Not Much News, But a Little

I haven’t posted for quite a while. My father-in-law reminded me this past weekend at our family reunion. He said he checks in from time to time to see what I’m up to! Well, I work a lot now and get very little done creatively.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped at a yard sale and purchased 14 old t-shirts for cheap because I want to make this. It just looks like fun.

Isn’t it the cutest? Can’t wait to wear one, but it’s too hot here right now.

I entered this is in a show and it was rejected. 😦

Still a Collage

TriState Artisans will have a new name this year and a new brochure for our studio tour in December. We are losing a few artisans on the Illinois side and adding a couple of new ones. You won’t want to miss it! Here is a photo of my work that will be featured in the new brochure.

More news: I am working on moving into a REAL studio space! A 20 x 80 foot building has come open across the street from where I work. The biggest portion of it will be my workspace and classroom for teaching. I am planning to put a small shop in the front part. Although I can’t be open every day, the shop will have my art for sale as well as consigned items by other artists/artisans. I am looking forward to getting in and getting some work done!

Another piece of good news…I was going to order another Square swiper yesterday because the one they sent me didn’t seem to work in my Android tablet. On a lark, I thought I would stick the one I had back in and check it. Lo, and behold, it worked! I could actually SWIPE the card, so I made two $1 payments to myself. Besides, I need to practice so I know how to use the darn thing. I guess the fees I paid were worth it! I think I’m going to love this little tool.

The Month of May

May has been a busy month here at my house.  The farmer’s and artisans market in New Harmony started much earlier this year on April 21st and has continued.  Normally we don’t start til mid-June.  The artist festival, Arts In Harmony, was the first weekend of May.  The heat was pretty bad that weekend, but I was indoors in the air-conditioned gymnasium, even though they did leave the doors open!  It was much cooler inside than it was outside.  Sold some scarves, some note cards, some art.

Then came the highlight of my month.  I traveled to Tan-Tara resort in the Ozarks of MO for the Missouri Fiber Artists conference and exhibit.  The reception for the exhibit was on Friday night and juror Bob Adams chose my piece, Compositions #2, for the Surface Design award.  That was a wonderful surprise.

Compositions #2 Mixed Media and stitch

I took a glass fusing class Friday afternoon and learned a little bit about that process.  I made some pendants and earrings.

Saturday was an all day class with Bob Adams on building images.  That was fun.

Some of Bob Adams’ samples

This is the paper mock up I did in class. My bottle turned out looking too much like a milk bottle for my taste. That was not my intention!

Saturday night was a barbecue with everyone together.

Sunday morning was the final day…we had a delicious buffet brunch, short business meeting and a speaker, Annie Helmrichs-Louder, who shared her journey and her work.  She is one of the featured artists in the new Portfolio book out by Martha Sielman, The Natural World.  It can be purchased here. You can read my review of the book here.  Her work is wonderful.

That’s Annie facing this direction and chatting with some MoFA members.

To be continued….

Paducah

So I went to Paducah this week.  I changed things up a bit this year.  I only went for one day and it was Tuesday! (The quilt show starts on Wednesday.) But Tuesday is the day to go downtown and see Fantastic Fibers at the Yeiser Art Center….and visit the downtown stores and see friends…

That looks like a realty sign up there on the roof of the gray building.  I wonder who that is up there for?  People flying overhead?

I recently made a new online friend named Deborah Bein who somehow managed to get three pieces of her fiber work juried into Fantastic Fibers.  Three is quite an accomplishment for this show!  She asked me to take some photos of her work for her, and I don’t think she would mind if I shared one here.

"Broken Promises" by Deborah Bein

I took photos for a Facebook friend, Marijke van Welzen, of her artwork that was in the show too.

"Green" by Marijke van Welzen, Netherlands

Isn’t this gorgeous?!

