Handweavers' Guild of Boulder 2016 Sale

I am so please to have had three vessels chosen to be in the Handweavers' Guild of Boulder 2016 sale and showcase.

While I am no longer weaving or spinning,  I have always been involved in textiles.  Mixed media options have allowed me to combine fabric and acrylic products in producing fabric vessels that sometimes have the look of other materials such as wood, leather or ceramics.

These vessels are entirely made from fabric and embellished with a variety of techniques and finished and/or glazed with acrylic products.

The Handweavers Guild of Boulder is a long established guild that has broadened its base of techniques to include beading, felting and quilting.

I am very happy to have my vessels showcased during their sale week Nov. 2-6, 2016. Here are details from these vessels.

I am a Maker

I am a Maker

I was asked about my intention concerning the fabric vessels I have been creating this past year or so.  My answer was that I hoped to share them with an audience.  Like so many "Things" and "Ideas" close to a person's heart, sharing the joy, experience, idea, passion is part of creation.

The question of INTENTION is important.  I am creating because I want to create. I want to experiment.  I want to play.  I want to express.  But what is my intention?  To bury my product in the closet?  To clutter my counter tops with fabric pots and baskets? My intention is to have them seen. My intention is to continue this creative path, improving and enjoying the process, and sharing them.

Entering shows, approaching galleries, placing my vessels in public view requires me to introduce my work and myself into the world of art and craft.

 I need to choose words to describe myself.  That  requires a choice of label to use on business cards, artist statements, etc..

I am  creative.  I have been encouraged to call myself an artist, but I am not totally comfortable with that title.  I have worked hard to develop the vessels I now make.  I am serious about their form and style and what they bring to an audience.  They are my own creations. My patterns, inspirations, My techniques.  I hope to MAKE many more.

I am a Maker.

I will let the viewer decide if they are art or craft, interesting or not, to be viewed for more than 30 seconds, to be purchased or chosen or passed by.

They are mine.  I am happy to have made them.

Indian Summer

October 8, 2016 - We have had our first hard freeze and the weather is gorgeous!  Indian summer is here.  It is a perfect day to be outside painting fabric.

I have three yards of white cotton.  It will soon become sand, rocks and canyons to celebrate the west where I live.

How great is this?!

Dorothy Caldwell - Human Marks Workshop

As an artist, I have understood the connection between the creative spark from the brain/soul/heart through the hand into the processing of material, stone, fabric paper etc.

After experiencing this workshop, and listening to Dorothy Caldwell, I have a greater understanding of the human factors within this creative transition.  There is a physicality with the use of the hand, an ability of muscle which includes strength, flexibility, and individuality. Tension, length, rhythm, are personal traits of the processes used in creating. Stitch, cutting, lettering, marking with so many instruments and methods are individual to the maker.  Handwriting can be read by an expert and personality traits can be assessed.  The writing can be assigned to a specific individual. So can the result a the physical touch of an artist, a maker, a craftsperson in their hand created pieces.

I can have more joy in the results of my quilts, vessels, painting -  appreciating the  personality, the individuality of  my marks, my stitches.

Not only can I accept the individuality of my marks, I have a better understanding of the history of my marks.  I have a connection to stitchers, mark makers of the generations of the human race before me leaving their marks on what they touched.

I am grateful to be a maker today, using a huge dictionary of marks, using old and new techniques,  using the old and new  products.  I can be traditional or unique and be part of the stream of makers putting their mark on their creations. I can appreciate the individuality of my marks and appreciate mark makers before me.

My tension, my pressure, my rhythm, my creations.

In Order to Race, I have to Slow Down

It's not the tortoise and the hare.  I am the only one in the race.  The race is.....?

Is there a race? Should there be a race?  Do I have to race to fulfill my goals, or do I have to change what I want from art?

What are my goals? What do I want from art?  Some of my friends can answer that question, not for me, but for themselves. 

What I want to say- to express, gets all mixed up with what I can produce, my ability with technique-  my ability to produce, ----my ability!

So, I worry that I am not there yet.  Where?  The finish line?  The final lap of what race?  I came to art late.  I have been creative all my life.  I have only been exposed to fiber art for the last several years.  These years were spent absorbing possibility.

Now that I have found an idea, a method of expression-  I am afraid that I will not  fulfill my expectations.

I think I have to mute my expectations and enjoy the process.  Slowly, with enjoyment, find the opportunity to express with the tools, actual and internal, that I have without worry of the result.  Be true to me and what is important to me.

Enjoy the process.

Start and Stop Art

When I stop in the middle of handwriting a letter and start again, the handwriting never looks the same.  The pen may be different.  The slant of the letters may have varied.  The size of the letters is different.

My mood is different.  I may be more or less relaxed.  I may have a time restriction and hurry.  I may have lost the train of consciousness from the first part of the letter. 

It is different.

So, too, are the pieces I lose touch with and don't complete.  Picking up the feel, the touch, the emotion from the beginning of a creation is difficult with a pause in the work..  The idea is still there.  The materials are still there.  The intension is still there, but the I don't seem to be able to find the same flow.

I have just finished two pieces that were begun several months ago.  The work had passed through the mechanics into the final stages.  They were both disasters.  The colors were not right.  The pieces didn't seem to fit together. I struggled.  I had lost the flow of the piece.

Lesson learned.  Follow through, enjoy the process.

Rosalie Dace Workshop

What a marvelous, creative! I am so glad I had the chance to take a workshop with her.

Three days working with talented FRCQ artists, creating, learning, listening.

"Trees" was the exercise.  Talk about unlimited options.  I have always been fascinated with trees.  I suppose most artists have been at some time in their career.  Not that I have a career----.  I learned about trees from my Godmother, Helen Turner and from May Watts of the Morton Arboretum outside of Chicago. At age 6, Mom and I took a class together learning the names of trees, the shapes of their leaves, special things about them.  There seem to be more species in the east than here in the Colorado plains and foothills, even the mountain forests and waterways. Illinois, where I grew up, is at the edge of the of the native forest and the prairie.  It is a place of mixed ecology and there are changing plants and trees and landscapes that continued to evolve as the cities replaced the open space, as cultivated fields replaced prairies, as suburbs replaced farms.

There is just too much to think about in the wide open subject matter of trees.  Symbolisim, genealogy, ecology, texture, color, shape, line, singles, bunches, forest edges, aspen glades, were all options.  Simplify - start with one tree, start with the trunk, show it in its place. A TREE IN SITU.

I have a great stash of commercial fabric and I chose pieces that would work for me, close up grass, tree line farther back and a fall foliage as a canopy.  I usually work in smaller pieces with more organic shapes.  This piece is larger and the fabrics became a horizontal stack creating depth with a lot of interest. The tree was a hoot, stripping warp and weft to create texture.

Here is a picture if the top in its unfinished state. Maybe I will be able to post future updates.