Smelly but beautiful

 My Stitch and Surface class tried out bleach gel pens for their surface design technique this semester. First we dyed fabrics black and navy. Then this week we all brought clorox gel pens to experiment with bleaching.

 We opened up the windows and I set up a fan to ventilate, but it was a cold night for that!! Some people drew directly with the pen-tip built into the bottle design. Other brought along sponge and rubber stamps to try printing with the bleach gel.

The variety of colors and marks were interesting. One has to work a bit fast with bleach gel, because it should be neutralized shortly after the color begins to change.
I wonder what these marks and fabrics will lead to over the rest of the semester!

A week of workshops

I arrived back home and then jumped right into teaching a week of Stitch and Surface summer intensive. I had a lovely group of ladies, including some familiar faces and some fellow elementary art teachers, so we had a great time learning and chatting. Sadly I didn't take a single picture!! However, I can share the samples I made instead. we started off with an easy symbolic stitch sampler, experimenting with new stitches on a personalized shape. We did a smattering of shibori experiments including pole wrapping and clamping. We tried gel medium photo transfer on fabric. And we created a 4x6 fabric postcard using a variety of the fabrics that had been created over the week.

I'm not a big fan of adhesives in fiber art. However, I knew a number of the students were collage and mixed media afficionados, so we tried gel transfers to create a photographic image on fabric. The trick is to paint a layer or 2 of acrylic medium onto a color photocopy and press and smooth it onto fabric just after painting out the last layer. We let them dry overnight, and then dampened and scrubbed off the paper to reveal the image adhered to the fabric. This technique does reverse images, so text is reversed, but I kind of like how that altered my graffiti transfer above. I think this technique would work better on a wood surface. However, it was interesting to have a different surface to work on in stitch. In fact, I may do more fabric postcards using the transfer technique..

 My fabric postcard was inspired by my Montana trip, of course. I used my arashi shibori sample as a background layer and then showed everyone how to use fusible web with fabric scraps to design a composition. Finally I embellished the surface with some straight stitches, feather stitch, buttonhole, and satin stitch. I was planning to put in "O Montana" in the sky, but the O looked so much like a moon, which made the sky look like aurora borealis, that I just left it. Finally I demonstrated how to bind the edges with some double folded bias tape, which framed it quite nicely.

Although this fabric postcard could probably be sent as is through the mail, I decided to protect it with a custom-made envelope cut from a brown paper bag. It's headed back to Montana as a thank you!

Fabulous Fiber at Fleisher!

 It was a lovely week for some screenprinting on fabric at Fleisher. In my last class, one student completed dye printing her cherry blossom handkerchiefs (below) for her wedding reception. I snuck back on Monday to spend some time on my own work, and printed some text on a length of linen in preparation for a Good Friday project in Norris Square. We have a little break between sessions right now.

However, the new semester is creeping up quickly! I need some more students to register for Silkscreen on fabric (Saturdays 9-12) and for Stitch and Surface (Thursday nights 6:30-9:30) for the classes to run.
In Silkscreen on fabric we learn how to:
- create a stencil on the screen in both photo process and hand drawn techniques
-how to print in both dyes and inks
-how to design motifs and repeats
Past silkscreen on fabric students have printed on T-shirts, aprons, hand towels, handkerchiefs, pillowcases, and fabric yardage for making stuffed animals, garments, and fiber art. This course is open to all levels of experience, from introductory to advanced, and has only 8 students for an intimate studio experience.

In Stitch and Surface this semester we will:
-create a "Band Sampler" to learn a variety of embroidery stitches
-create our own easycut stamps for printing on fabric, inspired by Adinkra stamping
-do a collaborative fabric challenge to see what each student can do inspired by the same piece of fabric
-experiment with mixed media fabric collage
Stitch and Surface is open to all levels of interest and experience in fiber art, from "never-picked-up-a-needle-before" to "been-stitching-since-I-was-5", and has a maximum of 14 students for plenty of one-on-one instruction.

