Sue Benner Workshop

Well hey there, I'm back!  My life got rather busy for a while but I'm here now to explain some of what was going on.  First of all, I got promoted to a new position at work.  Yea me!  However, I still have to do my old job at the same time until they get someone hired to replace me.  So I'm a bit overwhelmed at work.  I am lucky, in that I don't have to bring my work home with me, but at the end of a workday or a workweek, I'm pretty pooped.

On top of that I have been taking art workshops.  I'm here to tell you that it is totally worth spending the money!  The first workshop I took was in April, with the fabulous art quilter

Sue Benner.  She has been my art quilting hero for a long time and I was so thrilled to get a chance to take a class with her.  The class was put on by the Front Range Contemporary Quilters, of which I am a member.  This workshop was about abstract art.  Sue was incredibly knowledgeable about fine art in general and showed us a lot of great stuff about the development of abstract art.  We focused on the ways in which artists of the past and present have used other artists work as inspiration for their own art.  It was fascinating to see how the other workshop participants approached this idea.  I soon realized that I was taking a much to literal approach to using an image of something as inspiration for an abstract piece of my own.  The results of our first exercise stunk so bad that I won't even show it.  I learned so much from looking at other peoples work.  In the end I started making progress on the piece above but soon realized that I wanted to work with sheers and that Wonder Under fusible just wasn't going to give me the results I was looking for with sheer fabrics.  I decided to put this aside to work on at home, where I have some Misty Fuse.  Here is a detail shot of the part I worked on for a while:

Since I didn't want to continue with the piece above right then and there I started another one (below).  I'm really happy with where this is going.  I plan to make two or three along the same lines so I can try out some different techniques on it, including monoprinting.  I may even print this to both paper and fabric so I can play with it some more.

The rectangles with the black lines are actually paint covered paper towel with black fabric lines fused to it.  I so love to combine paper and fabric!  I took a monumental amount of stuff to this workshop.  Getting ready for it took me two weeks!  When I got home I put away a few things but mostly I just piled the stuff up in a corner and got on with preparing for the next workshop.  I'll talk about that in a separate blog post.

This was my first workshop with the Front Range Contemporary Quilters group.  One of the things I enjoyed most was meeting the other participants.  Everyone was so friendly and helpful.  Some of these women are very experienced and accomplished artists.  We had lovely conversations while working and while sitting together for meals.  A couple of other women on my side of the room were also relatively new to the group and we all got along really well.  We decided to try forming a critique group that will meet once a month.  I've been longing for connection to other people working in textiles and mixed media so I am so happy to have met these people.  Now I feel like I am part of the group and going to monthly FRCQ meetings will be twice as fun.

In parting I have to apologize for the crappy photos.  Since these are "before" photos I didn't worry about setting up optimal photo conditions.  If I wait to have perfect pictures I will never get another blog post done!  When I finish these projects I will work a little harder at photographing them.  LOL!

State of the art '13 fiber art exhibit

I can't believe I didn't blog about this earlier!  I have two pieces of art in this wonderful show!  As a new member of the Studio Art Quilt Associates I was thrilled to have an opportunity to enter something in a local exhibit.  This is by far the best art exhibit I've had the privilege of being a part of, but I do happen to be partial to textile art.  There are pieces from some well known and professional artist in this show so I felt like I was in somewhat exhalted company.  The artwork included everything from pieced quilting to wholecloth quilting, mixed media work and thread painting.  There are even some three dimensional textile pieces. The only discordant note was that they spelled my name wrong on the labels next to my pieces.  Honestly I wonder sometimes if I should just change the way I spell my name, because no one ever gets it right.  LOL!

Three Page Journal Spread

My blog has been languishing again.  Lately it seems like there isn't enough time in the day to make art, much less to blog about it.  I've got a four day weekend going right now and I'm going to get about one day in the studio.  I made this journal spread a couple of weeks ago and thought I'd finally post the photo.  This was an attempt at making the left hand page, which I had painted with some leftover pink paint, match with the right hand page, which had some collaged tissue paper that had been sprayed with Glimmer Mist and some blue and pink watercolor.  I've been doing a lot of work with Medieval elements lately.  This whole spread incorporates leftover bits and pieces from other projects.  The Medieval tile design on the left is a t-shirt transfer and the woman on the right is from images I took from a book of hours when I was collaging the front of another art journal.  Lots of small bits of paper collaged down in between too!  Nothing fancy happening here but I like the result!