I don’t usually visit the quilt museum when I go to Paducah, but this year, there was an exhibit from the U.K. called ACCENT that I wanted to see especially since I wasn’t staying for the quilt show.  I made notes of ideas and compositions that I liked.  I like to study the pieces that interest me and jot down things I like about them.  Get information and see photos of the exhibit here.  ACCENT is on display until June 12.

My friend Julia went with me.  We had a wonderful Mexican lunch at Los Amigos and in the afternoon spent time drinking iced coffee at McDonald’s while we critiqued all the quilts in a book that Julia bought.  Fun day and I didn’t spend too much!

Quilt Festival

Yeh, I know it’s two weeks after the fact.  I do have a few photos of our trip to Ohio.  We went to the spring quilt festival on Friday, April 13.

The entrance to Duke Energy Convention Center.

The aisles.

Show goers learning something new at a class.

A 3-D village in fiber.

Fellow bus travelers.

And the twins.

Innovations in Textiles

I had the blessing of being able to take a day off from my work and go to St. Louis this week to see some of the exhibits of Innovations in Textiles.  This is a biannual event that takes place in the area.  Every two years for a two month period of time, galleries and exhibits major in textiles and fibers; there are also lectures and workshops offered by major textile and fiber artists.  Quilt National travels from Athens, Ohio to the Foundry Art Center in St. Charles, MO.   If I lived closer, I’d be majorly involved!

But I wouldn’t miss Quilt National at the Foundry.  And this year, I had two pieces in an exhibit at Maryville University.  The exhibit is called Speaking of Fibers and was put on by the Missouri Fiber Artists (www.missourifiberartists.com).

I took photos at Art St. Louis of some of the interesting fiber works in Fiber Focus.  Here’s one by Suzy Farren, a MoFA member.  I love what she did with paper and various fibers.  I have her permission to share it here.

I Could Fear That Too

To get to Art St. Louis, we had to pass a building under construction…looks like it will be the National Blues Museum when it is finished.

Interesting and very tall building in Art Deco style at 6th and Washington…

Two fiber buddies who spent the day, Julia Sermersheim and Susan Spineto…Susan Marth met up with us in St. Charles, but I didn’t get any photos of her….This quilt didn’t have a center in it, so I had them get in the “frame”…

Julia Sermersheim and Susan Spineto

No photos of Quilt National, of course.  We ate at Picasso’s Coffeehouse in St. Charles…wonderful place with great coffee…I didn’t take photos of that either.

Third Degree Glass Factory on Delmar had marvelously creative sinks and fixtures….

Bathroom sinks and faucets in the Third Degree Glass Factory bathroom

We thought these were the bomb! (unless I can’t say bomb anymore)

I also found an interesting wall to photograph…

It sort of goes with this…which was hanging in the MoFA exhibit…

Weathered Places

Best of show winner, Janet (don’t know last name) with juror Victoria Crowder Payne and Barb Zapulla, who, I think did most of the work of pulling off this exhibit…Pat Owoc’s work is in the background…

More from the reception…I only know a few of these people!

Here’s my other piece in the show…

Fragments of a Life 5b

Here’s another piece from the show by Rosemary Claus-Gray.

Beach Reflections

Well, I’m going to wrap this up…it was a fabulous day…now back to working on my exhibit which is less than 3 weeks away!

Need Help Please

I went to the SAQA website today to post a plea on my Visioning page and while I’m there I am currently deleting 478 emails in my inbox.  Do you know how long that takes doing 20 at a time?  It’s taking a while.  So I decided while I’m doing that I will post a blog post here and ask for YOUR help too!

I have my first solo show in October this year.  I have a series of small (5″ x 7″-ish) works I will be mounting on deep 12″ x 12″ canvases.  I will be painting the canvases before I mount the fiber work.  I personally did not wish to paint the canvases a solid, flat color, but rather wanted to  do swipes of color that had movement, feeling that this was more in line with the fiber work.  But now my question is: what are others going to like?  I really want to sell at this show and am now wondering which method will make the work more sell-able.  Here is how the canvas looks at this point.  Sort of wispy, worn, like the side of an old barn.  But is this what people will want? Eeek!  I really need help with this.  And I know people can only give me their opinion and in the end, I still have to make the choice.  But I still want to hear from you.  And I will ponder any suggestions anyone has to make too.

