Studio Frenzy

Slow cloth is slowly progressing. Just need to fill in the top left side. It's got more shisha, a couched piece of copper, and a lot more seeding. I like how the circular stitched shapes at the bottom echo the shisha. I want to do these more and more. We'll see where it goes.
I finally started my Woodford Mansion piece!!!!!!!!!!
After lots of idea gathering, including a trip to the mansion, a morning sketching at the Wagner Free Institute, and some Google Map searching, I've got a plan.

The Google Maps of the site, I sketched out and simplified and that gave me a quilt-like piecing structure. I gathered various white fabrics ranging from silk to cotton and including an old damask embroidered tablerunner, Ikea napkins, and painting canvas. The more lustrous fabrics are at the top of the piece and the rougher fabrics are at the bottom. One of the things that the tour guide kept stressing about Woodford was how the architecture of the building reinforced class status. So I wanted the same feeling in the fabrics.

The piecing is representative of the street map. The major curve is supposed to be Ridge Ave and the large block top left is Fairmount Park. Serendipity! The embroidered "S" on the table runner falls right where Strawberry Hill Mansion would be on the map! Note how big this piece is!!! It's currently 3x4 feet. Making it the largest embroidered piece I've ever made! Craziness considering I only have one month to finish this puppy. The next step is to embroider the Stair Elevation Drawing onto the piece. Once again, the stairs reinforce the class structure. These are the "Main" stairs. A second twisty staircase is built and hidden right next to it.

The Last step will be to get the robins and Eagles on there. The Robins will be top right and the Eagle will be bottom left. Robin Redbreast will represent the Brits and the Eagle is for the Americans signifying the house as a key location in the Revolutionary War. I may stick some words in there- Tory/Loyalist and Rebel/Patriot. We'll see what time allows.

Remember these? The image above shows the latest completed parts. That lattice on the right one kept me up till 4 in the morning one night cause I couldn't bear to put it down. Practice for grad school all-nighters!!

Here's the whole thing so far, and then below are the pieces for the applique on the next section. The hard thing for me is to interrupt work on one piece to start working on another for a deadline. I usually can only work on one piece at the same time. I have a great fear of UFO's.

Wow that's a lot of work going on at once!! Thankfully I've had a calm, open week with no other jobs to worry about. The next 2 weeks I'm teaching mornings at a camp in Northern Liberties.

Very good art week!