A Birthday Postcard

Here is my gorgeous fiber-art Birthday Postcard from my friend Liz Broussard, named "Shattered & Scattered". Besides the beautiful stitching, the sewn binding is made from painted coffee filters! Thank you Liz!

This time I'M a winner!

Robin Gisela Towner (http://artaddworksforme.blogspot.com/) had a "100th Post Giveaway" on her blog, and I won 3 wonderful pieces of her rusted fabric! Now, you all know how much I love rusted fabric, and this stuff is beautiful! I received it in yesterday's mail ... one piece from rebar, one from some very kewl keys, and even one from a rusty old firepit! Thank you so much, Gisela! (And sorry for inadvertently typing "Robin" instead of Gisela at first!!!)

The WINNER of the Name-That-Show Contest!

Since the 2008 Journal Quilts Exhibition is a juried show this year, we wanted to be able to see all the rest of them in an on-line show (on the QuiltArt List). We wanted a new name for all the wonderful quilts that either didn't get finished in time for the deadline, didn't get juried into the big Houston show, or just wouldn't be able to be there for whatever reason.

I posted a contest with a "Fabulous Prize" on the QuiltArt List for the winner of the naming contest ... and I got to choose the winning name! It was so much fun ... I received many, many entries ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous ... all of them lots of fun to read. Diane Ferguson was the hands-down winner. As soon as I read her entry ... "Braving the Elements" ... I knew it was "the one".

Then I had to scurry around and find a "Fabulous Prize" to send her! I knew it needed to be something quilt-art related, but also wanted to add something fun and funny ... so Sebastian the Sock Monkey entered the picture. Combined with a yard of my own hand-rusted cotton fabric, this was the perfect "Fabulous Prize".

Diane received the box I mailed her yesterday, and she immediately blogged about it ...

(http://yarngoddess.wordpress.com/). Here is what I Commented on her blog.

Diane, congratulations again on choosing THE best name for our on-line exhibit of Braving the Elements!

Sebastian is one of my vintage sock monkeys who has been in my collection for at least 20 years. Although beloved by me, he didn’t get along so well with the other sock monkeys (and one sock kitten). He tended to sneak up behind them and bite their tails, sometimes leading to midnight mayhem that I would discover (and have to clean up) the next morning.

So poor little Sebastian had to go. I’m so glad he found a good home with you. He is very friendly to frogs, turtles, lizards, and horned toads (if you can find any of those anymore!), but you would be wise to keep him away from any other sock monkeys. He’s a trouble-maker!

Oh yes, the rust-stained cotton fabric was made in my back yard, with some rusty old horseshoes, under the watchful eyes of some very confused mockingbirds. You have two shades of rust, due to the fold in the fabric.

Again, congratulations on your winning name! And THANK YOU!

(Diane, I "borrowed" the picture of Sebastian on the rusted fabric from your blog ... it was so much better than the one I took! I hope that's OK ...)

Floating Downstream on the Planet Jupiter

Floating Downstream on the Planet Jupiter, 6"x4", also started as a needle-felted base, with hand-dyed cheesecloth, ribbon, yarn, and wool. The little Venusian girl was separately beaded as a doll, then attached to the base. She is vacationing on Jupiter, serenely floating downstream, dreaming of a Venusian boy.

New Beginnings

New Beginnings, 4"x6", is an encrusted piece on a painted background. An original design created from a Photoshop-manipulated photo of a flower from my back yard, it ended up looking more like an egg than a flower. Either way, it reminded me of "new beginnings".

The Gift

The Gift, 4"x6", is a combination of two different projects. The original beaded doll on wire was created separately, and I had him on a little doll-stand. The background was needle-felted natural dyed shredded bark, and originally had an entirely different purpose. The two seemed to "fit" together, and became "The Gift".

The Lizard Constellation

The Lizard Constellation, 6"x4"is a painted background, beaded around a beaded button. Larkin Van Horn (http://www.larkinart.com/) taught me to bead a button, and this is a very dimensional piece ... one of my favorites.

Deep Currents

Deep Currents, 4"x6", is also a caged face cabochon. This face is ceramic rather than polymer clay, and has been in my "stuff stash" for several years, so I don't remember where I picked her up. Her veil was created with size 11 and 15 seed beeds, and surrounded by stacked beads. Almost all of the deep sea coral is made up of stacked beads, with a few Swarovski crystals thrown in for sparkle. The surface is a hand-dyed silk chiffon.

A Lunar Blessing

I thought I would add the rest of my 2007 Bead Journal Pages. This one, "A Lunar Blessing", 4"x6", started out as a machine-felted postcard. My friend Betty let me play on her embellishing machine one day, and I had a ball! After the piece was felted, though, it languished in my sewing room for want of a focal point. Once I came across the little polymer clay moon-face, I thought caging her at the center of the moon would be a lovely addition. I used my hand-dyed silk chiffon as the moon-beams, with a spattering of tiny beads added as stars.

