Our Barn Studio Gets a Real Floor

This weekend, the concrete guys finished the floor. I can hardly believe it.  It makes the  whole concept of turning the barn into a teaching studio a viable reality.

Richard Serra's "Sequence"

Yesterday was the annual Arte de Tiza in Paso Robles City Park. I had 26 students show up and create a masterpiece in chalk. That didn't leave any time  or energy for working on any of my 'masterpieces.'

On the homefront, we had stage one of concreting our barn floor done yesterday. A crew of 5 guys came out and leveled the dirt floor, put down rebar, etc. working their buts off in the heat for 7 hours or so. Next weekend the cement gets poured. This is a huge step in turning our barn into my future studio for teaching surface design classes.

So today to inspire you I'm showing some pictures from our last visit to San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art which just reopened this year after three year of remodeling.  Here are some picture of Richard Serra's "Sequence"  that we found utterly fascinating its sheer size, shape and patina.

It is rusted steel, due to it standing outside for many years in a different location exposed to rain, snow, etc. It stands 40 feet high and the walls of the museum were built around it after it was reassembled there. It's on the first floor of the museum and absolutely free for the public to see.

The negative spaces are very interesting and how they allow other sections

 of the sculpture to show through.

The way the light hits the sculpture changes it's color and texture from very light to very dark with hints of a deep blue as you see in the last photo.

If you are in San Francisco be sure to check it out.

Itajime fabrics

Created a couple pieces of itajime fabric using procion dyes last weekend.  The top one is done over a  fabric previously painted with textile paints. I wasn't sure if the dye would permeate through the paint but it did, giving some nice textures and shadows from the painted layer 

in the circular openings.

Shibori with Seta-color Paint

Yesterday I wrapped some Kona yellow-orange fabric around a bucket with sisal and then painted it with Seta-color.  I wanted something with a wide diameter because paint doesn't penetrate fabric like dye does so I did not want to double up the fabric.

I painted it with a mixture of Blue and Violet Seta-color paint, 

very slightly diluted and allowed it to dry overnight.

And, here is the fabric.  It looks like black until you get really close to it.