Exhibit at Cafe Solstice

Only 6 days until my Fiber 19 group hangs our show at the Café Solstice for the month of March. I know it’s just a café show, but we’re doing it. Our group came together last year as we took the Fiber Arts class through the U of W extension. The exhibit will be very eclectic. We all in different places art-wise in experience and commitment, our use of fiber in some way will be the only unifying part of this exhibit.



I’m continuing to make my topographical maps out of dyed burlap. The idea for the one in the exhibit started with a glimpse of a photo in a science magazine, I’m not sure what it was suppose to be, but as I recorded the image days later in my sketch book, to me it looked like a river with rocks in it. My colors again took over and in this case the river part looks like it has had some kind of bad industrial accident, so that’s why it’s called “Acid River”

Fiber 19

Groups are “interesting” (insert whatever word you feel is appropriate).

Last night I met with my fiber group. I expect it’s pretty impossible for any group to meld together perfectly, but sometimes this one has me laughing one minute and the next whacking my forehead thinking “what the..?”

We’re together because we took a nine month fiber art class last year. Like the classes before us, decided to continue to meet once a month for socializing and encouragement in our art endeavors – at least that was the idea. Going from having an instructor/ leader handing out assignments, to meeting on our own caused us to flounder at first. Socializing was the easiest thing to do, so we did a lot of that. The art making was not happening for many; they seemed to need an assignment to move forward.

I of course was appalled and disgusted with the non-art making part. I kept thinking, “we just left nine months of work, developing concepts and working in all sorts of ways with all kinds of materials, how could you not have a vision of what you want to do next? How could you not have ideas flying around in your head that you can’t wait to get to?” I had to settle down and keep reminding myself that we weren’t all in the same place; everyone has different priorities and time commitments. (But my head still does explode once in awhile with rantings of “what the..?) Time went on and the social part started to gel, so I figured socializing might be the main focus and I was ok with that.

Then someone came up with a format for our meetings; social for “x” amount of time while everyone shows up and gets settled, then the “business “part of the meeting, and then “show and tell." This gave us structure. We started from the beginning with discussions on why we were meeting and what did we want to do as a group. People started to settle into roles, we had a self-appointed “den mother” who always brought lots of food, took notes, and sent them out. We had people volunteering to look into places to exhibit – our number one mission, and others passing on information on how we could be a more professional group. As in any group, there are people who do nothing and the people that never seemed to know what is going on, but generally it’s working – and I keep telling myself we’re all in different places.

How long will the group continue? Who knows? Will it continue to serve my purposes? I’m not sure. All I know is that last night I had a lot of fun; we’re going to put an exhibit up in March one way or another. The show will be very eclectic and probably not very cohesive, but I guess that’s ok for now. I can only be responsible for my own work.

Grants and EDGE

Another Saturday with the Artist Trust’s EDGE program.

This week it was all about grants, we looked at different programs/types of grants, compared the sources we found on-line, and went over our GAP grant proposals. Our instructor went over the need to do our research to find out if a particular grant was a good fit for us, what the grant requirements were and how we should follow them exactly, no more – no less than what was asked for.

Why do we want to apply for grants? Recognition, money, support and development of your work, psychological, connections, and networking.

What type of grants are there? Nomination only, open applications, unrestricted funds and restricted funds for specific projects.

Why do these people want to give money? They want to support you, your work supports their vision/mission, and they have money, it fits their vision to support project.

So with all that in mind we went over our proposals. Because this is an Artist Trust program, we all wrote proposals for a GAP grant. We did find out that 75 – 80% of the proposal is based on the work you have already done, only about 20% on the actual words. Basically Artist Trust wants to support artists they think have promise and this grant (for up to $1,500) is to help fill in a need (like equipment, time, space, or project) to help the artist grow.

It was interesting to see what my other classmates wrote and to see how many of them really didn’t get it. They didn’t seem to read what they were suppose to do, or didn’t comprehend it and didn’t seem to understand what to ask for or how. Some didn’t feel “worthy” or what they wanted wasn’t important, or felt “funny” about asking for something for themselves. I felt the same at first, but then I to junp in, use it as practice – it was an “assignment” I didn’t really have to submit it. I was surprised at how well my proposal faired compared to the others. It at least covered all the areas needed, people seemed interested in it and it really only needed some writing help, tightening up some areas maybe making a few other things more clear. So I felt pretty good about that and who knows maybe I really will submit it.

