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Archive for the ‘FFFC’ Category

Follow Your Bliss

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

On the Quilt Art list, members are selecting a word for 2010 — a word to frame and focus their work. I chose Bliss as in Follow Your Bliss as espoused by Joseph Campbell.

Joseph Campbell was a life-long student and teacher of the human spirit and mythology–not just the mythology of cultures long dead, but of living myth, as it made itself known in the work of modern artists and philosophers–individuals who searched within themselves and their societies to identify the need about which they were passionate. He called this burning need that they sought to fulfill their bliss. — From the Joseph Campbell Foundation website.

I want my work to be passionate and meaningful and true to me.

I made this little piece to hang in my studio to remind me. It also was made for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. This month, we were to take a label or an ad from a magazine and use the colors in a landscape or still life.

I found this new item at Trader Joe’s this week and was immediately attracted to the colors and the graphic design which was very quilty looking. The fresh color scheme of greens, yellows, orange with a punch of black and white really appealed to me. You can see that I used some of the shapes in my abstract landscape. I have lots of prefused scraps so it didn’t take long to put this little piece together with some simple quilting lines.

Yesterday, I met Terry and Karen, two twelves, for breakfast. Karen was in town for a family wedding. We had a great time chatting about life and the book. They had cameras and got photos, but I didn’t  – imagine that? – me without a camera.

In the afternoon, I put away Christmas. I have Columbia Fiberarts Guild board meeting here in the morning and thought it was best to get every thing put away so that Mr Clean could do his thing.

It was nice to go to church this morning and find that Christmas was still going strong — evergreen trees, poinsettias and wreaths on the windows. We sang Christmas carols because it is still Christmas until twelfth night.


Art Every Day

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

joie

I joined the group Art Every Day for a Month. It is something that I have wanted to do anyway -— being in a group makes it more fun and forces me to be more mindful. I just whipped up this post card from some fused silk scraps that I have in abundance. I am going to make several incarnations of this for a special event.

I also did some work on the Rainbow Fish School. The fish were disappearing into the water too much. It needed  some value change to show them off a bit more. I started by stitching with some sparkly thread, but that didn’t work. Tonight, I got out the color pencils and did some highlighting. I think it improves the composition.

rainbowfishredux

Here is the before:

Rainbowschool

I can’t believe a month has gone by, but tomorrow morning I have Columbia Fiberarts Guild board meeting. So off to bed so that I can rise bright and early and spruce up the abode for visitors.

I’m Here

Monday, October 26th, 2009

fishbubblewrapdyeing

I had a hectic few days. I hosted the Oregon Fiberarts Critique Group on Saturday so there was the frenetic getting ready and providing coffee and treats when every one arrived on Saturday morning. Our guest critic, Alice, was our cathedral arts director until we ran out of funding for the position. She did a great job. I got a good kick in the butt. First of all, the only work I had was really safe work that I had done for the Twelve X Twelve group and them SDA member’s show.

Her biggest advice to me was to kick it up a notch and not be so safe. I had already begun to think about this. I really have had a problem getting something going in the studio so I think I just need to do the work and spend more time with perfecting some techniques. I need to go back to where I was before I did my solo show which took me off track.

Enough soul searching.

Right now, I am having fun whipping up a piece for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. The theme is an animal. I don’t really do animals. The most abstract one I could think of was a fish. I wanted to try a new technique with the Colorhue dyes which involves printing with Lumiere paints and then applying the dye. The pain acts as a resist.

For the background, I chose a lime green silk from my stash. I shose some paints from my collection.

fishpaintpalette

I then screen printed with a thermofax screen that I had made last year.

screenedfish

They were a little more purple than I wanted, but looked iridescent which was good.

Here is the fun part. You lay the silk on bubble wrap. Then paint it with water; that makes the silk adhere to the bubble wrap. Then I painted with 3 or 4 colors of the  Colorhue dyes. the result is what you see at the top of my post. It is still wet and needs to dry on the bubble wrap. I think I should have used the smaller bubble wrap, but it is still very fun.

I have to go finish getting our supper ready. We have to eat early and go to theology class tonight. I have a very wonderfully smelling slow cooker soup going. Chicken, black beans, corn, salsa, mushrooms, cumin. I am going to garnish it with sour cream and avocados.