Quirky Little Collages

These two small collages (6"x6") were inspired by The Collage Workbook  by Randel Plowman.  I've spent the last several weeks just trying new things, playing with techniques and trying my hand at the styles I admire.  I'm not really sure if I'm learning anything, and sometimes I'm not even sure I'm having fun.  This sort of random practice can be difficult.  I guess I'm learning that I'm kind of a project oriented sort of girl!  At any rate, these two little collages were fun and I enjoy the quirky implications of them.  One thing that Randel Plowman mentions in his book is the concept of background, foreground, and middle ground.  Now I've heard this idea before but somehow it has never stuck.  I would never really have thought of the layers Mr. Plowman uses in his collages in this way if he hadn't spelled it out.  At this point I haven't really tried to work with this concept but it is rattling around in my brain and will hopefully be of use to me.

Learning this way is like giving birth to a huge litter of puppies!  Painful pushing and squeezing and then POP! suddenly you have a small squishy, wiggly bundle and you don't even know what you've got until you clean it off and really look at it.  A few days later all the "puppies" are running around in different directions and are impossible to keep track of or control.  Cute, but maddening!

I don't know why people don't consider being and artist a "real" job.  Its certainly hard enough!  LOL!

Journal Pages With Printed Paper

This journal page began with an ink blot.  Okay, that actually traveled over here when I was experimenting on another page.  I don't let it bother me.  These pages had been gessoed at some earlier time and scribbled into with a stylus.  Ignoring the ink blot, I began by making a grid of warm, analogous colors with my Inktense blocks and a water brush.  Inktense blocks seem to work better on a gessoed page, but nonetheless, this came out looking horrible.  Out came the red paint and glazing medium and I covered both pages.  When that was almost dry I spritzed the pages with a little water, let it sit a minute, and then blotted with a paper towel.  This is so easy and I just love the effect.  Then I cut up one of the papers I had made while playing with my Gelli Arts printing plate and collaged the green elements down.  Deli paper works so well for collage!  After that I made a stamp using cut up pieces of fun foam that I glued to a stiff cardboard base with gel medium.  I used gold acrylic paint with the stamp.  I'm not sure this is done, but since I haven't decided what to do next I thought I'd at least post this much as an example of using my printing experiments for collage in my art journal.

Printing with my Gelli Arts printing plate

I recently bought myself a Gelli Arts printing plate.  For some reason I no longer recall I felt I really had to have one of these things.  They are fun to play with!  The trouble is that it is hard to stop.  I had a huge stack of prints in just an hour!  I don't think any of them are really stellar and I can see I need more practice, but it was fun.  I used deli paper for experimenting.  Deli paper is great for collage, which is good since none of these are a great work of art in an of themselves.  They can be cut up and used in art journaling or something.  I also made a lot of painty pages from cleaning off my brayer and paintbrushes.  I used those for some stacked journaling.  Here are a few of the papers I like.  

I purchased the Martha Stewart texturing kit at Home Depot.  It has lots of combs etc. for making marks.

Bubble wrap was one of my favorite mark making tools.  I used the painty bubble wrap to stamp onto other papers too.

Playing with stacked journaling using the end of a paintbrush.

I was trying something I thought was clever and ended up with a very wet and faint print so I scribbled over the top with a squeeze bottle of black paint.

Here I am playing with drawing fluid and expressive lines with the squeeze bottle of paint.  The painted paper is one I used to wipe excess paint on while playing with the printing plate.

Another page of "clean up paper" with some stacked journaling on top.  That darned squeeze bottle blobs up a lot.  Got to work on that.

Another clean up page with stacked journaling in colors with a brush. 

While printing with the plate I would stamp my painty bubble wrap off onto more paper.  I didn't clean it between colors and it left wonderful mixed dots.  You can't really tell in the picture that some of this paint is metallic and really shines!

Another wet sloppy print with stacked journaling, this time with a  flat brush.