Please visit www.fleisher.org for registration either online or over the phone. Act 48 credit is available for educators. I hope you'll join me for an adventure in fiber art!

Stitch and Surface Wrap-up, Fall 2012 edition

It's been a few weeks now since it ended, but this past semester of Stitch and Surface at Fleisher was truly remarkable. I had some returning students, some trained artists, several art teachers, and some stitch enthusiasts, and they all were bursting with creativity. Plus, once again we were an all female crew, making it a relaxing and sometimes raucous stitch-and-bitch. Heads would pop in from the class across the hall wondering what was going on with all our laughter!

 Everyone made a reverse applique needle book cover in felt as a stitch sampler introduction project. Shapes were cut out of one felt piece, then the "holey" piece was layered over another color, and stitched were done through both layers. When complete, the edges were blanket-stitched, and a blank piece of felt was seamed down the center to make the book. Some chose to add a closure loop or tie.

 Our major project was a stitched self-portrait. We tried out painting with walnut ink as a surface technique. One artist used the walnut ink for a portrait, which was transformed into a portrait of her mother. The piece above incorporated couched dreadlocks, feathers, and cowrie shells, and has intensely colored hazel eyes that are riveting. The artist, Robin Turnage, is a fellow faculty member at Fleisher and a former Leeway Grant recipient.

 Alia's larger-than life-size portrait was very ambitious, and has a more linear approach.

 Best friends for more than 20 years, Nan and Pat decided to each do their own version of a photograph of themselves from college with their mouths stuffed with grapes. It's fun to see how color, pattern, and texture can make an image so different.

 Our final project was a paper stitchery. I demonstrated how to stitch on paper with the picture at the bottom right. I found a painting of a schoolteacher by Winslow Homer in an art magazine, cut it out and glued it onto watercolor paper in order to have a stiffer surface to stitch upon. By pre-piercing the holes it's easy to add embroidery to any image on paper. In the center below, one student found a reproduction of a photo of John Brown and added a red halo or horns depending on how you look at it. And to the left, another student printed out a picture of "The Dude", and added text and completely embellished sunglasses. I really like this doubling of the appropriation tradition of embroidery. It's not just copying a pattern, it's borrowing and adding to another image to make it one's own.

I love my new "embroidery schoolteacher" stitched paper picture ala Homer.
Next semester I hope to do a letter sampler, a whitework valentine, a dye painted landscape, and maybe even some fiber ATC's. If you'd like to join me for an adventure in Fiber Arts visit Fleisher to register now for Winter classes starting January 10. Stitch and Surface runs for 10 weeks on Thursday nights from 6:30-9:30. Hope you'll join me!

Come learn with me!

It's that time again! Registration for Fall classes at Fleisher are now open. I'm offering Stitch and Surface on Wednesday evenings from 6:30-9:30. This semester I'm planning on doing a needle book sampler, painting/printing with walnut ink on fabric, and a portrait embroidery.
I'm also offering Silkscreen on Fabric on Saturday mornings from 9-12, where you can learn how to get pattern and motifs onto fabric in both ink and dye. There's only a few spots remaining, so hop over here to register ASAP!

In the studios

I started to post something earlier, and Google told me my photo storage was maxed out =(. I've gone through and purged some old photos to free up some space. I also put together a small photo book on Blurb from some of my archives on here.
The past week was very busy as it was my last week of day classes at Fleisher for the summer. Here's a glimpse of some things coming out of the studios:

some gorgeous clamp shibori from my Monday  night shibori class

setacolor sunprints form my week-long summer intensive Stitch and Surface class

Joan's portfolio collage from Wednesday's self portrait class



Mural ribbon-cutting with the teens at Houston Center

I've got one last class for my shibori and self-portrait classes next week, then a little break from Fleisher till mid-September. The next 2 weeks will find me running performing and visual arts camps in Northern Liberties, while simultaneously trying to prep for the beginning of the school year! I can't believe how fast the summer has flown by!

Get your creativity on! Summer classes available!

