New Arashi Silk Scarf

Last weekend I made a new arashi dyed silk scarf.  I did this one a little different than I usually make them.  I soaked the fabric first in soda ash, and let it dry a little outside on the lawn, with rocks on top, so it wouldn't blow away, because it was pretty windy out there.  Then I wrapped it around the PVC  pole and squirted Wasabi,  turquoise and fuchsia dyes onto it. Usually I don't do the pre-painting, but wanted to try it this time.

Here is the wrapped scarf on the PVC pole waiting to be unwrapped and rinsed.

The fuchsia dye really took over.  I tend to forget what a hog it is for grabbing the fiber molecules and taking over.

Here's a closeup of a turquoise area I really liked.

In the Garden

Eight and a half days left of school.  Yeah!!!!  I remember when I was a kid in school and I thought the teachers must be so sad as the end of the school year came to a close.  Like, what would they do without us all summer?  I'm enjoying just thinking about all they dyeing, gardening, etc, that I'll finally be able to get to.  Meanwhile, this weekend I'm bombarded by projects to grade before the end.

I did have time to dye a scarf last night.  It's curing right now and I should have pictures of it here soon.

Last night about 7pm, the cacti blossoms in our backyard opened up.  They have amazing, trumpet-like large blooms.  They can be encouraged to flower by watering them for a week or so.  They never last very long but are so exquisite.

I love the mix of the reds and greens of the tall, cylindrical cacti behind the flowering ones. I love the contrast of such delicate colors and shapes attached to such prickly cores.  I  should know all their names, but they're my husband's hobby, so that's my excuse.

Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day to all my readers.  I am blessed to be the mother of two wonderful boys, now men,  and to have had a wonderful mother in my life.  My mom taught me many things, sewing just being one of them.  She taught our whole girl scout troop to sew.  Our first project was to make granny gowns and matching caps.  Talk about stylin!  She also taught me to embroider when I was about 10 years old, something I still enjoy today.  She was very thrifty, having grown up during the depression and was a firm believer in saving and recycling everything.  It would really crack me up when she and my dad would arrive to visit us and she would give me the roll and butter from her meal on the plane that she didn't eat.  She couldn't even throw that away.  Now they don't even give you meals unless you pay an arm and a leg for it.  One of her favorite adages, that I still hear in my mind is "Anything worth doing, is worth doing well."

So today, since my studio is in transition due to my son moving back and reclaiming his old bedroom, my former studio, I am playing with images of mom to make into thermofaxes for silkscreens.

This is picture of mom before she was married.

Here the same photo after making adjustments to it in photoshop.  I'll use this one to make a photocopy and then run it through a thermofax machine to create a silkscreen.

Block Carving and Printing on Paper and Fabric

The weekend is when I usually have time to post a new blog, but this weekend was pretty busy.  On Saturday I taught a workshop through our guild on how to carve and print a block on paper and fabric.

 On Sunday, we helped one of our sons move back home into his old room, which had been my studio since he moved out about four years ago.  It's been very hard to give up that space. I've really enjoyed having a place to call my own, where I can just shut the door on the mess.  But, you got to help your kids out. My parents took me back to help me regroup, when I was in my twenties, so I'm just playing it forward.  He does have a job, so I don't think he'll be here too long.  I plan to just enjoy the time with him, as I know I'll be missing him as soon as he leaves again.  So all my stuff, which of course, turned out to be more than I thought I had, had to be boxed up and moved into the tack room next to the barn.  There's only a few more weeks of school left and then I'll have to time to work on the tack room and make it work as a  temporary studio for the summer.

Back to the Block Carving and Printing.

I really enjoy block carving and printing. In college, we had an assignment to make a large print of a favorite local building.  I chose the Milwaukee War Memorial and Art Center.  It was a great piece of architecture with a wonderful collection of art that I enjoyed visiting often.  Here's my print and block of it.

When carving a block, you need to remember that the print will be the mirror image of the block, 

so for text to be readable in the print, it needs to be carved in reverse.  This one is a large one, 18 by 24 inches.  It's so old, it's getting a little cracked in place. 

 Here's another one from my college days.  I don't have the block anymore, 

just some of the prints I made

What a creative, fun group of women turned out for my class on block carving and printing.  They made some great stuff.  Here's some pictures of what they did.

This is Jan's print, which has a lot of great movement and pattern.  All these blocks were the 2 x 2 inch ones and then depending how you turned them you could get some great secondary images where the designs meet in the center.  Jan went on to carve and print a wonderful Aztec bird design.

 

The three above are Sheryl's blocks and prints.  Great use of negative and positive space.  Removing the negative areas of a block with care and thought can add a lot to your design, 

in terms of movement and texture.