I was trying stacked journaling on the printing plate and just kept printing all over these pages.  It was blobby and messy but I think the marks are evocative

Spirit of My Heart Journal Page

These journal pages reflect what was going on in my head the day I sat down to play.  This journal is getting pretty full!  I've had to take out a lot of pages because it is already bursting at the seams.  One thing I'm really enjoying is the spontaneous color combinations that are happening on my pages. Lime green and blue together are so yummy! The page on the left has a little window that opens onto another page, but there isn't anything to see through it yet.  These two pages were started by laying down color with Derwent Inktense Blocks in several colors of blue and some lime green.  I'm struggling to get results I like with the blocks, especially on un-gessoed paper.  You can see how the scribble marks from the blocks did not blend out when I added water.  It is nearly impossible to work on a totally flat page in an art journal so laying down the color smoothly is difficult.  If the page has been gessoed first the color smooths out much better.  (is "smooths" really a word?  Say it out loud, sounds funny.  Smooooooths....).  I sprayed some Glimmer Mist through plastic canvas over the top.  Nothing fancy happening here but but I rather like the results.

Journal Pages, Serendipity, and Revelation

The quote I pasted into my journal is by Thomas Moore from The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life , and it reads:

"I don't share many of my colleagues enthusiasm for wholeness.  I like fragments and pieces, innuendos and suggestion.  I expect never to feel like a whole person, because I'm so aware of the fragmented nature of many of my emotions, the plans I have for my life, the elements of character that are never fully present or rounded off.  in the same way, I like to see sculptures of a goddess with no head or arms, or just a piece of torso.  Temple ruins and the remains of a civilization make much more sense in pieces than if we were to come across a ghost town intact expect for the human citizenry.   

 Decay, corruption, falling apart, memory, traces of the past -- these are all aspects of life that are with us every day.  They may hint at failure, ignorance, or some other imperfection, but they are a significant dimension of all kinds of life, including our own interior experience."

This morning I had decided that I would write something about my own inner search for depth and meaning in my art.  I have several photos of journal pages that I wanted to share here and I randomly decided to post this one.  When I looked at it closely and read the quote, which I had quite forgotten, it seemed amazingly serendipitous.

After several years of making art I have hit a point where I want to go deeper.  At this point I don't know quite what that means but I am searching for answers.  Part of this process has been analyzing what kind of art I love, what I'm drawn to, what makes me quiver inside.  I have realized that I like fragments, bits and pieces that don't really go together in a logical way, but when put together in the same space by an artist develop some kind of synergy.  I like the look or torn paper, fraying fabric, and multiple layers.  Art that has some kind of mystery about it delights me.  I think I love abstraction precisely because I don't know what it means.

It had not occurred to me before re-reading this quote, that the reason I am drawn to fragments, chaos, and complexity, is because that is so often my own internal landscape.  Before I begin to sound like I need to be committed I will also state that I am also drawn to bright colors, and beauty.  So now I have a better understanding of what I like and why.  The tricky part is how to pursue these revelations as I make art.

Aqua, Violet & Olive Journal Page

When I am working on art projects I often have paint or ink that I don't want to waste so I will open my art journal and use it on a random page.  This affords me the opportunity to see if I can marry the facing pages to one another.  Sometimes it doesn't work out, but often I can find a way to carry the colors or themes across both pages.  Reading Randel Plowman 's book "The Collage Workbook" inspired me to try making a word collage.  How wonderful to find that I had words in my collection in the colors from the facing page.  This color scheme happened by accident.  The right hand page had been gessoed, and one day I added the aqua/turquoise paint.  Another day I was testing out two handmade stamps I had created with fun foam, so I stamped the violet paint onto the page.  Yet another day I was using my new Adirondack inks on something and "stamped" the wet stencil onto the same page.  All very random, and yet it ended up yielding a color combo I probably would not have thought of but I really like. 

I often wonder what my art journal is for.  I play around, try new materials or techniques etc. but when I am working in the journal I often wonder if I am wasting my time.  I make "pretty" pictures and imitate other artists.  I'd like to see my journal leading me toward the development of bigger more finished/polished art pieces, but so far that hasn't happened.  I suppose at the moment my art journal just serves as a place to work in that creative mental state.  So much about practicing art is a matter of faith.  I have to have faith that the practice moments, the moments that don't lead to a fully formed art project, are just as valid and important as working on something more concrete.  When you are an artist that works full time at a non creative day job, it is easy to feel like your precious and rare art time is wasted if you are not working on a "real" project.  Just screwing around feels like wasted time.  I have to have faith that all this screwing around is teaching me something even if I don't realize that I am learning. 

