Inspiration!

More inspiration locally.

These two images from Natick Mall construction are inspiration for some new pieces. If I do use these images in the future, I'll post the results.

Art with Fiber - on exhibit at Mass MoCA

On exhibit at Mass MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art).....

In the show Spencer Finch: What Time Is It on the Sun?, there are two fiber pieces. One is called "Grey Effect", 1995, that is nylon which was dyed and sewn. There is another piece called "Sunlight in an Empty Room (Passing Cloud for Emily Dickinson, Amherst, MA, August 28, 2004)", 2004, which is created with a mass of translucent blue, gray, and violet filters that are held together with clothes pins and monofilament. (You can see this piece on the Mass MOCA link.) This show is open from May 26, 2007 through Spring 2008.

Also there is another show called The Believers, which also has two fiber pieces, by two different artists. One is by the Icelandic Love Corporation (ILC), called "Circus Tent for Two", 2004, which is a handmade linen tent. The other piece is by Yoshua Okón and Fritz Haeg called "Plan B: Geodesic Dome", 2007. It is a tent like structure covered with fabric, that also includes graphic paper pieces hanging inside. The show is open from April 7, 2007 through Spring 2008.

The show Made at MASS MoCA, is a show worth reading about, and pondering. The New York Times and Boston Globe have had many interesting articles about it, as have other publications. While the show is not a fiber show at all, I must note that the work is covered with many yellow tarps, and yards and yards of burlap. Anyone with a dust mite allergy should be advised to be careful.

New Work - Drop Cloth piece finished

This is "Orange Construction Fence Series #52", and it is 27.5" wide x 53" high. I totally struggled over this piece! I thought that if I took a drop cloth I "created" as a result of creating other work, and used it as the basis of a new piece, that my creativity would flow out of me easily. Well, not so. It was very difficult. One friend likened it to my using a piece of printed fabric that isn't like what I usually use, and trying to make it work. One day two weeks ago, I had painted the outer edges of the stitched fabric, thinking I was making an improvement, and I totally messed it up. The next day, I ended up cutting parts of it off, so it went from 37" wide to 30" wide and then down to 27". One thing you can do with fabric is cut it off, vs a stretched canvas has to stay as is.

Danforth Museum Juried Members show

My piece, "Orange Construction Fence Series #43" is going to be in the Members Juried Show at the Danforth Museum of Art, in Framingham MA from June 2 - July 29, 2007. If you're nearby, come see the show!

Construction Fences

Many people never notice, or think about, construction fences when they see them. But, people who know me or my work, notice them. Nancy Halpern sent me two pictures from her travels to Venice (Italy, not California), and I very much appreciate it!


This image caught her eye because of the shadows.


This is an image of a construction shed.

Nancy said I "raised her consciousness re construction fences". Thank you for the images Nancy!

Inspiration!

The NY Times Sunday May 20, 2007 Magazine had many articles about architecture. The buildings in the article "Why Are They Greener Than We Are?" By Nicolai Ouriussoff, were very inspiring to me. The grids, and the color, of the buildings give me some ideas for new pieces to work on in the future.


This is a detail of the Federal environment agency in Dessau, Germany, designed by Sauerbruch Hutton.


This detail is from the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, in the town of Hilversum.


And this one wasn't in the the article, but I found it when researching the two buildings above.

Orange Construction Fence collection

Sometimes I leave a new construction fence outside for a few weeks so the rain can wash the mud off of it. This roll came from a neighbor who had been renovating her house.

Feedback/Comments

While I do have comments turned off on my blog, but that doesn't mean I don't want to discuss my work. I just prefer discussing it via email, phone or in person. This morning I got an email from my (art) friend Catherine Carter that I wanted to share, with her permission:

"Hi, Jeanne -- It's so interesting, in reading your latest blog entry, how similar working with fabrics is to working with paints. 

You've added the transparent strips to "quiet down" certain areas of color visually.  A painter (in acrylic) would do exactly that by adding a layer of gel medium.  The same artistic principles and personal intentions apply, just the materials are different.

Or adding the strips of gray stitching are like drawing "lines" across a form that has become too dominant.

Very fascinating to me, the similarities and differences!"  - Catherine Carter.

------
Thanks for noticing the similarities Catherine! You hit the nail right on the head, of what I'm trying to do. Now to get the rest of the Art World to see that people can work in fiber, and it's still art. - Jeanne

Drop Cloth in Progress - continued

I stitched semi-tranparent strips of white fabric horizontally across each row to change the contrast. I didn't like the fact that all of the colors were the same intensity. I think it helped. I have some other things to do before I'll call this piece complete.

Drop Cloth in Progress - continued

I stitched the grid with four different shades of grey. The image above has the lightest grey stitching.

The stitching helped with the texture of the piece but the whole piece still needs work. Will continue working on it.

Drop Cloth in Progress - continued

I am definitely outside of my comfort zone working on this piece right now. I thought that painting the ginger color inside the stitching, over the very faint image of the construction fence grid, would be an improvement. Well it did make the grid obvious, but I don't like the color. Ugh. Seeing that I don't think I can ruin this piece any more than I have, I'm going to stitch the grid, probably with grey threads, to tone it down. Hopefully that will add more texture, and will tie the whole thing together. So much for using Photoshop to try planning ahead. It didn't help this time.

The left image is the whole piece so far, and the right a close-up. One thing I did decide to do is turn the whole thing upside down from the way it was. That actually is better.