Weft Relays

Now we’re getting into what I would call real tapestry weaving. As “The Tapestry Handbook” says; Unlike wefts that are shuttled from selvedge to selvedge, discontinuous tapestry wefts travel back and forth within the contours of the artist’s images, either touching gently in the spaces between the warps or crossing securely in some manner. These interactions between adjacent tapestry wefts affect not only the structural integrity of the textile but the style of its design interpretation.

There are a number of techniques for creating the “discontinuous wefts” that will make up your design. The first one is called “basic slit technique.” The weft yarns don’t touch each other, but simply go around the ending warp for each color. This does tend to pull the warps away from each other creating spaces between the colors; the two wefts should “kiss” each other before going their opposite directions. If you were to create long vertical slits, these would usually be stitched together on the back side for strength. If the weaving were to hang horizontal in its finished form these slits would form baggy gaps over time without the stitching.

My little weaving has spaces between all the colors. I either pulled the weft too tight around the warp, or because the wide spacing between warps (about 4 epi) is almost impossible to fill the space. I did not create any long slits, but switched color width fairly often. Although not technically correct, I kind of like the little spaces, I could see incorporating these spaces into the design.

Fiber class January meeting

Our fiber class continues to meet once a month – it’s been six months now and  half the class is still getting together. Although our bond began by seeing each other every week for 30 weeks, it is definitely strengthened as we continue to get together.

This month during the social part of our meeting we found out how one member had gone through two major surgeries in only a few months. Another gal is nursing her husband back to health after a heart attack. Plus mixed in with the “I took a really cool class in metalsmithing” and “two trees fell on my house,” we found out that two out of the ten people there had been severely bitten by dogs when they were kids – the stuff you find out.

We talked about our upcoming show during the business part of the meeting – scheduled for the month of March at Café Solstice in the University District. The details are being worked out, everyone has a task, and most people know what they’re going to create. I think we’re on a roll.

Show and tell is probably the best part of the meeting – when we can show off what we’re doing. Nikki is starting a clothing business for plus size kids. Debra had a really cool leaf print/fiber/stitched piece that had wonderful color and a translucent/transparency quality. Kaylin is almost finished with her newest quilt of purple, magenta, orange fabrics in her tree motif she has been exploring. Barb is working with paper collages and trying to incorporate a grid and transparent fabrics in it. Tre showed a loom/card weaving project she finished, a double sided twill of her own design; it’s a twill on one side, but with very subtle coloring on the other. Louise is playing with leftover Christmas package ribbon – she has a lot – right now it’s stitched together into a fluffy, curly mat, she plans on adding spears to it for our equinox/solstice theme show. I showed more of my burlap landscapes, I had one that was finished, one that was well on its way and one that was just at the start (for the show). I think they liked the fact that they could see the different steps and how it evolves.

What is tapestry?

For a brief moment I wondered what the official definition of tapestry was, so to “The Tapestry Handbook” by Carol K Russell came:

Tapestry is the interweaving of discontinuous weft yarns with tensioned warp yarn through two alternate sheds, resulting in a firm, weft-surface textile constructed concurrently with the description of its design. Taken as a whole, this definition identifies tapestry’s distinctive elements.

Uh huh, ok well fine… I knew my first little sample was not tapestry, but I wanted to see what weaving on the little toy loom was like. There are a lot of disadvantages, like hard to tension evenly, no shed to open, it was more like needle weaving, but I still think I can get the techniques down, and convenience factor was high – I could carry it anywhere.


“discontinuous weft yarns” In most hand-weaving techniques, a weft yarn is passed continuously across each row of weaving. Since the direction of the weft is reversed only at a selvedge (an outside edge), weft colors are all interchanged vertically. By contrast, tapestry technique involves several wefts in each row of weaving. Because they can be entered, deleted, or reversed at any point in the row, color can be shifted horizontally.


My little stripe weaving does not meet this criteria.

“two alternate sheds” Tapestry weave is the simplest of all woven structures, universally known as “tabby” or “plain weave” – that is, each weft is woven over and under successive warps, in opposite order to the weft preceding it.


Definitely fits this.


“weft surface textile” Horizontal rows of tightly woven weft completely cover he vertical warps and thus form the surface of the textile.


Ditto on this one.