New Journal Pages

After six months or more of working on a series of stitched pieces I finally decided it was time to wrap things up.  I put away the sewing supplies, sorted the fabrics I was using back into their color coded scrap bins and moved on.  For months I've been saving things I wanted to add to my art journal and thinking about taking a different tactic in approaching my art.  So far I'm incredibly frustrated, but that will be another post.  I've created several new journal pages that I'd share.  This is just one of them, but getting the rest of the pictures sized for posting will take me a little while.  Which is okay, really, as it will give me something more to post over the next week or two.  When I started this journal I went through and cut windows and page edges and other things, and collaged various papers etc. randomly throughout.  The other day one of my co-workers was wearing an outfit in shades of teal and copper that I really liked and I wanted to do a page spread with those colors.  I thought they would like nice on the pages with a window peeping through to an unfinished spread in purple, bronze, and old paper.  I'm sort of channeling Michelle Ward here, as I decided to try cutting out a mask/stencil of a leafy front and apply it in different ways on the page.  Loved the effect!

More to come.  Right now I have to go bug the lovely ladies as SAQA for advice on another issue.  Too much to do, not enough time, and I don't want to spend all day at the computer!  LOLOL.

Fall Arts Harvest Exhibition

40 West Arts is hosting another art exhibition as a part of Denver Arts Week and I will have 3 pieces in the show! I also served on the jury for this exhibition which was an interesting experience. The three pieces that I entered are rather different from my usual work, but are representative of some of the other work I am interested in doing.

Still Not Good Enough - 2012

Sometime back I posted these pieces in order to discuss the fact that I had no idea how to finish them. I simply cannot afford to frame my artwork and I don't even know if they are worth putting the money into if I could afford it. But I like them and really wanted them to get out into the world. Eventually I decided on mounting them to painted hardboard and stapling clear vinyl over the top. They have a sort of grungy graffiti look to them and I felt that the hardboard, vinyl, and staples added to the look. There is also something narrative going on there with the feminist issues and the vinyl..... I'll leave that to your imagination and personal interpretation. These photos don't show the vinyl. I knew it would be shiny and hard to photograph so I took the pictures before adding it.

How Can I Serve You? - 2012

 These pieces were created with scraped acrylic paint on heavy bristol paper. I scraped, splattered, mono printed, stenciled, spray painted, etc. Happy painting abandon! Then I tore up a newspaper and reassembled it as a collage, photocopied the result and started playing with the silhouettes. As a nod to my predilection for using fabric, I included a wee bit of hand dyed cheesecloth. The collages were glued to the hardboard with gloss gel medium. Good thing too! They buckled. Even though I let them dry while weighted with heavy books. It was kind of a mess. There is an artist named Johnathan Talbot who does amazing collage. He uses a technique where he pre coats his collage materials with gloss medium and lets them dry. He then arranges his collage items into place and IRONS them down. I used this technique to place the collage silhouettes. When my pieces ended up buckled I put parchment paper of the top and ironed the heck outta them. It worked! The gel medium I used as glue fused down quite nicely! Phew!

Woman's Depth - 2012

Spectacular Color! Blurry Trees!

The other day I was walking toward the door to my office and I realized how amazingly beautiful these trees were.  The early morning sun was hitting them just right, turning the autumn colors into a blaze of glory.  I just happened to have my camera in my pocket so I quickly snapped a few pics.  Sadly they came out blurry, but the point wasn't to get great pictures of trees so much as to get great pictures of the color.  I am not normally drawn to autumn colors.  I prefer bright jewel tones, but nontheless, autumn is my favorite season of the year.  They say autumn on the East coast can't be beat, but I've always been stunningly happy with autumn in Colorado.

 

2nd Place Winner!

I recently entered this piece in the "On My Own Time" art exhibit for State employees.  The exhibit is being shown at the Metropolitan State College, Center for Visual Arts, in the Santa Fe Art District of Denver.  Its a really nice gallery in the major Denver arts district so I am really happy to have a piece of art hanging there for a couple of weeks.  But even better..... I won 2nd place in the fine crafts category!  The competition is a two part deal.  The first part was the current exhibit.  They juried these entries to determine who will go on to the second part of the OMOT exhibit that will hang in the State Capitol building from December through May.  I'm very excited that this piece will be shown in our State Capitol.  My mother took a REALLY bad picture of me holding my ribbon at the reception and since it is my only documentation of the event I will share it in spite of how horrible I look.  I blinked.  Can you tell?

