bolder outline.