“constructed concurrently with the description of its design” In most visual arts (painting, for instance), the artist adds an image to an existing surface (in this case, a canvas). In tapestry, however, the artist constructs the image and the surface at the same time. This last criterion helps differentiate tapestry from other types of textiles. Embroidery stitched onto a woven surface may be fiber art, but it cannot correctly be defined as tapestry, it does not form the essential structure of the textile.


Ok, there is not really any image, but it does form the “essential structure.”


My sample is a pretty weak attempt, but others will follow more fitting of the definition of “tapestry.”

Happy 2010

I started this blog to journal the year in the U of W Fiber Arts Program. After we had our final show, the blog came to an end, but with a new year I think it's time to start again.

The update on the class: some of us continue to meet once a month to see what we're up to and to give encouragement and advice. We are currently planning a show for the month of March at a cafe in the University district. There will be eleven of us participating. We started a "portfolio blog" that shows the final projects of the remaining 11 members and it gets updated whenever someone has a piece in a show somewhere.

I am going to continue to work on the burlap pieces until I get a "body of work" or feel I have taken the idea as far as I can. I think parts of this work will move forward into my next exploration, but how that will play out, I can only guess at this time. (at right; "Canyonlands," 30" x 32")

One of my goals for the year is to explore other related fiber techniques. It may include card weaving, inkle loom, kumihimo, finger weaving and learning tapestry trechniques. My thought behind this is that you never know what will spark an idea and I think it's important for me to have a variety of techniques to draw on.

Final show - Topo Map: Ridges

Two days after the class final show I was off to Bryce and Zion National Park for get-away time. It was nice to finally have a break from deadlines of work and class and only have to accomplish what was in front of you, be it sitting and looking out the window at the passing scenery, hiking up a trail, or just sitting down for a nice dinner.

Now it's time to catch up with what we all produced for the final fiber art show. I may not post all of the projects, but will put up the ones I feel will show well on the blog. Almost of these look better "in person" my cheap camera can't capture the detail many of these have.

I'll start with mine, it's called "Topo Map: Ridges" rather than go on with a long discussion, I let you read the artist statement and come to your own conclusions. The size is 48" x 30" and is made out of dyed burlap in several layers.

The detail photo shows a bit more of the 3-D aspect of the piece. The topo lines are perpendicular to the rest of the burlap. Sometimes I would cut and pull out fibers to let the layer below show and in some places I would add dyed burlap parts to the top layer to get the effect I wanted.



Artist Statement

I create maps to help people explore new places.

I grew up on a farm in the Midwest, and I feel a real kinship with the land. I like the way the machinery imposes its crop-growing grid upon the land, but I like even more the way natural features such as rivers, boulders and trees break up that grid. As a child, I’d curl up on the couch and pore over maps from around the country. What were those places like? How were they different from Minnesota? What would it be like to travel there?

When I moved to the Pacific Northwest, I saw my first topographical map and learned that all those squiggly lines show changes in elevation – what an interesting way to show information. When I flew, the view from airplane windows gave me three-dimensional information about the land. When I rode my bike cross-country and in other states, I learned first-hand about topography as I climbed mountains, battled headwinds, smelled the salt air and felt the changing weather.

Today, I make my own version of topographical maps. I see narrowly spaced multiple lines and I feel a sharply ascending mountain or a dizzying canyon; languidly spaced lines show me the open plains.

I invite the audience to explore the world as I see it. Walk over the earth’s crust, travel through canyons, peer over the edge of the crater, or feel the coolness of a forest.

My maps show more than roads.



Flying home yesterday from Phoenix we ended up going over what I think was Canyonlands National Park. I snapped a few photos from the plane (the only good reason to be on a airplane) thinking this will maybe help explain where I'm coming from.

I plan to produce more of these "maps" for awhile, exploring the idea and materials.

Group Project

For our second project spring quarter we were assigned a group project. I was not real thrilled about the idea of getting together with a group to get something done, not that I didn't want to work with a group, it was more the logistics of getting together. Plus I really wanted to save my weekends for working on my final project, gardening and bicycling. Sally and I were talking and thought maybe if we got people together that all worked downtown we could meet at lunch if we had to and leave the evenings and weekends free.



I thought of doing some kind of round-robin art where one person adds something and gives it to the next person and they work on it from there and pass it on until we run out of time or declare it finished. When we finally got a group together we brainstormed for awhile about my idea, then Sally's kite idea/skydiving and somehow ended up doing a parachute idea, maybe because Nancy said we could get little parachutes cheap at the army surplus store. I liked that idea; cheap, nothing to construct, we just needed to decorate the 'chute.