Summer is an excellent time to give yourself a creative vacation! Summer classes for adults at Fleisher include 6-week classes that meet once a week and one-week long intensives that meet 5 days in a row.

I'm offering both options this summer and the best thing is classes are truly affordable! Here's a sneak peak at some things you can learn with me:

SHIBORI DYEING: this 6-week long class will cover several techniques for resist-dyeing cloth inspired by Japanese traditions. Techniques will include binding, stitching, clamping, and pole-wrapping to get various marks on fabric.You can dye yardage, make motif fabric panels, or dye your own clothing such as scarves and shirts. If time allows we will also learn a few sashiko quilting patterns to combine our shibori-dyed fabrics into a functional or artistic quilt! This class meets Mondays from 6:30-9:30 pm. July 9th-Aug 13.

EXPERIMENTS WITH SELF-PORTRAITURE: this 6-week long class meets Wednesdays from 6:30-9:30 July 11-Aug 15. This mixed media class will explore many forms of self-portraiture, from traditional compositions to symbolic representations to help creative individuals learn more about themselves through art-making.  We will look through the lenses of family, history, emotion, and daily experience to express our perceptions of the self. Media may include drawing, painting (water-based media), and collage depending on your personal preferences.

STITCH AND SURFACE: this one week intensive meets Monday-Friday 10 am to 1 pm August 6th-10th. We will expand our stitch vocabulary with a doodle sampler, experiment with frottage for getting color/texture on fabric, and create an embroidered image with the theme of Memory/Memorial.

Registration is open online at http://www.fleisher.org/workshops/adults.php Sign up soon to ensure that classes will run! Invite a friend or relative to take a class with you!



"In a War"- Off to Denmark

I wish it were me off to Denmark, but instead it's some artwork. Here are 2 finished pieces for Hanne Bang's call for handkerchiefs embroidered with the text, "In a war, someone has to die". Mine is the black and white piece on the right, and one of my Stitch and Surface students, Anjeanette, prepared the one in green and white on the left:

 I don't personally know anyone who has died in war, but 5 of my family members have served in military forces in times of war. I'm awfully glad it was never their turn to be the "Someone".

 

 I love the "people" font I found for the word "Someone", for in the "S" is an adult reaching toward a child, in the "M" are two swordsmen fighting, in the "O" are another 2 men interacting, and in the "E" is a despondent seated figure. They were incredibly fiddly to stitch!

 Anjeanette used loosely satin-stitched block letters throughout, but placed them so perfectly in the negative space of the green handkerchief, that it creates great contrast to the soft floral.

 We've been working on a text piece in class, and one of the things discussed was how font, scale, and color can add meaning to whatever words are used.

Here are some links to some other individuals I've seen who are also participating:

Kjersti Faret

Olisa Corcoran

Thrifty Finn

 Ansie

Jeanette Nord

and the project facebook page showing many more

Stitch and Surface Roundup Winter 2012

I had the pleasure of working with a wonderfully talented group of Stitch and Surface students this past 10 weeks of the Winter 2012 session at Fleisher. Thursday was our last class, and as usual, I asked students to bring back everything they worked on over the semester for a little critique. Here are some things form our design wall:

Catherine appliqued her mandala to a border pattern fabric and will complete it with a square of algerian eye. The cretan stitch used to applique is beautiful.

 The sampler mandala project was a big hit. Starting with a button center, each new stitch learned became a new ring in the mandala. Every week over the semester I taught 2-3 new stitches. So they weren't complete until the last class.

Ashante's became a spiral. I love the blue seeding behind the orange algerian eyes.

Quincy actually made 2! She may make more and start a quilt.

Our second project coincided with Valentine's day. I provided a simple heart quilt block pattern to use as a base, but some students branched off into their own designs.

Ashante is an accomplished quilter, but shisha stitch and embroidery are inspiring new ideas.

Catharine successfully pieced, appliqued, and embellished a variety of commercial fabrics, and turned the skeleton characters into avatars for herself and her spouse.