She Waits

"She Waits", 4x6", is one of my first caged cabochons that I was entirely pleased with. I'm happy with the effect of the seed beads creating a sort of veil over her forehead, and I think the color scheme goes well with the beautiful ceramic face, given to me as a gift by my friend Larkin Van Horn (http://www.larkinart.com/). (She's also the one who taught me to "cage the wild cabochon"!)


Here's a side view, so you can see how dimensional the piece is.


And here it is framed to 14" x 16". This is the only one of my beaded pieces that is currently for sale ... through the Copper Shade Tree Gallery (http://www.coppershadetree.com/), or here's a direct link to my page on their website ... http://tinyurl.com/6hcxd6.

What Would Nancy Do?

"WWND?", 6x4", was a piece I started as a textural experiment, using different sizes and shapes of beads. Coincidentally, I made and wore the little "WWND" beaded pin to a quilt-art meeting where I knew my friend Nancy Dickey (http://www.nancybdickey.com/) would be. I wanted to both tease her and honor her for her fine, meticulous beading work. Then, once that joke was done, I decided to incorporate the little pin into this Bead Journal Page. It's not exactly a work of art, but it was a lot of fun, and took many, many hours of beading fun.

Eye of the Beholder

"Eye of the Beholder", 6x4", was created on a base of black ultrasuede, something I probably would not do again. The gold painted lines do not want to stay solid on this material. I also don't like the edge treatment I tried on this piece. However, I do like the "eye", which I purchased from a taxidermist, caged with seed beads, and surrounded with bugle beads.

Little Sun

"Little Sun", 6x4", was painted then beaded. I like the combination of "encrusted" beading for the seed area, and the lighter beading in the petal area, allowing the wash of paint colors to show through. Stacked beads worked well for the seeds, I think.

Desert Tortoise

"Desert Tortoise", 6x4", began as a painted cotton fabric background (Setacolor opaque paints), with the shell created by choosing irregularly-shaped polished rock beads. The desert flowers always seem so brave to me, so they had their say with tiny red sparks of color against the dry landscape.

Carnivale

"Carnivale", 6x4", was my June Bead Journal Page for Robin Atkins' 2007 project http://beadjournalproject.blogspot.com/. It has a base of black sweatshirt fabric, machine-needle-felted with fibers, and embellished with a hand-needle-felted "button". The beads seemed like explosions of light from a fireworks display to me, and so it became "Carnivale".

Rusty Grove

I can't show the entire piece before it goes into a show at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in October, but I thought I'd post a "teaser" just for fun. Here's a corner of an art quilt begun with gelatin plate prints, enhanced with hand-painted and -rusted cottons. Hand embroidered, machine quilted.

Art Girls Beading Day

Well we really did have a Beady Day at my house on Sunday ... Honest! Only you couldn't prove it by these pictures. Gloria showed her gorgeous jacket, which was part of her ensemble that won Third Place, as well as Viewer's Choice, in the Rosenberg Cotton Fashion Show. This was fabric that she had hand-dyed, discharged, stamped, and painted. Her finishing techniques are exquisite, too.









Martha is our Tie-Dye Girl, and was checking out some of the pictures Gloria brought back from her Maine vacation with her granddaughters ... some of which we snitched to use as inspiration for fiber art.


Mary Ellen brought her collage piece to finish ... here it is without the edging finish that she added later that day. I think it's beautiful even without the finish! Below is a closeup of the collage by itself.



Patricia asked me to take a photo of the latest polymer clay bracelet I bought from her, for her portfolio. The photo isn't the greatest, but the bracelet is a show-stopper ... literally! I have people stop me all the time and ask me about it. She made it expandable, which is why it's different from most bangle bracelets. The gorgeous colors are achieved by her technique of Mokume Gane'.



And last but not least, we awarded Patricia "Best Laugh of the Day" with this photo ...



... and not a bead to be seen!

Oh my poor Blog!

It's so sad ...



untended ...



and drooping with neglect ...



that my friend Cathy has "goosed" me to revive it ... so here I am to do it. Thank you Cathy, I really didn't mean to be gone for so long!

Collage Mania Opens Monday

Get your motors runnin' ... Virginia Spiegel's Collage Mania
http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/CollageMania081.html,
to benefit the American Cancer Society, is opening Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. CST, to run for ONLY two days. See her blog for more info. http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/blog/archives/770 and for some answers to some Frequently Asked Questions.

Here's are some more "teasers" for you ...


Asian Fall by Angie Platten


Creation Story by Joy Hellman


Full Circle 2 by Sherrie Tootle

Get your emails ready to send, and your trigger finger ready to hit the "Send" button at 9:00 Monday (and/or Tuesday) morning! I know I'm excited ... Good luck!