And a close up of the label.  Hey, I'm no where near jaded yet.  Got to document those successes you know!

Published in Quilting Arts Mag!

When my copy of the October/November issue of Quilting Arts Magazine arrived today I about burst from excitement.  A couple of months ago I entered a piece in the "What's Your Signature Color" reader challenge and my piece made it into the magazine.  This is a small 8" x 8" quiltlet made of fabric that I pieced, stamped, quilted, embroidered and embellished.  The squares are fabric-paper edged with gold and layered with small fabric scraps.  Sadly the blurb next to my piece says I live in Lakewood, California when it should say Colorado, but that little error hardly dents my thrill at being published in one of my favorite magazines.

My blog has been languishing lately for lack of acceptable photos to post.  As an art blogger I feel like I can't post anything unless I have a photo to go with the post, but my artwork has all been in awkward stages and my photo sessions have not been very successful of late.  The other day I tried to take photos of some of my artwork on the day that I had my eyes dilated.  Needless to say, those photos did NOT come out well!  LOL!

For several months now I have been working on artwork in a raspberry, lime, plum color scheme.  I've been trying to use the same basic materials in each piece so that they are part of a series, but I have not been trying to make each piece similar to any other piece.  Frankly I'm getting sort of tired of working with the same materials over and over again, but at the same time the ideas just keep on coming.  Money is really tight in my world right now so I'm also trying to play with ways to make the most of the materials I have.  Ways to use every scrap.  Sometimes I think this way of thinking holds me back since I feel like I have to a use what I already have.  But it is so easy to fall prey to the idea that a new art supply or tool will magically cause me to make amazing, inspired art.  Anyway, working in a series has proven to be a very productive approach for me.  

The piece above is made from leftover backing paper from painted Wonder Under, and stained newspaper that have been woven together.  I used t-shirt transfer paper to add a word cloud to the surface and then I added a swipe of pearlescent white paint and splatters of white gesso.  Earlier in this process I had created a "fabric" from little scraps of other fabrics that I quilted in spirals and then cut into piece that I finished with a blanket embroidery stitch.  I added these squares with glue and stitch and then added a few finishing embroidered motifs.  Then I mounted the whole things on a painted canvas background.

This piece is also made of woven papers.  Specifically embossed wallpaper and fabric paper that I made of all sorts of materials.  I stitched purple organza flowers over the top and added the quilted bottom portion and a border.

I have some plans for this series is I can make a few dreams come true.  There are several other pieces in the series but some of them aren't finished yet.  More photos to come!

Problem Solved

Its amazing what you can find on Google!  I typed in "why is my blog banner blurry" and ended up finding a blog with great instructions for fixing my blurry header.

http://www.southernspeakers.net/2011/01/blogger-header-image-sizeblur-fix.html

The instructions tell you to host your image on an image hosting web site, which did indeed do the trick.  However, Blogger wouldn't even recognize the image link when I tried hosting the image on Flickr and Picassa kept on forcing my image to be smaller that I wanted it to be.  I ended up using Imageshack as suggested by Southern Speakers.  Worked like a charm!  After hours of struggling to fix the *(@#$)! problem.  Thank you Southern Speakers!

New Blog Banner

Ack!  After taking the time to put together a new blog banner, and fighting with Google Chrome to post it, it turns out blurry.  I have no idea why.  Grrrrr.  This blogging business is more challenging that I really appreciate.

Messy Work Table

This is Mr. Jingles.  He is in my way.  Notice that he is lying on top of the pile of ..... stuff..... on my work table.  There are sharp pointy things in there!  The whole left side of the table is open cuz that's where the piece I'm stitching goes, but he has to lie on top of the scissors, pins. rulers, paint, paper towels, paint brushes etc.  Visualize me working while battling cat hair, and wiggly tails.  Searching blindly under the cat for my thimble.  Sigh.  And yet, I wouldn't kick him out for the world.  My cats keep me company and it makes me happy that they want to be with me.

He had his photo op and is taking a well deserved rest now.  Slug.

