Textile Art & Fine Craft
Three handcrafted wooden stools work in our home. Today they tell me to choose a summer that is a mix of work and rest. I struggle to overcome pandemic inertia; canceled events cleared the calendar of interaction but I have commissions to complete. The white stool was made by my grandfather when I was a … Continue reading Summer Solstice: Three Simple Stools
Custom work filled many summer days at the studio this year. Completed projects are now delivered. Before I completely shift into next season's work, my hands and mind are revisiting techniques and tools: a bit like a family reunion. Grandma Alice showed me how to tie quilts when I was a teenager. My fingers readily … Continue reading Joy of Making: Knots
My fabric career spans decades, serving clients from Hawaii to Puerto Rico. I have worked on the dining table, in a spacious bedroom, down in the basement, and from the kitchen counter. Soon I will practice in a studio made just for me! Originally a two-part wooden door opened to the work bench / potting shed of … Continue reading Create A Space For Creating
I use different scissors for different tasks in the studio just as I use a variety of knives in the kitchen. Practice informs me which tool works best for a particular task. Experimentation increases the scope of usefulness for each tool I own. Recently, I have begun to regard my screen images as tools. This set … Continue reading Hone: Knowing And Maintaining A Tool
I led my first dyeing workshop this month. 10 good women braved a cold night to gather in a pottery studio to put their hands and minds to dyeing silk scarves. After I demonstrated three fold and tie patterns, each participant received a scarf to manipulate and then color. Here are their results. I discovered … Continue reading 3 Patterns, 7 Colors, and 10 Women
In the beginning.......God created.......In the beginning........was the Word...... In the beginning of 2016, I stalled out. In the midst of stacks of fabrics, committed projects, commissioned work, beckoning ideas, and pots of paint, I struggled to create a plan and to write a schedule that would contain and direct all these good things. The elements … Continue reading The Beginning is Not The Starting Point
Both of these photos appeared on our fibergig Facebook timeline in September. Viewers commented that the products were quite disparate. Perhaps not many studios create a runway garment and a spiritual mural in the same summer. Actually, I use the same techniques to create all of my work. Often the role of the work itself is … Continue reading Playing The Counter-Melody
The sewing machine or a pair of scissors are often the tools first associated with my art practice. But it is the iron that is used most frequently and consistently. When I am working well, focused on what is before me and its purpose, it is the iron that guides me into good evaluation. Fabric … Continue reading Bring On The Heat
Occasionally my work returns to me for an adjustment or repair. The chasubles made for the chapel at The Village at Orchard Ridge were lined in slippery fabric, so that they hang away from the pastor's alb. The Chaplin reported that they slipped backward during worship, becoming uncomfortable. We devised a solution of cotton … Continue reading A Chasuble Returns to the Studio
My local fabric art guild does a monthly study on a given topic. "Sky" was a prompt recently. Avoiding blue, I chose black polyester organza screen printed with a bit of gray. I cut and applied abstract shapes from hand dyed and painted fabrics for clouds and lightning. Then I was stumped on rain. I … Continue reading Rain Maker