Uncommon Quilter Movie

I posted a movie on YouTube that shares one of the quilt projects in my upcoming book, The Uncommon Quilter. It shows how to make a quilt using sushi grass and fabric leaves, which is called "Autumn Leaves" in the book. You can see my movie on YouTube at: Uncommon Quilter - Autumn Leaves.

Enjoy.

Drop Cloth in Progress - continued

Before I started blogging, I never took pictures of work in progress. Now that I am (blogging and taking pictures), I'm finding these pictures very helpful. Here are 3 ideas for the colors I was considering for painting the grid on the Drop Cloth piece. I used Photoshop to try them out. In real life, the colors wouldn't be as strong, but it's still a good, quick way to experiment instead of ruining the actual piece.

Drop Cloth in Progress - continued

I stitched the drop cloth yesterday, and let's just say that it isn't looking like I had hoped it would. I used black thread thinking it would make the gray construction fence pattern more visible, but that didn't happen. The image above is a full shot in progress on the left, and a close up on the right. I think I'm going to have to paint the whole grid in to make it "pop". Painting only the junctions of the horizontal and vertical with orange wasn't enough. Now to decide what color to use.

12 x 12 x 12 May - continued

I took my May 12 x 12 x 12 piece over to an artist friend's studio to critique it. While neither of us had many ideas, but we both agreed that this piece lacked a certain contrast and finished feel. We discussed possible overlays of a sheer fabrics. Later in the day, I pulled out some sheer fabrics, that had some black and white on them. I cut various pieces and placed them on the piece, but nothing really excited me. Then I pulled out a sheer white that had small black dots scattered randomly. I felt that strips of this sheer, going diagonally across the piece would be a good solution. I stitched and down, and I am much happier with it than I was a few days ago.

You can see how this piece looked before I updated it in my entry on Friday, May 4, 2007.

Drop Cloth in Progress - continued

I did some last minute touch ups on the Drop Cloth I've been working on for a large piece. You can read about it in an entry a month ago called Drop Cloth in Progress. I wanted to get the painting finished, because tomorrow night I plan on basting it so I can do the final stitching. This is an image of it hanging in my shower, waiting for the paint can dry. This is the last time this side of the fabric will be visible because I'm going to have the "wrong" side facing out. I'll post images of it stitched as soon as I have some.

12 x 12 x 12

My May 12 x 12 x 12 piece is created with acrylic based house paints that are left over after repainting different rooms in my house. I thought I'd give house paint a try, and compare them to fabric paints.

The gray background is Benjamin Moore Kitchen and Bath paint, which is mildew resistant, and obviously not necessary for art work. I had forgotten about that until I was cleaning up. Oh well. The first obvious thing I noticed is that the house paint has a very different smell than fabric paint. Fabric paint has an ammonia-like smell, and I can't identify the Kitchen and Bath paint smell. It's also a little more liquid than the fabric paints I've been using.

The colored paints are Benjamin Moore Semi Gloss. The yellow-ish paint was about the consistency of fabric paint, which explains why I had to do three coats on my bathroom wall. It was Deep Base 333 3B.

The green paint was very thick. It had a different base color from the yellow-ish paint. It was Medium Base 333 2B.

The purple paint was somewhere between the other two paints, in terms of thickness. It was Pastel Base 333 1B.

When dry, all three of the colored paints have the same feel on the fabric as that of opaque fabric paints. The gray had no texture. I'm not sure if the texture difference is because the gray was rolled on with a brayer, and the other colors were painted, or if it's because the gray was liquidy.

Fabric paint is pretty expensive. I'll have to figure out if it's more economical to use house paint. The only other noticeable difference when using the house paint (besides the smell) is that I needed a hammer to close the paint can vs easily closing a jar of fabric paint.

--------

Before I fell asleep last night, I was thinking about whether I was satisfied with how my May piece turned out. I'm not sure that I am. Since I have the rest of the month, I think I'll play around with it, and also ask another artist to critique it. I might do more to it in the days to come. If I make any changes, I'll post it on this blog, and I'll change the image on my websites.

House paint

I have recently been re-painting a few rooms in my house, and I have many colors of indoor house paint left over. I have a small house, and every room is painted at least one color (except my kitchen which is painted white). I decided to use these paints for my May 12 x 12 x 12 piece. Seeing that I've been painting the rooms with acrylic based paints, and that fabric paint is also acrylic based, I thought I'd give it a try. I'll post my May 12 x 12 x 12 piece, and comments about using house paint vs fabric paint, as soon as it's finished. Hopefully in a few days.

"The Uncommon Quilter"

I am very happy to announce that I am the author of the book The Uncommon Quilter: Small Art Quilts Created with Paper, Plastic, Fiber and Surface Design, which is being published by Potter Craft (Random House), and will be available in October 2007.

From January 1, 1999 to December 31, 2005, I made one small quilt a week, completing a total of 365 quilts. The purpose of this project was to play and experiment, and to give myself the time to be creative, no matter what else was going on in my life.

The Uncommon Quilter shares 52 of these small quilts, with step-by-step illustrated instructions, and what inspirated me to make each quilt. The book is divided into four chapters, Plastic, Paper, Surface Design and Fiber. There is no need to buy expensive materials when creating these quilts. Most of the materials used can be found around your home or neighborhood.

I am honored that the foreword was written by Karey Bresenhan, the Director of the International Quilt Festival, and the Author of Creative Quilting; The Journal Quilt Project.

I hope you'll visit The Uncommon Quilter website to learn more about my book.