This is Naja.  After Jingles left, and I had added a nice crinkly sack to the table top, (cuz there wasn't enough junk on there yet), she had to get in on the action.  Now, its summertime, and its been really hot, so these little monsters are shedding like mad.  I constantly have to fish cat hair out of my contact lenses.  I keep lint roller handy to get the cat hair off my artwork.  But she was so sweet, all squirmy and purring.  After a short while she left.  But.....

As soon as I got to work again, Harry had to come say hi.  He is a 20 pound monster of a cat and my work table is his favorite place to sleep.  Whatever I'm working on was obviously designed to be his bed.  Duh!  But laying there quietly wasn't enough.  He tromped around on the pile of stuff for a few minutes and then decided he needed a cuddle.

How could I say no?  Taking a picture of him with my right hand while he is lying on my left arm was a challenge!  No artist working in solitude, with pets, could ever be lonely.

Yard Art

 These are some pictures of the art my husband makes in our yard.  The flamingos live in the front yard.  They are a miss matched bunch, including one rather diseased looking fellow that some previous owner tried to paint purple.  My husband has moved them around over the years, putting them in various poses, including hanging out of the pine tree.  At Christmas he hangs little wreaths around their necks.  The day he added the wind spinner to the mix the little girl next door came over and started "riding" the flamingos.  It was the cutest thing.  She had no idea we were watching her so we got a perfect performance.

Keith has hung about 20 of those twisted plastic wind spinner doohickies in our plum tree out back.  They sparkle in the breeze and make a little jeweled garden.  It was so pretty when the plum was in bloom. The tulips were in bloom when I took these pictures, which was a nice little touch.  The gazing ball below is sitting in the center of a smaller plum tree that Keith has coaxed into growing in a round bower like shape.  I think the yellow dandelions add a pretty bit of contrast!

The little guys below are made of mini bowling pins and plastic half balls .  They spin in the wind and are so cheerful! Jaunty even!  Most of the spinners he makes hang from tree branches but I just loved these little garden stake spinners.  He was going to make about 50 of them and make patterns in the lawn but we were afraid someone would come along and steal them.  We had someone steal two of our flamingos once.  So sad.

Keith makes all this stuff out of plastic toys, dishes, and bicycle parts that he finds at thrift stores.  Its a great way to recycle, although it is also a dangerous hobby.  He collects more stuff that he will ever use!  I think he ought to sell them but so far its a no-go.  At least I get to enjoy them!

A couple of weeks ago I posted a slightly different picture of this woven paper thingy.  It was made from leftover painted wonder under backing paper and newspaper.  I've continued to work with it and I'm almost done with the completed piece.  I added text using t-shirt transfer paper and then monoprinted a brushstroke effect with pearlized white paint.  Finally I splattered it with more white paint.  After a couple of coats collage pauge I ended up with this really cook graffiti style background.

I just had to take some pictures of this before I started adding elements on top.  Someday (yeah, that) I want to take time to learn more about making art digitally and I think this background could be really cool.  Or I could print it onto fabric and stitch it, or......

I've been super busy in the studio lately.  The ideas just keep on coming.  Its a rare and wonderful state to be in.  Don't get me wrong, each piece goes through its stubborn stage.  Sometimes I spend hours just looking at a piece trying to figure out what it wants me to do next.  A friend of mine once suggested I try working on more than one piece at a time.  I was resistant to that idea because my studio is small and I don't have room for multiple pieces.  In spite of that I decided to try it and it seems to have freed me up in some way.  I'm into the fifth piece in this series that started with the disastrous attempt at making a quilt for a local art show.  I've been challenging myself to work with the same set of fabrics and corresponding paint colors.  Like every artist I have a ton of stuff and like too many people I have a lack of money.  It is an ongoing challenge to try and use what I already have.  My favorite source of art inspiration is other artists.  I spend a lot of time reading books and magazines and perusing art blogs and as a result I'm always finding techniques I want to try.  But all that inspiration means that there is always a reason to keep every last scrap and blob.  You know..... surely I can do something cool with that!  LOL!  At some point this series has to end.  I'm beginning to feel the stirring of boredom with the materials and color scheme.  Not quite done yet, but its coming.  Right now I've got some quilting to do, and I need to go buy a canvas to mount the above piece on and I wanted to try that thing with those scraps, and..........