Copper Pendants or ???

On our last day in Suzan Kraus's workshop, we made copper pendants by cutting out copper sheets, distressing them with hammers and heatguns, and weaving inserts to go behind their little "windows". These are some of my results. (The copper colors don't show well due to the scanner light.) They are about 1-1/2" square, excluding embellishments.

Be sure to click on the image for a larger view.

Feminine Memory Vessel

In Suzan Kraus's Signs & Symbols workshop, hand-writing with our off-hand, collage techniques, personal symbols and memories ... all were included in our Feminine Memory Vessels ... rather a high-falutin' appellation for my old cigar box, but a fun and interesting project. I wasn't totally pleased with my end-result, but it's worth presenting here, with all its flaws.

Signs & Symbols Collage Workshop

I recently took a 4-part collage workshop with Suzan Kraus at the Jung Center here in Houston. It was based on the 5 universal signs and symbols, and included inspirations and techniques for various collage projects. Suzan is a wonderful teacher, very kind and generous, and we all had a great time. I took pictures of some of the students on the last day, and got everyone except Anne, who must have been visiting the "necessary" while I was shooting! She's a lovely lady who also contributed a lot to the class ... sorry, Anne, I'll catch you next time!




Suzan Kraus, doing a demo.


Susie & Laura, heatin' & dancin'

Mary Ellen, weaving copper & paper

Suzan & Nancy collaborating



Patricia heating up the place.

Christy & her bright weavings.

Mothers and Daughters

I neglected to post this little encaustic (beeswax) collage I had done for my Mom for Mother's Day (which I guess is appropriate since she didn't receive it until Father's Day!)

Simple unbleached beeswax embedding collaged images; stretched canvas support. The coiled copper wires represent both the telephone lines that my maternal grandmother handled as an early telephone operator, and the ties that bind the female members of my family.

Father's Day Book

For Father's Day this year I wanted to make a little book for my Daddy. The book is made of brown paper lunch sacks, folded in half and stitched down the center, with a tanned deerskin binding. The deerskin was from a deer killed by my Dad's mother, Hallie, who was an avid hunter all her life. The cover is embellished with a vintage domino, wire-wrapped with copper wire (stitched through the cover of the book), and a beaded "bookmark".

The photo below (framed in the same deerskin) is of my Mom & Dad, years ago in London, on their way to a costume party.

Daddy always loves to make people laugh, even (or especially) at his own expense. It's one of his most endearing qualities.

All 4 of us (now grown) kids have always known we could turn to our parents in good times and bad, with never a fear of being turned away without a well-thought-out solution (or two) to our problems. We recognize that we are very lucky in our choice of parents!

Inspiration is the word ... to strive for quality over quantity, to treat others with respect, and most of all to respect ourselves and act accordingly.

My father has always been, and will always be, my favorite Life Teacher.

Credit the Quilter?

The semi-annual question of whether the quilt artist should necessarily credit the "hired hand" quilter who quilts his/her artwork has arisen again on the QuiltArt list. Being a professional quilter who prides herself on adding value to her customer's quilts, my opinion naturally falls on the side of acknowledging credit where credit is due.

If the quilt-top maker (or fiber artist) specifically instructs the quilter as to where to place each line of stitching, then the quilter is only following directions and is, indeed, simply a "hired hand". If, however, the quilter adds artistry through his or her own imagination, skill, and talent, then there is no question that the quilter has collaborated with the fiber artist in the creation of the work of art ... regardless of whether the quilter was paid or not.

If there is any doubt as to whether the quilting can "make" the quilt, compare these two detail images of a small section of an art quilt ... one with quilting and one without ... and make up your own mind.

No Reason

A Very Bracelet Day

Today was supposed to be an Art Day with some of my Art Friends, but two of them had to cancel out, so that left Sweet Patricia and me to have our little Bracelet Party all by ourselves. That's OK, that meant we had our guacamole salad, pinwheel sandwiches, fresh mangos & papayas, and oatmeal-raisin cookies all to ourselves! And luckily, Patricia was able to help me figure out the errors in my scribbled instructions for making these wire-wrapped silver-and-bead bracelets, so we had a ball making them. Since she doesn't care for the look of crystals, she used some gorgeous plum-colored matte beads in her bracelet, while I used moss-colored Swarovski crystals in mine.

I also got a lovely surprise ... a wonderful book on paper making ...

... thank you, Patricia, I love it!

Red Hot Alien Mamma

Here's another "thing" that started out as one thing and ended up as another. I was going to make a simple little cloth art doll with a few beads. It began with a wooden handle from a jump-rope as the body, covered with soft batting and a piece of scrap fabric, tied with twine. Then she needed a face, so I found one of my favorite raku beads for her. Several weeks later, she now has 3 beady eyes and a mouthful of scary teeth, a revealing-yet-tasteful garment, and an extremely bad hair day. (The hair alone is probably about 18 hours' worth of work.) At 9" tall, she's quite heavy, and her name, of course, is Red Hot Alien Mamma.