And if you need a little distance….

Arts In Harmony

Arts in Harmony is over for another year.  It was held inside this time due to the threat of thunderstorms.  And I think it worked out pretty well.  There were lots of artists and artisans there, lots of variety of wonderful work.  It wasn’t wildly profitable to me as far as money is concerned, but it wasn’t wildly UN-profitable either!  I added 9 new names to my mailing list for the studio tour. I added to my collection of small pieces of pottery…for some reason I’m into bowls.

Here’s a booth across from me…I don’t know who they were or where they are from, but I did enjoy their large pieces of yard art.

And here is friend Tom of Bee Tree Pottery with some of his most excellent pottery pieces.

I got a new “business card holder” from him. It perfectly matches my business cards and is a lovely little bowl.

And another one I couldn’t pass up…

Oh yeah, I sold 2 pairs of my felt bead earrings.  Not a bad weekend at all.

Printing Silk Scarves

I am printing scarves today, getting ready for an art fair this weekend.  I am using three different silk screens.  Two are created with soy wax designs and one has been created using Elmer’s glue.  I am amazed at the longevity of the glue screen.  I have been using it for some time now.  Here it is all messy with dye.

I made a soy wax screen with stripes and it is lasting a long time too.  Here are some of the scarves I printed this morning.  I think I am going to have to invest in more screens!

I did use another screen that I stamped circles on with soy wax, but I actually got the wax too heavy on it, so there is not a lot of dye put down when you do a pull.  I only used it on one of these scarves for a variation in the print.  When I get them washed out…I will post the finished look.

My Life in Pictures…

I’ve been so busy and have not posted for awhile…shame on me!  I think I will show you what I have been up to rather than tell you….

Decatur, IL – Tree Huggers Exhibit in front of the Decatur Arts Council–On my way to the quilt show one morning, I shot these pictures.. this was interesting  to see!

Back home….loading new stencils from the Crafter’s Workshop  in my etsy shop...these are totally fun to pattern cloth with…

Tea dying and color dyeing silk ribbon for a doll show….

…and dyeing doggie hoodies….

…and working on some artistic silk scarves for upcoming art fair…these have been dyed a base color, then stamped with soy wax, then painted with dye paint and are batching…

Silk scarves are my “practice” work…not only do I get to know the different types of silks, but I get to “play” and practice with designs and colors.  Still have lots of different things to do and I will show you as I go along while I get ready for the art fair.  But…today I think I want to make some paper/cloth…after I go to town and run some errands…later!

Christmas Sales…

I made these little cell phone/credit card pouches last week.

I had 6 of them…before a nice new Facebook friend purchased 4 of them.  Then I went to  the New Harmony fair and sold 1.  The other one sold yesterday in my Etsy shop.  So last night I was scrambling around trying to make a few more.  You see, these bags came out of playtime in my sewing room last week just using the scraps from the other bags I made.  The scrap pieces were already layered and stitched; they just needed to be pieced together and then sew the bags.  That made it easy.  To make more, I have to layer and quilt a piece of cloth, maybe add more stuff to the cloth, then make the bag.  I was scrounging around through my unfinished pile last night to see if I could find something already quilted…and I did.  These were made from a collage that just never did work for me.  I loved the cloth, but never could get it to come together so I cut it up last night and made these…

The bottom one is sold and I am awaiting her buttons to sew on it.  The other two are in my etsy shop. One has a cool dark green antique button on it and the other has a dark brown one.

The Artisan’s Fair at New Harmony was better than last year in sales.  Maybe everyone was really scared last year and they aren’t so much this year.  The crowd wasn’t massive, but there was a fairly steady flow of people and they were buying.  I sold several scarves each day.  Although not blockbuster, I am pleased with my sales.

To purchase one of the two bags in the last picture, click here.