IT'S HERE!

Collage Mania Preview Week -- It's here at last!


Sun Please, by Inge Reinholdt

At last, the much-anticipated Preview of all 235 collages created by over 100 artists worldwide, which will be available for purchase on May 5 and 6, 2008! Collage Mania 2008 is organized and managed by fiber artist Virginia Spiegel. Virginia explains:

"Preview Week is a great time to browse through the collages, make your shopping list, prepare an e-mail to send me (note: for which collages you want to acquire!) and ask any questions you may have about Collage Mania and how to acquire the artwork."

FUNDRAISING TO BENEFIT
THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY

Virginia and her team of supporters organized Collage Mania 2008 to benefit The American Cancer Society. Virginia is also the founder of Fiberart For A Cause which has raised more than $150,000 for the American Cancer Society in the last several years.

HOW TO ACQUIRE A COLLAGE

Virginia provides detailed information about how to acquire a collage on the Collage Mania Site. It's fun, it's exciting! Preview all the wonderful artwork, make your choices ... and have your email ready to send off on May 5 and May 6! Then you will have not only some fantastic new artwork for your collection, but also the satisfaction of having helped a most worthy cause.

I've got my choices already made ... keeping my fingers crossed that I get at least one of my "first" choices, but knowing that ALL of my choices are wonderful! Dive in, have fun, and help Virginia raise more money for the American Cancer Society.

Earth Day, 2008

(NASA photo)

My little contribution to Earth Day today will be to stay home (use no gasoline), keep the TV and extra lights turned off, adjust my thermostat and use ceiling fans instead, and make art with recycled materials.

Well, I DID say "little" contribution!

... and it does make it easier to do all this because I've hurt my back and can't go anywhere anyway, am on pain pills and muscle relaxers so don't feel like watching TV, and since I won't be expending any personal energy, I won't need the air conditioning down so cold. The hardest part may be doing any artwork ... that may have to wait a few days, but I'll still hold to my resolution to use recycled materials.

Here's an interesting (and fun) website on the subject ... http://www.inhabitat.com/

Happy Earth Day!

When Copper Meets Wood

My friend Sharon and I made an impromptu trip up to Round Top on Sunday (her hubby was working and the day was too beautiful to waste indoors) to see Gerald Tobola's new show, "When Copper Meets Wood", at his Copper Shade Tree Gallery. The opening had been the previous night, and many of the pieces had already been sold, but there was still plenty to see. The combination of the warm glow of hand-tooled and -rubbed copper, some sealed and some patina'd, with the woodwork of Gene Fitzwater, was just gorgeous.

Gerald has never had time to mount his own show in his own gallery until now! He's been so busy showcasing other artists that it's taken him this long to get around to showing off his own work. Believe me, it was well worth the wait! Here's the postcard with the show info, in case you get a chance to go by and see it ...





































Here are some images from the show ...






Bamboo Triptich and 2 Gingkos by Gerald, and Rust & Relaxation by Liz Broussard


Gerald and Debbie with some of the lamps.


A fuzzy picture (sorry!) of a deliciously delicate and intricate "Gingko and Dragonfly" piece that sold on the first day.


Two of my all-time favorite people ... Gerald and Debbie Tobola.

Got Jeans?

After catching Allison and Tracy Stillwell (the Artgirlz) on this morning's episode of Quilting Arts TV, I remembered that when I took a class with them at Quilt Festival last November, I had been inspired to decorate a pair of jeans ... but of course had never gotten around to it.


Soooo, since I needed something to wear to a Crawfish Boil being thrown by my friends Mary Ellen and Mike this evening, I thought I'd hurry up and collage a pair that I'd already painted. The painted iris was beginning to fade, so it wouldn't hurt to do a little more decorating. Here is the result ...



"Big City Girl with Her Hair on Fire"

Beads beads beads

My friend Larkin was here for a week, and despite her raging bronchitis, she proved to be a real trooper. We went to the Round Top Antiques Festival and found some wonderful treasures to use in our art. Some were old postcards, some were little bottles for beading, and some were what we called "Rusty Stuff", which Larkin was very sharp-eyed at spotting for me!

Of course we couldn't let our evenings go by without some beading, so Larkin showed me how to bezel a rivoli bead "in the air" ... a difficult and "fiddly" technique, but so much fun once I mastered it! Larkin, as many of you know, is a wonderful teacher (http://www.larkinart.com/) and is so generous with her knowledge.

Here's my first attempt at a bezeled 3/4" rivoli (two views because the colors look different at different angles) ...