Sally volunteered to make baskets for all of us if I dyed her parachute. Hattie went shopping for the parachutes the next day and we were in business. We all had the task of finding a place to launch them from and finally ended up in the inside atrium at the Library.



We were all working on the concept of trusting in ourselves and what we had learned in class, moving on after class, growth, launching ourselves etc. Some decorated their parachutes with imagery of these items or wrote quotes or sayings on or in the basket.



Wednesday morning we gathered at the Library and let our parachutes float down from the 10th floor to the third floor. A few technical problems, but generally worked just fine. It was fun! We had a few people taking photos for us to document the event and then unfortunately we had to go to work. I think we all would have rather stayed and played with the parachutes a few more times and then gone out for coffee. Reality bites.



Project-wise I think it was good, documentation-wise trying to photograph a small moving object in questionable light in a large space made for a challenging task. Thanks for all who participated and Photoshop for its editing.

I'm in ANWG!!!

I know it's been forever since I posted... Spring is such a busy time even without school projects to work on. But...

I was notified today that I'm in the Juried Show at ANWG (Association of northwest guilds) in Spokane at the end of May. yea!!! I actually designed the piece last summer before taking the fiber arts class, so I think my stuff is more interesting now, but hey, who cares, it's a good thing.

Work on the final project is progressing, I'm pretty happy so far how it looks --- it's sort of a fantasy topographic map -- more later.

Our group project is due before that -- we're doing mini parachutes and launching them inside the Library in the atrium on Wednesday, May 20.

I feel like I'm being pulled many ways -- class projects, gardening, bike riding, getting stuff ready for the conference, plus work and day to day stuff -- somehow it will all get done... maybe.

Trail Torches - the show

Spring. It's such a great time, but even without a class to do projects for I would be busy -- more on gardening and cycling later...



My site installation went up fine, I think the neighbors and invitees like it -- or maybe it was the wine... anyway I had fun, I kind of like the idea of installation or outdoor projects.

Photos will show the work from a few different angles, enjoy.


The only annoying part was showing it to the class. I made my first ever powerpoint presentation. I thought it was beautiful, set almost perfectly to music, changing views as the music changed, had this cute little fade that introduced the project, I was really happy with it -- I stayed up till midnight just tweaking the timing and used my lunch the next day to tweak some more. Well, of course you know what happened. Technology failed me, even though I brought my own computer to plug into the AV equipment, the music didn't play until I pulled out the plug and just ran it off the laptop speakers, but by then the timing was all off. GRRRR, if I was only going to show photos I could have went to bed at a reasonable hour and not worried the whole thing. I just really got into the whole powerpoint thing and wanted to show my project off the best I could.



GRRRR, never trust technology, maybe that's why I weave and ride a bike.

Trail Torches

I did my art installation piece on Sunday, invites some friends and neighbors to view the work and basically have a party. Never underestimate the power of wine and food to get more favorable reviews from the masses. Generally people liked what they saw, one person said it looked like a sunset.



I'll show a few of the beginning photos and follow up soon with a few more. The first ones will be some arty shots of the pieces I was working with and then me beginning to install it on the lawn.

I'm backkkk

Back from a trip to Minnesota. What to say.... Had a nice time, but I guess now it's back to work. For school we're stilll looking for a place to have the end-of-quarter show after the place we were going to use is becoming a pizza resturant. I guess we'll all meet on Tuesday with what we know about the different spaces and make a decision of where it will be...

I finished my simple inkle weave while in Minnesota, don't know what I'm going to do with it, but it was an interesting project in a technique I had never touched. I feel it's kind of limited, but may be just the mindless thing to keep the hands busy at times.

My Mom is a quilter and while visiting her, we did some shopping for quilt materials. I kind of got caught up in what she was doing and announced that I would make a quilt --- what was I thinking? The quilt in my head would be fun to have and know one else will make it for me... It will probably be the only quilt I ever make, so I better do a good job. I have also told everyone it will take me 20 years, so that should take some of the presure off.

Gotta get going on the install details of my school project, I need to show it this weekends so I can present it next Tuesday -- where will the time come from?

