Silk Scarves - Seductive!

I named my hand dyed silk scarf business Seductive Scarves because that is how I feel about scarves. Can't have enough of them! I love to wear scarves - they seem to make any outfit more interesting, and they also keep my neck warm. They're great for travel - bring all black and white (or gray or navy) keep wearing the same clothes, and change scarves according to the weather, the destination, or mood.

I've dyed a lot in the past two weeks, to deliver to the store where I sell them. I'm also donating one to a local fundraiser for Alzheimer's Disease. Each one is different - I can't seem to repeat myself, even if I wanted to!

They are photographed so I can share them with you, and also to remind me how I made them - sometimes notes just don't do it, or get done. I'll post more soon!

Opening night!

The opening of the National Small Art Quilt show was lovely. Very diverse art, well executed. Adrienne and Roger Smith of the Main Street Art Gallery in Groton, NY were excited and did an excellent job of curating the show. It was hot, humid and raining that night. Nonetheless, I was happy to see my work "Rising" hanging, and meet other artists.
That's me with "Dreaming" and Jayne Gaskins piece on the far right. Jayne does beautiful threadwork!
You can see from these four pieces how different all of the work is. The piece on the left is by Sandra Lauterbach from California.
The piece on the left is by Lisa Chipetine of New York, and the one on the right is by Susanne Clawson of MD. Susanne lives in Silver Spring, my old hometown.
It was a good experience to see the show, meet the gallery owners, and enjoy a relaxing weekend in the Finger Lake region of NY. I made a couple of side trips - to the Earlville Opera House for the Contemporary Art Quilt Show, and the Schweinfurth Memorial Art museum for the Nancy Crow show. It was an All Art Quilts, All the time kind of weekend! Now, to the studio for me...

Honorable Mention at Main St. Art Gallery!

Rising has received an Honorable Mention award from the Main Street Art Gallery! I am so pleased to receive the honor and look forward to seeing the show tomorrow. The opening is from 5-8 pm, and it will be a good experience to meet the gallery owners, Adrienne Bea and Roger Smith, and the other artists.

Please say hello if you are coming to the opening.

National Small Art Quilt Works

The Main Street Gallery in Groton, NY has held a juried exhibition for the past three years and I've had a piece in each year. This year, I am very honored to have had two pieces accepted.

The opening is July 24, from 5-8. I'm planning on going to the opening and beaming! The exhibit will be open thru September 5, 2010.

Thirty two fiber artists from across the United States have been selected by jurors Cathy Rosa Klimaszewski, Ames Associate Director for Programs/Curator of Education, Herbert F Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell Unviersity and Roger Smith, painter, sculptor, educator and Director of The Main Street Gallery.

Both of my pieces are fabric that I dyed, quilted and then painted. The edges are satin stitched. The stitching and painting were done intuitively and I'm pleased with them.

Above is a detail of "Dreaming".

The piece below is "Rising", and is the same size. A detail is below. Hope to see you at the opening!

July brings beauty, and the beetle

Here in the Berkshires, we celebrate the Fourth of July with a great home town parade, barbecue's, lawn games, theatre, museums, concerts, intense gardening...and the birth of the Japanese Beetles, who will plague us for about two months.

Just when my roses are blooming and full of leaves, these little shiny monsters start coming out of the grass, and feeding. They eat the leaves, the buds - anything. I pick them off by hand, and drop them into a small margarine tub of soapy water. They are the only thing I enjoy KILLING! I pray for a natural predator, but guinea hens are not a real possibility for me. My dog and cat would be their natural predators...

Here's a few photo's of the things blooming in my garden - and the before and after of a rose, who was then attacked by a beetle. This was his last few seconds of life - hope he enjoyed it.

Before major damage by the Japanese Beetle....

There he/she is - destroying this bud.

On a more prosaic note - here's a bud from a beautiful lily, soon to become the flower you see below it.

I love these white echinacea's. The complexity of the center is like popArt.

Landscaping as Art

My mind has been full of the shapes, colors, textures and seasonal interest of plants. We are replacing the plants and huge amounts of pachysandra in our front yard. Thinking about the way to design a fairly large space has had my head swimming.

There are so many similar design elements to think about that it's been interesting to figure out what to plant, and how to layer the plants. Leaf shape, height and width, deciduous or evergreen...colors - so many variables and trying to visualize the final result, is as challenging as creating art.

I haven't been in the studio because I've been reading books about landscaping, visiting nurseries and friends' gardens, and dealing with living in Zone 4-5 and the plants that will grow here. The first decisions have been made and they start planting tomorrow...I'll post some before and after photo's soon. If you have a favorite plant, shrub, grass or perennial, let me know. The Old English Roses are a sure thing!

Shibori, explored

The Shibori class was wonderful. Jan is a very patient and helpful teacher, and there were other students with lots of experience. Seeing other students create their work speeds up the learning process - and adds to the inspiration. Dyeing is similar to what printing photograph's used to be for me. You put something in a tray/bucket, and after a bit of time, find something wonderful developing under your hands.

If you like the looks of this work, I recommend taking a class with Jan Myers Newbury. Her workshop schedule is here: http://www.janmyersnewbury.com/Jan_Myers-Newbury/Home.html And any chance you get to see her work, run, don't walk! Although making the fabric is intriguing, and joyful, using it in a composition is a challenge. Cutting into it feels like torture - unless you know you can make more.

This piece was done on a pole, and twisted in opposite directions. That's how you get that nice "V" shape.

Underpainted, folded in half, and put on a pole on the diagonal. Making these is so much fun because it's so exciting to see what comes out of the dye bath.
This is a close up of the one above. Love those shapes and colors, and wish I could do them on purpose...they're accidental so I may never make them again.
This was underpainted too, folded, and then clamped with two sizes of circles...pretty cool, huh?
This was underpainted, put on a pole and scrunched down with wrinkles in it... I want to do more of these.