A bit of silk painting

Joan Radven of HAFA (Houston Area Fiber Artists) taught a lovely silk painting class today, and one of the new things I learned about was a water-based resist called Sabra Silk Resist. The nice thing about it is that you can apply it, then apply your dyes or paints while the resist is either wet or dry. The first test was on silk crepe, which I decided I really like ... but my resist lines were too thin, and the dye "jumped the bridge", as you can see from the first picture above. The second test was on silk habotai, and I was careful to leave a heavier trail of resist this time. Result ... no breakthroughs. Next time I'll try adding a pinch of dye powder to the resist before applying it, for a colored line instead of a white one.

Despite my failure with the first resist test, I find that I prefer that image to the second one, because of the softer color on the crepe vs. the harder line on the habotai. Joan made the class really fun and informative, in spite of fighting a cold and laryngitis ... thanks, Joan!

Wire Wrapping

Yesterday I took 3 separate classes with Royelle Giddings in Houston, all about making wire wrapped jewelry. We used sterling silver wire and Swarovski crystals for the bracelet, a small bead or stone for the ring (mine was a carved face bead), and a larger stone cabochon for the pendant. Above are the results ... better than I had hoped for, since I have no experience in jewelry making. Royelle made it seem easy.

Story in Stitch

From a recent workshop with Ilze Aviks, "Telling Your Story in Stitch", this was a 10-minute exercise in telling either a real story or an imaginary one, with fabric, stitch, and color. With an extremely limited palate in class, it was an interesting challenge. Commercial fabrics, hand-stitched, later enhanced with color-transfer crayons. (No, I'm not telling what the story is ... I think the mystery is better than the story!)

Blogger Image Problem Solved

AT LAST! Thanks to several members of my beloved QuiltArt group, I finally have an answer to why some of the posted images to my blog haven't been able to be enlarged. Evidently the filenames of the images had spaces in them, which Blogger sometimes doesn't recognize. The solution is to use underlines instead of spaces.

I've gone back and reposted the latest few images ... particularly the April 8 "A Beaded Postcard", which is much clearer in the enlarged (and the super-enlarged) versions.

What a relief to finally get this figured out (no thanks to Blogger, by the way ... as usual, I had to rely on "a little help from my friends" ... which is more fun anyway.)

A little collaboration

My good friend Gloria created this wonderful little collage (only 5" x 6") during our last Art Day, and was generous enough to give it to me when I admired it. I didn't want to just frame it, so I painted a 9" x 12" canvas to complement the collage, then stitched it on. I love the combination ... thank you Gloria!

Temple Book

My parents visited Bali several years ago, and when I recently became interested in hand-made books, they sent me this little book they had found there. At one time, these "temple books" were typically used as the only official record of the people in the area ... possibly birth/marriage/death records ... by the Temple Priests.

The "cover" is actually two separate carved wood blocks. The top cover, or lid, depicts a baby komodo dragon, a lotus blossom, a turtle, and a frog. It has 3 wooden pegs to pierce and hold the "pages", which appear to be made of some type of bark or papyrus, as it is thin and very brittle. Besides the pegs, the book is held together by an attached twine tie with a pierced coin at the end, which is wrapped around the book to keep it closed.

The writing appears, at first glance, to be etched into the pages, but I can't feel any ridges, so it may possibly be a (walnut?) ink of some kind.

This little book is tiny ... only 1-1/4" wide, 2-1/2" tall (including it's itty-bitty feet), and 5-1/2" long. I think it is absolutely beautiful, and wanted to share it with you.

A surprise in the mail

There's nothing better than to open a box in the mail and find a surprise treasure of beautiful new fabrics and beads. Here is what I received today from my dear friend Sherry, from her trip to the Chicago Quilt Festival. These are so scrumptious I could just eat them. Thank you Sherry!

Paper Fabric

The Art Girls met today (well, 3 of us anyway), and made 2 slightly different versions of paper fabric. One was made with sheer fabrics and tissue papers glued in layers on an acrylic board (no fabric base), and the other was made with a muslin base, with sturdier papers added, then painted while the glue was still wet. Both were an interesting experiment, and both are intended to be sturdy enough to be stitched through. Our goal is to complete a project with one or both of our hand-made fabrics before the next meeting.

Wire earrings

Here are some earrings I made from nickel silver, just to see if I could do it. I like them well enough that I may try them in sterling next time. They are made of 16 ga. wire, and did require some hand strength to make the coils and loops. I kind of like the duller appearance of the nickel silver, though.

A day of junqueing

Twice a year in the tiny town of Warrenton, Texas (pop. 50), the highway becomes a mass of tents, lean-to's, trailers, and jerry-rigged open booths, with antiques, crafts, and junk. This year I went with a friend, armed with my camera in an effort to curb my spending ... but still ended up with some gorgeous hand-made African beads, a wonderful handcrafted silver-and-stone pendant from a Santa Fe silversmith, and more than a little junque. Here are some of the sights ... be happy that you can't experience the smells!

A beaded postcard

A fabric postcard for my friend who was feeling down. Photoshopped image printed on silk and machine quilted, hand beaded, embellished with copper wire. I don't think all the beading shows up very well in the photo. The large center "doughnut" is a raku bead by Rory Ross, and unfortunately I could not get its subtle colors to photograph well.