Textile Art & Fine Craft
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
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
The conversion of garage to art studio began this week. I tiptoed upstairs to see the progress during lunch. The framing confirms that I like my plans; it assures me that the end results will work. The craftsmanship also informs me about my own work. I have been complimented over my years of custom sewing, … Continue reading Origins Of A Crisp Finish
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
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
Today marks the 2/3 point of CreativeSprint. I agreed to try this practice because my assertive younger sister told me I needed to loosen up about sharing work that is either incomplete or just nor very good. Ouch. It does take the magic out of the practice of art. It also makes me more aware … Continue reading Practice And Collaboration
CreativeSprint prompts me to open a drawer and make something with the contents. Bold circles, a little black mat, and a few minutes of pleasure start my creative day.
Creativity: CreativeSprint's prompt on day 8 instructs me to flip to a random page in a book at hand and make something inspired by the first sentence you read. Irony: the sentence is "Marry well," which I did less than 6 months ago. The IRS? As I cut out the rings for N and … Continue reading Creativity, Irony, and the IRS
Today's email read: use your non-dominant hand. I decided to see how well I could cut a fused fabric spiral with my shears design for either hand. But in the scrap bin, I found a piece with a hand cut out of it. I not too skillfully trimmed the fabric. Placing it on the background … Continue reading Sinister Assignment