 After an interlude of block printing with our home-made foam stamps, students launched into individual projects.

Quincy completed a fascinating cloth book of "colors" for a baby gift and began an embroidered alphabet quilt. She found a typography alphabet pattern, and enlarged. transferred,  and personalized the letters.

Gerard started this text piece in a  previous class, and added a screenprinted frame. This sparked a series of silkscreen frame/embroidered text pieces.

Catharine used her printed fabric as a background for this plankton-inspired piece. A border of appliqued colored organza  frames a pool of 3 plankton. Two of them are stitched onto the printed cloth, then an organza piece was overlaid, and a 3rd plankton is being stitched on top.

Lucky for me, I know some students are returning for another session in the Spring! I think we'll be doing a group screenprint to start off a sampler, a text piece, and a sculptural surface (with pleats, trapunto, gathers, etc.) If you are interested in joining me for an adventure in fiber, there are still a few spots left for the Spring semester. Visit http://www.fleisher.org/ for registration.

Super week of printmaking on fabric!

Both my Stitch and Surface class and Silkscreen on Fabric class at Fleisher produced a huge quantity of printed fabrics this week.

 My Silkscreeners got to be guinea pigs as I attempted to teach deconstructed dye printing. I was inspired by artist Dianne Koppisch Hricko to try this out. Last week I mixed up some sodium alginate, we added dye, and then painted or texturized the screens with dye paste. My crew really like image more than pattern, so they were more like monoprints, but one person attempted a repeat (above), while others just printed their images twice.

 In the boat print above the left image was printed first and the right image was printed second after doing a flood stroke and letting the brown dye moisten a bit. In the tree image below, the right side was printed first, then the left. The beauty of deconstructed dye print is that the dye applied to the screen first and left to dry acts as a resist at first, but then as the dye moistens it breaks down and becomes printed as well. Some people went back in with some color to connect a repeat or unify an image.

 Below is the screen after it was printed, showing only remnants of the "tree" painting that was on it at first. Another thing I LOVE about dye printing like this is that you can leave the dye in the screen to dry and still be able to wash it out- can't do that with pigment ink without ruining your screens!!! The only thing I'm concerned about is that my sodium alginate print paste mixture might be too thin, and our soda soaked fabric might not take the dye as well as I hope. We don't have a steamer, so we're batching the dye.

 My stitch and surface class got to do their "surface design" technique this week. I brought in some weatherstripping adhesive foam and we created our own stamps with it.

 Some people used wood blocks, others balsa wood rectangles, and others cardboard squares. Some people brought in adhesive backed craft foam to use as well, which allowed them to cut out motifs instead of just using the rectilinear weatherstripping.

 We rolled fabric paint out onto plexiglass plates, then used the brayer to apply paint on the block. I hauled our fabric printing boards up from the silkscreen studio so we would have a soft surface to press into.

 There was great experimentation with repeating and overlapping:

 Some people explored color shifts and printing over pre-existing patterns:

 The metallic fabric paints look fabulous:

 Once block-printing was finished, a few students even tried out monoprinting by placing strings over the rolled out inks on the plexi plates:

I loved introducing my students to all these easy printmaking techniques. You can do so much with very little equipment or supplies. As I have some teachers in the group, I hope they'll be inspired to try these out with kids as well. (Well, maybe not the dye stuff, but definitely the block printing!!)

PS: my birthday was this week, and to have this much fabulousness going on in my classrooms was a great present!

sampler mandala, or 3 birds with 1 stone

My Stitch and Surface class began last week at Fleisher, and I launched my students off with a mandala sampler project. This idea is very simple: start with a button or bead in the center, and then complete a ring for each stitch you want to practice. The hard part is keeping the circles circular! Below is a scan and photoshop manipulation of a 6 inch mandala sampler I stitched this week as an example (bird #1):

