For several years I've participated in a small works show titled Fiber Fusion that has run concurrently with ARTEAST at The Quilted Garden in Edwardsville.  Last year unfortunately the show didn't happen, but I understand this year it will be revived.  I'm looking forward to creating something for it.  Below is one of the pieces I created for Fiber Fusion a few years ago.  You can see other Fiber Fusion pieces and small works I've done by clicking on Silk Books and Small Works at the tab under the header of this blog.

Actually this piece has had two lives.  Due to size constraints when first created for Fiber Fusion in 2005 (just after Hurricane Katrina), it was not mounted on the found wood as it is now.  I reworked the piece and entered it in a competition at Art Saint Louis. The silk itself measures about 8 1/2" x 11" and is designed to hang on the wall.

Titled Where Is There Another Place, this book has 8 pages torn from a larger piece of very thin silk that was composted and rusted simultaneously.  Vintage typewriter keys form the title and page numbers.  A seed pod is mounted below.  The wood came from old box I dismantled.  Following is the artist statement I wrote for The Layered Stitched Assembled Show at Art Saint Louis in 2006. 

This little book is an homage to New Orleans, a city I have visited many times in the past and home to a dear friend whose house sits less than three blocks from Lake Pontchartrain.  The news that NOLA had flooded after Katrina swept through was heartbreaking.  When I began to work with this piece of organically printed silk, every page seemed to suggest an image of breached levees and aerial views of swirling water. 

I invite you to lift the pages (very carefully) and "read" about the flood.  These are limp and fragile pages with raw edges and loose threads...an apt description of the beloved Crescent City and her people.  Time will tell.  May she rise again, for where is there another place in the world like New Orleans?  Laissez les bon temps rouler

I usually take all photos of my work, but Where is There Another Place was photographed by Joseph Gruber.