June Travels

June has been a busy month.  I traveled to Northern California to visit with friends and attend a SAQA regional meeting.  The meeting was held at the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah, California, where the SAQA exhibition, Wild Fabrications was on display.  Meeting the  members of the Northern CA, Nevada region was a treat. The Pixel Ladies shared some of their thoughts and processes with the group.  Deb and Kris are a collaborative team that works with computers and cloth to create their visions.  Theirs is an labor of love.

SAQA - Wild Fabrication Exhibition

Pixel Ladies - Detail

After time in Sonoma county, I was able to spend six wonderful days at a friend's cabin in Arnold, CA.  The cabin sits at the 4,000 foot elevation.  The day I arrived it was snowing.  Once the storm passed through the area the remaining days were a wonderful 80 degrees.  

Building in Ukiah, California

Sonora Pass, HWY 108

While in the Serria Nevada Mountains, I was able to begin hand stitching a new piece.  Below is a sneak peak at a section of the work.   This piece was created as an abstract with little to no plan, a method called improvisational art making.  I started with hand dyed fabrics and then added commercial fabrics of similar pallets.  The entire piece has been machine stitched in the ditch to a foundation of wool batting. 

Sneak Peak Detail

Happy travels ...

Eco Print, Rust Print, Wool and Silk Panel

This piece has been in process for a long while ... over a year now.  It is time to bring it out in the light and post it.  Wool felt was used to eco print.  Guava, oak, eucalyptus, and creosote leaves form the prints on fiber.  The reds are from the dollar eucalyptus leaves. The green is from the creosote leaves.  And the purplish gray tones are from the oaks leaves. The bundle was steamed for a 1.5 hour.  When rolling the bundle freezer paper was place on the wrong side of the print and rolled with the wool.  The barrier kept leaf prints from bleeding into each other.

Eco One -Side One

Eco One - Side Two

Silk was used for rust imprints and eco prints.  These bundles were tied and immersed in a bath containing onion skins.  Some of the rusted elements were sew onto the silk prior to immersion into the boiling water.  A turkey roster was used for steaming and boiling.

The piece called Eco One is two sided.  The first side is strictly eco printed with some hand stitching.  If you look closely you can see the lines resulting from the string used to tie the wrap of the bundle. This shows best in the detail pictures. The second side is created with dyed and rusted panels of silk.  Hope you enjoy the images.

The panel measures 16 wide by 49 long inches.

The details show a closer look at  the rusted and the eco print results.

Detail - Rusted, Eco Printed

Detail - Eco print and stitch

Detail - Eco print back ground, attached rusted metal

Detail - Eco Print on Wool