Still life

The sun was coming in the window late yesterday afternoon and created the indulating square pattern both on the curtain and the tabletop. I like the repetition of the shapes and colors and the way the tabletop mutes and reflects the image.

Textures

Dusting the mantle today I look more closely at all the textured balls that I have displayed there. There are about 15 different balls - different colors, textures, patterns and size. I think I willt ake more photos and see what I can do with them in Photoshop!

I have been working on a new series of art cloth that may use a labyrinth image. This one is from Chartres Cathedral in France and is made of tiles on the floor. The whole history of labyrinths is fascinating and there are so many different versions of them.  Check Google for Labyrinths and you can find all kinds of interesting information.

Home again

I am home from my week of fun and sun in San Antonio. It was a week filled with creative energy, renewing old friendships and making new ones, and enjoying a place where the sun shone and the air was warm and inivting. Now it is back to reality!

I have ideas to explore in the studio and I will post some of them as I go along. Also getting ready for an upcoming presentation called Journals, Notebooks, Sketchbooks, Diaries, Blogs… Observations About Life. A visual presentation about journaling and the many beautiful and creative ways that people do it.

The last day

Today was the last day of our weeklong intensive study. Everybody made progress on the projects they came  to work on this week - some people made discoveries that took their work in new and unexpected directions. I made a good start on my Plants of Concern series. I created 6 of the 27 "parts" that will make up the series. So all is well!

Tomorrow is a travel day - it will be a big change to go back to the grey and cold after this warm and sunny interlude.

Experiments, Thursday

Our week of experiments in paper and metal lamination is coming to an end. Some people have great results, others are changing  their focus and moving in new directions. Below, Maggie Weiss with some of her partially completed fabrics.

                                                                         

Experiments, part 2

More experiments in paper and metal lamination - the top one is joss paper over and under devored velvet and the second is joss paper under sheer polyester. The metallic sheen doesn't show up well but it is there!

Experiments

Today the students in our Intensive study at the Art Cloth Studio did a variety of experiments. One student was working with thickened dye on linen, another was doing calligraphy on rayon with a bleach pen, a third was laminating paper on polyester and a fourth created a giant stamp by gluing sponges to a very large silkscreen frame. All kinds of ideas were floating around thorughout the day.

Class work

Today we started our week long intensive at Art Cloth Studio with Jane Dunnewold. Several of us are working on paper and metal lamination techniques. Having lots of people working on it means we can see a lot of different approaches in a short amount of time. The process uses gel medium to adhere sheer fabrics to papers or other fabrics. You can silkscreen the gel medium through the layers and create patterns.  Some examples below.

O'Casey's Bed and Breakfast - Sunday

When I come to San Antonio I stay at O'Casey's Bed and Breakfast - many of the Art Cloth Studio students stay here. It's fun to be together in one place and we can walk to the studio if the weather cooperates. The summer furniture is sitting out (which as somone from the frozen north I find amazing!) This glider has an accumulation of detritus on it which the detail photo shows below. It looks like a map of the world to me.

Off to San Antonio

Tomorrow I head to San Antonio to work at the Art Cloth Studio with Jane Dunnewold and 11 other people in a weeklong intensive program. We each choose a particular project to concentrate on for the week. Judy Langille, fiber artist from New Jersey and Maggie Weiss, fiber artist from Evanston, Il and I will be doing work with paper and metal lamination. Watch the blog for postings about our progress through the week!

Today I held a workshop in my home studio for 4 artists. The topic was Exploration of Thermofaxes and Silkscreens. We tried out lots of ways to  expand  the usage of these 2 techniques. And we had lots of fun!

Ideas for new work

I am working on some new series that build off of the idea of Tibetan prayer flags.  I have been making imagery for use on the cloth that may include labyrinth images. There are lots of kinds of labyrinths - more then I ever knew. (I found most by using Google anad looking for images.)

Wednesday, January 13, Vat Dye workshop

Yesterday I taught a Vat Dye Workshop in my studio for 5 great students. We had a very busy and exhilarating day. Vat Dyes are magical in the way they change color and "halo". Here are a few photos of the process.

The end of the amaryllis

The amaryllis blossoms are coming to an end. Drooping and curling up. But for one week they were glorious!  On to a new subject tomorrow.

Dancing Bird Studio

Today a couple of fiber friends and I visited Darcy Love at  Dancing Bird Studio in Wisconsin. We had fun checking out her new studio space and then talking with each other about our ongoing projects. I took a few photos incuding a very funny photo of Andy - the cat with 100 lives! Andy has many different ailments and is constantly at death's door but here he is clowning for the camera. Check out Darcy's website and beautiful art cloth at http://www.dancingbirdstudio.com/

Back to ice!

The icicles around here have become quite an amazing study in structure and pattern. Many homes have icicles almost to the ground and if you are on the side of the buillding where the wind blows they  have started to bend at the bottom so they are very striking.  I took these photos of a "wall" of ice from inside the house - the sun was coming through the icicles and creating these patterns. The bottom photo is a closeup of one of the areas where all the ice has become a large mass.

Amaryllis blossoms

A couple more photos of the amaryllis bulb in flower. I think it is such an amazing plant - all that energy packed into the bulb, the stalk grows so fast and then the flower bursts open into this stunning image.

Amaryllis flowering

Posting the tulip photo yesterday reminded me of photos I took last year while my amaryllis bulb came into flower and then withered and died. I will post the sequence over the next couple of days. Recording things like that really help you learn to look closely at what is happening around you.

Tulips

Time for some color. Outside it is snowing heavily and everything is white and gray, but inside I  have a vase of wonderful glowing tulips. They have been gradually opening up the past couple of days and today they seem particularly vibrant and alive. I shot them sitting on my black table which made a good background.

January 6, Ice and rocks

Wherever I look I find more things to shoot with the camera - just need to keep my fingers from freezing!

Walking around yesterday I was reminded of this image that I shot last year in Seattle. We were hiking in the hills and the path had lots of potholes filled with stones, rocks and partially frozen water. The star-burst like patterns of the ice forming around the rocks was so interesting because it felt like it was stretched between the stones.

January 5, Frost patterns

The cold continues and so do the interesting images that are created. This frost pattern on my storm door looks like lace - I like both the pattern on the storm door and the shadow of it on the inner door. 

Ice patterns again!

The deep freeze continues. I don't have to do more then stick my head out the door to see an interesting image. This photo is of  the ice and snow covered door mat at the front door.  Today I plan to get lots of work done on my new series - Plants of Concern. Hopefully, I will have an image to share in tomorrow's post.

January 3, 2010

I am so intrigued with this image! This reflection is on my neighbor's garage roof and is created by the sunlight bouncing off of something on the front of my house but I have not been able to figure out what the reflection is coming from. I am hoping it will happen again some other day and I can try and track it down.

January 2, 2010

Another photo taken from the high rise. The bank of clouds sat out over the lake all day and throughout the day the  line of dark and light fluctuated back and forth - at times the clouds and the lake all became one.

January 1, 2010

Another year begins - the old one certainly flew by in a hurry. I spent the New Year's weekend in Chicago, in a high rise near the lake. And because it was really cold, I spent the day inside and took pictures of the outside.  The patterns of the rooftops and buildings are ever-changing because of the light and shadows created by other buildings. I like this red brick budiling - it is a study in rectangles!