All-Day Sucker

All-Day Sucker ©2016, 28" x 31"

Thank you to Lisa-Marie, for the perfect way to wrap up the 3rd cycle of Viewpoints 9 - - using the undesirables in our supply closet/stash. For me, that meant revisiting a very large collection of synthetic organza and bits of discarded sheers and experiments. As summer winds down and V9 winds up (until cycle 4 begins on September 1st), it was an opportunity for a last hoorah, a bit of play and mindless wandering. Interestingly, the name came to me almost before anything else - - which you can interpret as you wish. I was thinking of the giant lollipops from when I was young, as big as your head and so pretty and colorful and enticing. And I had all of this brightly colored plastic to work with!

All-Day Sucker, back lit

All-Day Sucker is assembled from synthetic organza that has been starched, cut into 4.5" squares and made into two layers. The layers are 8 rows of alternating 1) all neutrals and 2) random-colored pieces with the hope of creating different value. Sometimes it was more successful than others :) The 3 circle pieces were sometimes between the layer and sometimes on top, to create more value....but synthetic organza really has a mind of its own.

All-Day Sucker, back lit, detail

 I love these things back-lit! This was a great way to wrap up this cycle - I think it has probably been my favorite thus far. I'm excited that we will be having another premiere in Houston at Market and Festival this November and that we have 5 venues in Australia starting this November, also! Onward and upward to more exciting things. After the Undesirable Gallery, we will permanently move to our new home at: viewpoints9.com. It's all ready to go when we begin the new cycle next week. Look forward to seeing you there!

All-Day Sucker, detail

Pulse

Pulse ©2016, 26" x 40"

A month ago today, at 2:06 am, Eddie Justice texted his mother from a bathroom inside Pulse, an Orlando, FL nightclub. "Mommy I love you" he started. Back and forth, they shared the terror of the event as it unfolded.  "I'm going to die". By the end of the night, he and 48 other members of the LGBTQ community and their allies had been killed. Among them, young men, young women, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.

A year ago at this time, I was sewing hearts for the victims of the Charleston, SC shooting.

I'm sick of making hearts...not that I don't want to comfort the hurt and hurting. Not that the act of sewing is not a soothing catharsis for me. But this cycle of violence must end. In the month that has passed since the horrific Pulse shooting, hundreds of innocent lives have been taken from Baghdad to  Baton Rouge. Many more have been shattered and changed forever. My heart breaks. I don't have answers, but I am looking.

Quilt details: Machine pieced, machine quilted commercial cotton prints.

Pulse, detail

No words...

"Departures"©2010, 20" x 24"
probably the only piece I've done with text on it....

This has been a really tough challenge for me. I've thought about it since it was proposed and have gone through several vastly different ideas. I admit, I find text a challenge to insert into my work without feeling it is contrived. As Hsin-Chen has pointed out, there are those that are adept at adding text and making it part of the artistry....just not me. So, I've been exploring different ways to approach the challenge and collected some random thoughts to share.

One interesting idea was exploring punctuation. As our language uses more and more emojis to non-verbally express our thoughts and feelings, we are using less and less of our historical punctuation, or at least using it correctly less often. It was like opening Pandora's box reading about the misuse of punctuation. The unnecessary use of quotation marks - as in, he calls himself an "artist", or the over use of other punctuation marks!!! Which, you ask??? I'm guilty of these. If you are concerned about them, you can participate in National Punctuation Day on September 24th each year, celebrating and promoting the proper use of punctuation.

I read a bit about punctuation marks that never really took off or have fallen from use such the Interrobang:

Somewhat self-explanatory - - it asks a question in an excited manor, expresses excitement or disbelief in the form of a question or asks a rhetorical question. Wikipedia's example is: You're pregnant‽

How about the Percontation point or Irony mark:

It was first introduced in the 16th century (!) and became known as the rhetorical question mark, later falling from use in the 17th century. At that time, it was suggested the symbol be called an Irony mark and used to indicate that a sentence could be understood at a different level, such as sarcasm or irony. Seems useful enough...

Or these more recent additions, the Exclamation comma or Question Comma:

"Now you can be excited or inquisitive without having to end the sentence"

One of the really interesting things I read about - and never really considered - was the way that social media and the internet has repurposed some punctuation. In particular, the at sign, "@", can be traced back to the 16th century. Historically used as an accounting symbol or commercial unit abbreviation - 12 units @ $2.00 each, it became a critical part of email addresses in 1971. Also, the number sign (or pound sign), "#", which since the 1800's has had a variety of uses from mathematics to music. In 2007 it was immortalized by Chris Messina when he suggested on Twitter that it be used to identify groups - an thus, the hashtag was born.