 The stitches from the center outwards are: eyelet, french knots, running, chain, whipped backstitch, french knots, buttonhole, lazy daisy, stem, twisted chain, french knots, herringbone, chevron, straight, fly, french knots, and interlaced running.
I made the photoshop manipulation so that I could transfer the image to a screen to print as a motif. Next week my Silkscreen on Fabric students will be doing a motif printing project, and I thought this could be printed out as a pre-printed sampler for someone to stitch over (bird #2).
I also thought this motif could be put into repeat, so I played a little more:

In March I will be participating in an exhibit called "Not a Stitch" which will have works that contain textile-inspired imagery, but which are not themselves stitched. I think I might have found the project I want to do for it! This would be printed in repeat and would reference both embroidery and fabric design (bird #3). The tough decision will be whether to print it on fabric or on paper....

Stitch and Surface Fall 2011 wrap-up

Another semester has come and gone over at Fleisher. I really enjoyed working with my Stitch and Surface students, who were quite a creative group. They included 2 of my former students and a member of the Fleisher staff, as well as several women with a more formal artistic/design background. Here's a glimpse at our final night crit wall:

 The dress piece in the center by Glynnis may be the most ambitious (scale-wise) piece any of my students have ever attempted. She began with some thrift-store remnants including a rather interesting patchwork dress of various tribal prints. I helped her baste it onto a backing cloth, and she's been steadily stitching away for several weeks.

 I wasn't sure where Lisa's piece was going for a while as at first it just seemed a random collection of motifs on the rust-printed fabric. However it suddenly made sense as she added in the vignettes containing laser-cut rubber motifs of the plane, scooter, and dog and began the meandering path at left that started connecting all the elements. It became a narrative of travel, love,  and life with the base fabric's rust adding a sense of age and nostalgia.

 Sandee played around with found textiles to create this peacock fiber collage. She built off of the bleach-drawing fabric we made in class and combined it with a bird print and a piece of commercially chain-stitched and sequined floral applique. The best part is the variety of stitches she used to embellish the bird and the real feather that tops it off.

 Shelby has a small art quilt ready for binding (at right). She combined a rust dyed cotton print background with rusted canvas, lace, embroidery, and found objects (the iron that started the rusting!). It's subtle in color but rich in textures, and again has a an aged, nostalgic look. Her piece on the left is the foundation for a beaded piece. I love the rich complementary contrast of the orange wool and blue cotton. She began experimenting with surface by slicing the wool and weaving strips over into the blue. I like how it breaks the diptych-like boundary.

 Kara loved the circular hoop format! Her compositions grew organically and intuitively, combining found textiles and tons of beading. She has a playful style, and exclaimed during our crit how stitching has been such a stress reliever! We could all use a hoop of fabric as a playground for imagination.

 Brenda wowed me on the last night by bringing in a piece she'd been working on at home that used all the stitches she had learned all semester. It's a sampler piece entitled "creative embellishment" at the top. This central fabric is a piece of batik she created with my Fleisher colleague Nikki Virbitsky. She attached it to a foundation/border of Kente cloth inspired-print, and even used some reverse applique technique, cutting away the interior negative space of some of her batik motifs. I love how this piece combines work from 2 of our fiber courses and shows a lot of stitch exploration.

 I was so excited watching Sarina'a button mosaic grow. I like the slow shift of value and hint of color that flows over the buttons, especially how they pick up some of the teal of her background cloth. This was a great example of how shifting the scale of a thread or bead can have a dramatic impact (and make a piece go faster!).

I leave you with Leah's delicate rusted gauze piece. It has an unusual format- long and thin. The gauze has a subtle feather pattern through it, which she very slightly "emphasized" with some tracery in a neutral thread. Select areas were cut and reverse appliqued with lace. Some satin stitch organic shapes are scattered from the top left- they look a lot like the pebbles I've been making on my own long cloth. his piece sort of escapes description. It feels ephemeral and ghost-like because of her fabric choice.

It's been a very productive season, full of collaboration experimentation, and camaraderie in the studio. I truly enjoy helping my students discover their creative voice in stitch!
 I have about a month off before classes begin again. More on that another day.