Grrrr

I've basically have all the pieces for my installation project ready to go for when I get back from my trip. I wanted to put it along side the Sammamish Trail in one of the Redmond parks. Preferring to do this legally I contacted the Parks department, found out who to talk to and ended up sending the art person an e-mail with all the information I could (explanation of the project, the idea, and a little bit about myself; projected size; map of where I wanted it to be; and a photo of some of the pieces). As in true bureaucratic fashion she wanted to meet and discuss the whole thing. I'm not sure what more I could tell her, but I told her I was going to be gone for the next week, but was available any time the week after. The install was also going to be on Saturday instead of Tuesday as I mistakenly said in my first e-mail. Well, she fired back an e-mail and said there was not enough time to get together to plan and discuss this project, so the whole thing was off.

This was a temporary install, only for 6 hours, like somebody having a long picnic -- did she expect mobs of people to crowd the trail? It was a student project, I would have been lucky if someone stopped long enough to give me a polite comment of "interesting" (also known as the death comment.)

Since I don't have a lot of time to deal with this anymore, I will probably end up putting it up in the common space at the complex and invite the neighbors.

Site Specific Installation

We're back in school working on our first project - a site specific installation.



I'm liking this idea, after doing the final project last quarter I made something large enough to walk around,found it to be an interesting experience and wanted to try it again. I'm wondering how installation artists get started showing, seems like no gallery would want to show it because it can't hang on a wall of fit in a normal space... something more to investigate.



The assignment we got was: "Find a public space of significance to you and create an object for that space that communicates this significance to others. Your object must remain in this space for at least 6 hours. Document your ideas behind this work, your process in making it, as well as the object in its’intended space."



I thought this sounded pretty cool, so I picked out an idea I had sketched -- something smaller that I thought I could finish in a short amount of time because I would be out of town and missing a week of class and two weekends -- prime work time.


I got right to work, getting supplies and cutting last quarter's project into pieces to reuse for this one. I also was trying out this polymer stuff, GAC-400 which was suppose to make fabric ridged. I wanted to make these cones and I wanted them to be able to stand upright.



The photos are of me dyeing the burlap and applying the GAC-400. The burlap really sucked up the stuff and at $10 a 8 oz. bottle, there was no way I wanted to spend over $200 just on that stuff for a school project. I remembered that when I brushed on elmers glue thinned with water the fabric got fairly stiff, so I decided to mix the two, and add some water and stretch out the good stuff.



I wrapped the glue saturated burlap around cones on forms I made out of paper and cardboard covered with plastic so it wouldn't stick. The ones made with the thinned out GAC and glue weren't as sturdy as the pure GAC ones, but seems to work well enough.

The last photo is the burlap shapes drying outside in the driveway -- more for the neighbors to wonder about.

More on what this is all about later.

Spring Quarter

I can’t believe it’s been almost a week since we started class.

During the first class I quickly read through our syllabus and got totally confused, it just seemed like there was so much stuff! Reading again it turns out we really only have three projects to do but there are a whole bunch of other reading and writing tasks. I decided the only way I could really make sense of what I had to do when, was to draw it all out on a calendar with all the due dates and when I would be out of town. The visual reference helps me to show myself that I really can get it all done.

This quarter we will again be working on conceptual strategies, but also be learning the professional practices of being an artist -- how to show our work, approaching galleries, writing grants, artist statement and resumes. Our creative projects are fewer than the other quarters and will include a public art installation, a group project and our final show piece. I think the public art piece will be the tough one for me because I will be out of town for a week including both weekends -– prime work time.

I’m not really wild about the group project (I’m remembering those disasters from high school) plus we all live a fair distance from each other and most work full time jobs, so coordination will probably be difficult. Hopefully we can think of something simple and most of the work can be done on our own.

I think everyone is pretty excited about our final show and want to do projects for that, but we will have a size restriction because the show space is fairly small. We are to continue developing a concept we started in a previous class and take it farther rather than fall back on something safe that we all ready know how to do. We will also form committees for this to divide up the work of putting on a show.

Photo above is showing the very beginnings of my installation project. I needed to get going on it immediately because I;m going to be out of town next week. I'll have more on this soon.

2nd Quarter Project - Louise

"Untitled"
Ideas - Concept - Plan - Strategy
Hand, one side = realitic, the other side = energy.

2nd quarter final project - Janice

"Headress for looking inward"

2nd quarter final project - Debra

"Tarnished"
As life progresses, we become more tarnished.
Copper, wire mesh on a gray velvet fabric background.

2nd quarter final project - Kaylin

"Red Scarf #1"
Machine stitched grid on a wash-away substrate, fringe and beads added.