#Viewpoints9, #Challenge8, #ideasIamnotusing

Nocturne in Green

Nocturne in Green ©2016, 40" x 21"

Thank you, Kate, for inspiring me to try something new and experimental. A lot of good information came out of this process and I know I will be referring to it in something in the future.

my inspiration

Having done a lot of monochromatic studies in grayscale, I thought I'd tackle my photographs of the campus greenhouses. I've thought about them for a long time, and thought I'd worked out a plan....but I hadn't.

I started by painting 3 layers of silk organza (and a layer of Damask linen) with shades of gray-green Dye-na-flow. Then, carefully selected weeds foliage from my drought recovered forest yard were laid out on the fabric to sun print.

The sun printed negatives from the foliage were pale negatives of the outline, so I traced the outlines and created several different stencils from the different layers.

Using Dye-na-flow in a spray bottle, I spritz the stencil with black dye.

I repeated it with the other layers using the different stencils.

Then layer by layer, the silk was added to the linen background and batting, topstitching the black stencil with black thread. Finally I added the top layer of silk organza and stitched the remaining details from the original sun printing in with a Size 20 variegated thread.

Nocturne in Green, detail ©2016, 40" x 22"

Green: Houses

For the last couple years, I've had a fascination with the greenhouses on campus. The thrill of a late evening walk - discovering the lights are on. Not sure what it's all about, but I think they're mysterious and fascinating - like a story could unfold there.... Pretty monochromatic, too. Looking forward to seeing what others have created for this challenge. Reveal on April 27!

What Peace there is in Slumber

"What Peace there is in Slumber" ©2016, 40"x26"

Thank you, Sue, for the great challenge!  I enjoyed this a lot - - and learned a few things creating my "naturally colored fabrics" for this piece.  When I had finished the initial step of creating them, they were all sort of flesh-tones, and had no idea where I was going with this….

(L-R) Persimmon, Pomegranate, and Coffee stained fabrics

Somewhere along the way, I had decided that it was going to be a piece about sleep - as that had been a topic of discussion in our house recently - and sleep cycles.  I used to carry a sketch book when I traveled and draw my youngest while he slept, with my left (non-dominant) hand - but that is another story altogether…..

original sketch, 2003

Working from the sketch as a starting point, I layered my persimmon organza over my pomegranate linen, using my pomegranate organza as the shadows.  

The pillow and comforter are predominantly silk habotai with the three different stains, and some old damask linen tablecloth.  I don't feel like it is finished, though….there's still a lot of pearl cotton….

Coffee, Persimmon and Pomegranate Dyeing

(l-r) persimmon, pomegranate and coffee dyed fabrics

Sue's challenge has been a lot of fun, "to explore the use of natural products to color my fabric".  I've been thinking about doing some dyeing with different leaves and spices and fruits for a while, and with this incentive, I've actually gotten a chance to try some things out.  Limiting myself to things in the house and yard, coffee, persimmons and pomegranates were my palette.

Coffee dye bath

Scoured the internet for tips and videos and DIYs for natural dyeing and after reading up, combined steps form here and there to make my own method.  For coffee, used grounds were saved until there was about a cup.  Boiled that in water and then simmered for an hour.  Meanwhile, soaked fabrics and thread in simmering water.  What I'd read indicated there wasn't any need for a mordant with coffee (or the other two, either).  Drained fabric in colander and added to coffee sludge, grounds and all.  Let steep for about and hour and then drained the coffee off in the colander.  Without rinsing, wrung fabrics (grounds and all) placed on baking sheets, crumpled, in 200º F oven.  It took several hours to dry the linens, silks were much quicker.  Rinsed the fabric thoroughly and hung to dry.  Ironed.

Coffee on (l-r) natural linen, pearl cotton, silk organza, silk habotai, bleached muslin,
 damask tablecloth and bleached linen 

Drying the fabric in the oven, or actually anywhere crumpled up, gave the fabrics a lovely mottled, aged appearance in shades of brown.

Coffee dyeing, detail

Next try was persimmons.  My persimmons were long gone from the tree, but I'd dried lots of them an still had a box uneaten - so, that was my persimmon experiment.  Reconstituted the dried persimmon in boiling water and ground it up with an immersion blender.  Followed the same process as with the coffee, but thoroughly rinsed and hung to dry flat.