 Above is fabric printed by Kathy and her curved spiral block. She used Pebeo Setacolor copper metallic paint.  Looks great, doesn't it? 

This is one I printed in a class in Oregon ant the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts 

in a great class taught by Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer. 

 There's a couple of layers of surface design here; potato dextrin and the block printing.

Hope you're inspired  to get out those carving tools and start creating.

Remembering Frances Bailey

This week's post is dedicated to Frances Bailey, who was an incredibly innovative quilter and mentor to me and many others who live in California's central coast area. Over the years she taught many classes in a variety of techniques.  She also took many classes and workshops from others so she could continually add to her repertoire.  She passed away this week at the age of 95.  I'm posting pictures of a few of her many quilts.

 For the past sixteen years, I have had the pleasure and good fortune of going over to Frances' house to meet with  her and four other great women who form our circle.  We shared, not just our quilting techniques and projects, but our lives, with their ups and  downs.  We all laughed together and shared tears together.  We have attended weddings, funerals, and rejoiced at births of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

We will miss you and your inspiration Frances, but will remember you every time we add a little bit of yellow to our quilts, as you often reminded us to do.

Frances made this quilt inspired by one of Jean Well's books on innovative piecing techniques. Frances had such a wonderful sense of using space, shape and form to create great compositions.  She would often say that she was not an artist.  You can see how wrong she was about that! 

She made this piece following a workshop she took from Carol Taylor at 

Pacific International Quilt Festival.

This beautiful quilt was started in a Ruth McDowell workshop at Asilomar.

Upcoming New Solo Show

I will be having a solo show of my art quilts in the Paso Robles City Hall for the last week of April and all of May.  Here are a few quilts that will be in the show.

Orange and Blue Landscape

24” x 21”

The left side symbolizes nature with its organic leaf shapes in contrast to the more industrial, polluting, skyscrapers of the cities. A small river of bright blue Dupioni silk runs through the top symbolizing our decreasing precious water supply.

Into the Redwoods

21 ¼” x 18"

This quilt was inspired by a photo I took going into the Redwoods in Santa Cruz.  It was started in a great class I took from Susan Brandeiss,  http://www4.ncsu.edu/~brandeis/ who creates beautiful fiber art,  I digitally printed it onto silk, after enhancing it in photoshop.  There is a leaf digitally printed on the green organza.  I then added embroidery and beads.  I like using the  combination of the digital  photography, which is high tech with the low tech of hand stitching, which has been around forever.

What’s Black and White and Red All Over?

19” x 31”

This quilt was inspired by photos and views of the many fields and vineyards in the central coast area of California

Hand dyed fabric using potato dextrin resist, commercial fabrics, ribbon, buttons, beads, and foil.

New Dyeing and Broken School Kiln

I am a full time middle school art teacher.  I'm sure I mentioned that before. Well, I found out on Monday from the school district electrician that my kiln  would cost $700 to fix and due to it's age and condition, it was not worth it.  A new one, of the size and quality needed for the amount of projects that are fired yearly, would cost about $2800 to buy and install. Over the last fifteen years, 2700 children have learned how to think and create in a three dimensional way, making 4500 unique clay projects through the Flamson visual arts program.  The students love to work in clay.  It is such a responsive, forgiving media in which to create a variety of things, as you can see below.

This is a ceramic personality box made by an 8th grader showing aspects of her personality.

These ethnic ceramic masks were made by 7th graders.

Four classes were finished making their pinch and coiled pots and two others were in the middle of making their gothic gargoyles and mythic creatures. They were in the drying cage awaiting their first firing, known as the bisque firing.  When they are in this state, they are extremely fragile.
Fortunately, my wonderful colleagues at the high school and other middle school, have pitched in to help me with getting them fired.  Unfortunately, I had to box up 120 fragile projects and cart them around to the schools.  Today, I have to unload and reload the kiln at Lewis.  Tomorrow, I;m hoping to get the projects black that were fired at the high school, and then on Tuesday, go back to get the balance of them at Lewis.

Then students will glaze these, and I'll need to ask my great colleagues to re-fire all of them and pack them up and drive them around town.  I'm hoping not to break any projects in the process.

Our district is broke, our state has not been funding education as it should be for many years and there isn't any money for a new kiln, so I'm now trying to figure out some fundraising.  So it's been a very busy week, without much time for my own art.

I did manage to have fun dyeing the piece below by scrunching it up and wrapping it in some netting, like the type found around bags of onions.  Then I applied the dye, using a syringe.  I like how some of the white remains in this piece, giving it some great contrast and sparkle.