Then, once I realized how to do the Peyote stitch on a solid object rather than on fabric (which was the only way I'd done it before), I was encouraged to try it on a tiny bottle ... only 2-1/4" tall ... here are the results ... front and back:




(I didn't want to cover up the Benjamin Franklin image on the bottle, so I added a little "cuff" along the sides.) Both the bezeled rivoli and the beaded bottle were done in Delicas.

Poor Larkin is recovering at home now, after I ran her all over the countryside ... but we did get some good video-viewing in, as well as some great visiting. Thanks, Larkin!

Reverse Auction Ends with a Bang!

Virginia Spiegel's 3-day on-line invitational Reverse Auction for FiberArt for A Cause ended yesterday, with 11 fiber artworks raising a record $8,794. Fiberart For A Cause has now donated over $150,000 to the American Cancer Society ... an amazing accomplishment for what started out several years ago as a small individual fund-raising effort.

Donors of artwork for this event included Frances Holliday Alford, Terry Grant, Peg Keeney, Jay Rich, Susan Sorrell, Del Thomas, Larkin Van Horn, Laura Wasilowski, and Leni Wiener.

Visit the artwork here, and make plans to bid on next year's auctions! Also visit Virginia's main page to see all her current efforts in raising money to fight cancer. In case you hadn't guessed, Virginia is definitely one of my personal heroes!

The Season of Green

“It’s Good To Be Green” Exhibit
Latimer Quilt and Textile Center, Tillamook, Oregon
March 4 to May 4, 2008
Larkin Van Horn, Curator

Since the Latimer exhibit has now opened, I can show my entry here. At the time Larkin contacted me, it was around the anniversary of my husband's death, and I was feeling "soft and sentimental" towards this piece before I ever started it. As it developed, it became even more misty and dreamlike.



Artist's Statement:

The Season of Green
Color of new life,
A most perfect hue is green.
End of Winter, Spring!

The deceptively simple form of the haiku has always intrigued me, and when I found this beautiful little example by contemporary writer Don Webb (writing as Erik Stark) I knew it was perfect to express in words the imagery I had in mind.

18" x 45" My own hand-painted sand-washed silk charmeuse, quilted, then delicately over-painted and lightly embellished.

Detail shots are shown in my previous post.

I have borrowed this description of the show CD from Lesley Riley's blog, since she said it so well: "You can see wonderful detail shots and an excellent quality overall image on the show CD, which includes 47 pieces total, 28 art quilts, 19 pieces of other fiber art, 39 artists from 18 states and 1 province. It's only $15 (including shipping) with a portion going to Habitat for Humanity. This is one of the best quality and visually interesting CDs I have seen. The detail shots are better than seeing the quilts in person." Thank you Lesley!

It's Good to Be Green

Larkin Van Horn has spent the last year and a half organizing and curating the "It's Good to Be Green" exhibit for the Latimer Quilt and Textile center in Tillamook, Oregon. Today is the Opening Day of the exhibit, which will run through May 4. For any of you who will be in the area, the Opening Reception will be March 9, from noon to 4:00 p.m.

Oh how I wish I could be there!

I was thrilled to be invited to participate in this exhibit along with many of my fiber-art heroes. (Thank you, Larkin!)

Please go to the It's Good to Be Green website and click on "Sample Work" each day, for a different artist's work. Larkin's Magic Man (aka husband and partner Van) will be changing the page every day to showcase another quilt or mixed media piece.

Here's a sneak peek (detail shots only) of my submission, titled "The Season of Green":




It's a painted silk charmeuse quilt, with minimal bead and paint embellishment, 18" x 45" (the required dimensions for all the quilts).

An exhibit catalog on CD-ROM, including over 200 photographs of 47 art quilts and mixed media pieces created especially for this exhibit by 39 artists, is available for purchase. In addition to helping defray the shipping costs of the artwork, a portion of the $15 CD price will go to support the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center, and all additional funds will be donated to Habitat For Humanity.

The postcards that were made up for the exhibit were also beautifully executed:




I'm honored to be showing among the following artists:
Pamela Allen
Arlene Anderson
Frieda Anderson
Brooke Atherton
Jan Beall
Mary Beth Bellah
Liz Berg
Kathie Briggs
Debra Calkins
Laura Cater-Woods
Gerrie Congdon
Anne Niles Davenport
Julie Duschack
Jamie Fingal
Terry Grant
Trudi Chamoff-Hauptman
Margaret Hunt
Peggy Keeney
Lyric Kinard
Kathy Lichtendahl
Michele Merges Martens
Scott Murkin
Karen Stiehl Osborn
Nancy Porter
Shawn Quinlan
Jeri Riggs
Lesley Riley
Amy Ropple
Sandy Russell
Linda Schmidt
Louie Shellenberger
Susan Shie
Ruth Sinclair
Sarah Ann Smith
John Thompson
June Underwood
Larkin Van Horn
Beth Whitman