Persimmon puree

Surprise - almost all of the color rinsed out, with the exception of the silk organza and habotai.  A beautiful, delicate, pale peach remained. 

Silk organza (top left), habotai (right)

Pomegranate

Finally, pomegranates.  This would have been ideal a couple months ago, but I did have some leftover pomegranates on the bush and ground that the squirrels and birds hadn't finished.  I scavenged about a dozen and broke them up in a pot of boiling water.  After letting it simmer for an hour, I did a rough strain through the colander to remove big pieces.  Then I proceeded just as I'd done the persimmon.  The final variation with the pomegranate was to rinse it with vinegar before I did my rinsing out - hoping to not lose all the color like the persimmon.  Not sure if that was a factor, but the color was much more evident in this batch.

(l-r) silk organza, pearl cotton, bleached muslin, damask tablecloth, natural linen

Interesting colors from the pomegranate - no red (although there were blue spots left behind where I washed it off the wall) The habotai is almost golden, the linen and cotton, pale, pale, pale yellow.  Great learning experience - will definitely experiment with more.  Now I need to create something with this palette - something to do with cycles….

…..just kidding

Wild Life: Maple

Wild Life: Maple ©2015

Thanks, Diane, for a great challenge and lots to think about!  I wrestled with my ideas for actual 3-D creations for a good deal of the 8 weeks we had - and ultimately came back to an earlier idea "referencing" dimension.  The weather has changed so dramatically since the beginning of this challenge, it is hard to believe I was inspired by seasonal cycles and the autumn color - brilliant leaves and warm, blue skies!

my inspiration

Gazing up through the layers of Japanese maple leaves, I wondered if I could create that sense of light and depth using a layered pojagi inspired method.  I collected a bag full of leaves in every color of red and yellow and orange to get the project started.

The first thing I did was paint some silk organza in the same colors with Dye-Na-Flow.  The individual leaves were inked with Speedball fabric ink and printed one at a time.  Once the ink was dry, I starched the organza and cut it into the small pieces that are sewn together. 

Wild Life: Maple, detail

Maple is all machine sewn.  I am looking for a nice branch to drape it over for display.  I love the colorful translucence of the backlit layers.

Check my blog for a more detailed description of the process later this week.

Wild Life: Maple, backlit

Dimension and Fiber

"Boundary Unbound" by Saberah Malik

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Sebastopol Center for the Arts and see the Fiber Art VII collaborative exhibition between the center and Fiber Art now magazine.  It was a fascinating exhibit with cutting edge concepts in all types of fiber.  Diane's challenge made me think about so many of the photos I'd taken - mostly of fabric behaving in 3-D or suggesting dimension.  I've included a variety here.

"Verdigris" (detail) by Susan Hotchkis

"Long Ago Stories" by Sharon McCartney

"Unfolding Landscape Spring Verge" by Cas Holmes

"Requiem" (detail) by Eszter Bornemisza 

"this too shall pass" by Diane Savona

"Triangles + Dotted Lines" (detail) by Joy Stockdale

The first photo reminded me of this piece (below) I saw at Fiber Art Philadelphia in 2011 - another totally 3-D piece from organza!  Fantastic!  I have so many ideas - I'm not sure which way I will go…..

"Sea Foam" ©2011, by Linda Celestian

Windows and Doors

Windows and Doors, 9 patch detail

After seeing the International Quilt Study Center and Museums exhibit of log cabin quilts at the European Patchwork Meeting, I was sure I was going to interpret that pattern with some lovely hand-dyed reclaimed linens, luscious silks, and remnant bits from fabric manufacturer, Malfroy, that I'd collected from the vendors.  Sparked by Kate's discussion about American Art, I investigated the history of the log cabin pattern more closely and found that, despite popular belief (mine included), the log cabin pattern can be traced back to Egyptian tombs and first interpreted in fiber, back in18th century Europe.  Regardless, I think many would consider it a traditional American quilt pattern - - so in that spirit, I forged ahead (although I was really tempted by Kate's post….).

Windows and Doors, window detail

Using "traditional" 9 patch and log cabin designs as a starting point, I reflected on my cycle theme. So many of my family, friends and loved ones are at crossroads, or in transition, contemplating which door to open (or which window to climb out).  I know this is part of the cycle of life we all experience once and again.  It makes me aware of how many ways life can be played, how one choice will have an outcome, and another, an equal or better outcome, and the next…..  A successful life has many doors, and courage to open them.

Windows and Doors, log cabin detail

Windows and Doors ©2015, 40" x 50"