This piece, Lost and Found--Legend of the Red-Tailed Hawk, has been accepted, along with Calzada Sunset (see last blog entry), into the SAQA Regional Showcase at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts (San Diego) during the month of January 2013.  The title of the show is "Creative Inspiration", and my inspiration for both of these pieces is the Santa Ynez Valley--the mountains, the wildlife, the colors.  Fibervision artists and other SAQA friends will also have work in this show, so this is going to be an exciting exhibit!  Now I must get busy and construct the sleeve, etc., on the back of this piece so it can be hung for the show.  Robert and I traveled constantly during the months of October and November, and were home only a few days.  I am so far behind!  Also, my conceptual drawing for the Chaine des Rotisseur, Santa Barbara - Ojai chapter, pin was selected.  I need to do the final drawings for that this week!  Time to get crackin'!

Calzada Sunset

This piece will be shown along with pieces by my fellow Fibervision artists this weekend at the Coastal Quilters' Group quilt show.  The CQG will be featuring a special contemporary fiber art exhibit by Fibervision.  The show will be at the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  I hope if you are in the Santa Barbara area you will have a chance to stop by and see the incredible pieces that will be exhibited.

 Yesterday I bought a new jim-dandy Manfrotto tripod with a head that is so solid and smooth, I can't believe I was using my rickety old tripod for so long!  I highly recommend the brand to anyone in the market for new equipment. I also purchased an electronic remote for the camera, which I knew I needed, but just never did get around to purchasing.  I have new Tungsten lighting on order, which should arrive next week.  But even without the new lighting (after having my husband give me a few lessons with the camera and "objective lens") I took these photos of my most recent work, Sunlight on Water.

The fabric is white Kona cotton which I hand-dyed, and Shibori dyed, with reactive dyes.  As soon as they came out of the dye bath I knew they were "water", so I pieced and appliqued them in a way that I felt looked like an impression of rippling water with the sun hitting the surface. The fan seaweeds were screened, using flour paste resist, and like my last piece, etched with a bamboo skewer. I used the gold printing ink left over from Jane Dunnewold's Tahoe workshop.  I drew the corals onto freezer paper, then meticulously cut them out with an Exacto knife.  I ironed the waxed side to my screen and printed using Stewart Gill Metamica paints.  The grassy seaweed is a pewtery green printing ink.  The entire piece is free-motion quilted.

The detail shows the quilting around each seaweed leaf and around all the corals.  Different colors were used on the "water" to correspond to the varying colors from the Shibori process.  The piece is 23"X27" and I will probably use this as one of my Fibervision exhibit pieces.

I am almost finished with a 12X12 for the Fibervision Embellishment Challenge, and will be posting that one in a few days.

 This piece, Pulsar, was my first large piece using a discharge technique. The fabric is black Kona cotton.  I really liked the rusts and creams that resulted from discharging twice.  The discharged portions are highlighted using metallic oil paintsticks and a flat brush.  The "star" portion of the pulsar is screened with a flour paste resist on the screen, and the pattern etched out of the dried paste with a bamboo skewer.  The entire piece is free-motion quilted, and the quilting can be seen better in the detail photo.

I continue to struggle with my photography skills, and tomorrow I am going to the camera store in Santa Barbara to purchase a sturdier tripod than the one I am now using.  Mine is very difficult to get level, and I have to hold the camera in place while focusing--which defeats the purpose of even using a tripod.  My resulting photos always appear "warped", even though they are perfectly squared up.  I am also looking into getting better lighting.  I would love to take a class in photographing artwork, and am hoping Kerby Smith or one of the other really fine photographers will offer a class somewhere in the area.  Once I re-take the photos I will post the new works to my website. 

I was recently invited to join Fibervision, a fiber artists' collaborative on the Central Coast, limited to twenty-five members.  It is such an honor to be working among such fine artists, and I am inspired each time we meet and share current works.  Artwork by the "Visionaries" will be exhibited in several upcoming venues, and I will post details once we are closer to the exhibition dates.

Over and Out for now!

It has been such a long time since I have posted to my blog that I have a number of pieces that should be included here. We have been internet challenged on our property, and finally have a new service provider that allows us to have download and upload capabilities that are more consistent with the needs of normal human beings.  I will get to most of the newer pieces over the next few weeks.  This trilogy is called "Primary Colors".  The pieces are hand-dyed silks and cottons, and incorporate simple screened and hand-painted designs that allow the relationships of the bold colors to dominate the visual impact of the installation.  Each is free-motion quilted in a different pattern that empasizes the screened design of the individual piece.

Here you can see the detail of the stitching, which repeats the circular pattern of the screened print. Both "Blue" and "Yellow" have similarly stitched designs in geometric patterns emulating the bars and lines in those two pieces.  More to come!