Collaborative commission in fibre

Here's something recently posted on the SAQA chat forum.

Bound Together is a work in fibre that was made collaboratively by congregants in Indiana and Kentucky. The designer and manager of the project is Linda Witte Henke.

More images of the stunning work can be found here.

The project has been selected as one of the top 100 projects in the 2013 Collaboration of Design and Art (CoD+A) award program. Please visit this link to learn more about how it was made and to give it your vote. 

http://studiotourhudsonandregion.blogspot.ca/


This is a link to the new blog for the Hudson Studio Tour to be held this September.
 It is said that people find artwork more interesting if they are connected in some way to the story of how it was created.
Heather has volunteered to be the webmaster and we have both now posted  a brief introduction to our current work on the site.

 Hope you are all having a wonderful Father's Day. Michele

Chihuly glass exhibit at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montreal

This Wednesday the text'art group (regrettably, without Pam) visited the new exhibit of Chihuly glass at Montreal's Musée des Beaux-Arts.

Some of the pieces were created especially for this show, like the one below, which features driftwood salvaged from the Pacific Northwest, close to Chihuly's home. It was positioned dramatically at the top of the museum's magnificent beaux-arts style stairway.


An octopus' garden effect was created by using hundreds of beautiful glass pieces of varying size, arranged on a transparent ceiling under which the viewer walked. As we looked up towards the light we could appreciate the transparencies created by glass on glass, and small "putti" hiding amongst the fantastic creations.


Many of the most striking pieces were hung like pendulous chandeliers. They were lit with carefully placed spotlights, rather than being lit from within.


Admittedly some of us enjoyed the show more than others, but we all agreed we would have liked to have seen more. The Museum's website includes a fine preview of the exhibit.

Green theme

I can scarcely believe this myself but I have finished my piece!  I guess because I had this idea of going back to the Dawn Thorne workshop most of the work had been done.  No, I haven't taken something that was already half finished (although I do have a piece, it is the wrong shape!).  I did start from scratch and use some scraps that have been lying around for some years and it all just fell into place.  Not only that, I'm happy with it.  And I have the beginning of a series maybe...

I  do have a couple of other ideas so if I get time I will try and get them done.  But my time will be filled more with making bookwraps for the fund raising tombola at the Festival of Quilts here in Birmingham, UK, this August.  If anyone is interested have a look here.

Hilary

The one that got away

For those of you who expressed an interest in seeing my rejected Eggplant challenge piece, here it is for your viewing pleasure. A couple of people who have seen it (Dianne? Helena?) thought I could paint in some colour on the light gray background to make it work.

My first attempt was the same design, but using patterned fabric (dots, stripes, checks) and that one didn't even make it to the fusing stage, so it's not available for posting.

Please feel free to have at it!

Aubergine pieces

Just to let you know the pieces have been added to a page on this blog (top of the list of pages/right hand column) and also to their own page on the website:

http://12bythedozen.weebly.com/aubergine.html

I will add the pieces to your individual pages as well.

Don't worry, Pamela, I will add yours when you finish it.  Just waiting for Linda B's choice.

How's the green inspiration?  This might be the perfect opportunity to finish a piece I started in a class at Winter School last year.  I would be chuffed to see a 'proper' piece evolve from that class which was on Reflective Surfaces.

Hilary

DRUMROLL

NEXT COLOUR

IS

............

I had such fun with this and after many thoughts and choices I chose this colour as it spoke to me of you girls in the northern hemisphere who are going into your wonderful, warm spring/summer and we are into autumn so I felt this was an appropriate colour challenge for us all.

ENJOY

Forget-me-not

 

I loved the idea of the blue against the purple.  The fabric was dyed with a procion dye called eggplant.  A little purple I think, not quite the dark of an aubergine.  But I liked it.  And forget-me-nots were in bloom, and my mother died a few months ago and blue was her favourite colour.  And she had had Alzheimers for many years, so all these things led me to make this little bouquet for her.  I had visions of clouds of forgetfulness punctuated by flashes of awareness and the fabric seemed to show that.  The quilting represents plaques that are found in the brain.  This is getting maudlin.  But there we are.  

Honourable Mention

What can I say, the nest is no longer empty so I am dedicating this one to myself, lol. Aubergine is a beautiful royal colour which immediately brought thoughts of velvet, jewels and a crown. The crown wasn't as successful as I had hoped so after rearranging my personal ribbon collection I was reminiscent of the beautiful ones that were created by our guild members. The velvet was a challenge to properly pleat so scrunching was the main technique of this project. The small scallops on 3 sides were done by machine and trimmed with my new amazing "Karen Kay Buckley" scissors.

VORTEX

I found this very challenging indeed and had no idea how to proceed until I decided to gather the fabrics that I needed and then draw a design which freed me up in my thinking.  I loved the colour but until I had something on paper I was stuck!  Once I started to put it altogether the name just came to me and from then on I started to enjoy the whole exercise.  It was fun and did not take long to get it finished, but there was lots of angst before it started to come together.  A really enjoyable challenge and I hope you like the next colour which will be revealed later on today - just thought I should get this up first!

Stepping Out  II

The darkness of this colour choice brought some new opportunities to experiment with dramatic effect and to try to learn about its possibilities.
This piece is about the the circling we sometimes do before starting something new. The low key palette and splash of compliment produces a mystery here, leaving us in anticipation of what the excitement might be up ahead, as time slows down during a short walk at dusk. As you can see, this dog walker sometimes has a dog and sometimes not, which happens to be my current dilemna . It was fun to play with the negative space and add to the edges to simplify the focus onto a moment in time.

Purple Artichokes

I woke up this morning and checked my email and thought OH NO it is reveal day and I forgot! So here quickly is mine before I cycle off to yoga. I will have to comment later from the car as we drive to Toronto. When Pam announced the challenge I could not get eggplants out of my mind. Then I learned about the existence of purple artichokes, and my decision was clear. Marion and I have been working on a giant artichoke quilt (regular green ones) so it seems very apt for this challenge. All of the fabrics are my hand dyed. The artichokes were made on a separate piece of felt, stitched and the attached so they are very 3D.