Cold weather scarves

Wrapped these scarves on a warm sunny day and then the temperature dropped that evening.  The next day I had to wait till night to unwrap because they took longer to rust. It was colder still.

Handling wet silk and rinsing with cold water in 40 degree weather had my hands numb in no time. So I worked in spurts--2 scarves at a time, then I'd go warm up inside.  

Detail of a shawl.

Like these streaky marks.

Blast from the Past

Last weekend at ARTEAST someone asked me about the logo on my hangtags for wearables. I've been using an old photo of my mom and her twin sister for the logo, but long before that image was incorporated into a number of pieces I made during grad school and beyond. I made etchings in copper plate, photo polymer plates and silkscreen images. I worked on both paper and fabric. This piece is a collage made in 2005 (after grad school).

The Frogtown Girls Came from Ambitious Seed 
c2005 Patricia Vivod
composted silk, vintage cotton print fabric, screen printed imagery, walnut ink, on paper

Beautiful weekend at ARTEAST

Photo courtesy Kunido Robeen

Quite a few of the visitors to the Arteast event are artists themselves like my friend Kuniko Robeen who makes jewelry and mixed media work.

Photo by Valerie Goldston

Ginny French and her husband came 90 miles to visit!  I first met her several years ago at another Arteast venue but never kept in touch. Recently I discovered that the woman on India Flint's found, stitched, dyed facebook page that I'd been trading comments with for months was the same Ginny! She does nuno felting and now is experimenting with eco-dyeing. I'm still procrastinating on that front...having only done a handful of experiments. Ginny bought my only eco-dyed piece.

I have no illusions about selling my large work at a venue like this but I still like to showcase some of them. This venue had a wonderful old staircase that I took advantage of. Plowed Ground suspended in the stairwell is 120 inches long.  

A small selection of scarves here. The center one contains a print from an old sewing machine treadle. The one with the tag was printed with bed springs. The others are shibori rust.

One of my visitors was a past customer who bought a deep blue violet elderberry and rust scarf in 2010. I think this is the one. She assured me the color has not faded. I lost my elderberry crop to the drought this year. The berries I sought to save from birds had dried to a powder when I harvested. So no blue scarves for a while.  

This is my larger scarf rack. The venue was great--just enough room to fit everything in a nice display.

I even had a gorgeous red velvet sofa in the room where I could sit and rest. I brought yardage (on the sofa) and my dress form to display a blouse and shawl.

I brought a screen/scarf display where I put one of my quilts and found room to hang one of my very large pieces on a banner stand I had made a few years ago to display work where I could not mount on walls.

It's always a goal of mine to make sales at Arteast and this year went quite well for me. Thanks to all who came by to see my work and chat and a special thanks to all my customers. One of the first in the door was MJ Larson from Alton, IL who told me she'd found my blog some time ago and excitedly shared the news with a long time friend of hers who is also a fiber artist.  Turns out that the friend who lives in Texas now-Rosemary Malbin-is already a friend of mine on facebook!  The world is getting smaller.  It is nice to make these connections. 

Circle of Life

Trying to find walnuts on the ground after leaves have started to fall is a challenge as the nuts are ever changing color from the lime green on the tree, to yellow, to amber, to speckled, to brown blotches and finally deep brown/black oozing juice.  I have maple, oak, sassafras, sweetgum all contributing to the black walnut leaf litter on the ground as well as gigantic cottonwood leaves blowing in from a neighbor's tree.

ARTEAST 2012

It's that time of year again!  I've been working for several months on Shibori Rust Scarves to sell at the event coming up next weekend October 20/21. Visit www.arteasttour.com

You saw in a previous post what I'll be showing in Small Works Show that opens Friday, Oct 12 at Jacoby Arts Center. 5-8p if you are in the area. Hope you can stop in and see this work which will remain on display through Nov 4.  The Small Works show features many of the 140 artists who will be participating next weekend in the ARTEAST event on Oct 20/21.  

The work I'll be showing at Location #24 -- 618 St. Louis Street, Edwardsville, IL -- will include at least 50 scarves and shawls of various sizes, some of my larger textile pieces and a few smaller quilted pieces and an assemblage pictured on the postcard above, upper left.

Rambling Memories and a Plea for Help

Mom and Dad home on the farm around 1980 maybe

I was reminiscing tonight on FB about the very first time my mom and dad saw my work exhibited publicly. The occasion was SIUE's 25th Anniversary Alumni Exhibition in 1982. A photograph of mine had been juried into the show. I'd been teaching about 9 years by then and in those days I was a teacher first. The thought of calling myself an artist hadn't even entered my vocabulary.  My dad was about as excited as I'd ever seen him.  He and mom just smiled and smiled. Dad passed away the following year.

The exhibit was held in the Morris University Center Gallery which served as the only gallery for the art department which in those days barely had a presence on campus. The art department started out in the basement of the Science Building and then studios eventually moved piece by piece uptown to Edwardsville (a few miles away) to the Wagner Complex an old factory site that art ended up occupying for 25 years. Art Ed and Art History stayed on campus so while I was pursuing my teaching degree I did quite a lot of traveling back and forth. Years later when I began taking workshops they were held at Wagner.

Over the years I've been in a few more exhibits at the MUC Gallery--a summer printmaking workshop exhibit, a textile club invitational and a few years ago I'm proud to say I was juried into the 50th Anniversary Alumni Exhibit. The MUC has seen hundreds of exhibits overseen first by the University Museum and then taken over by the art department a few years ago. It serves an important function being in the center of campus and accessible to the entire student body while the art department's gallery is on the southwest fringe of the main campus well away from the hubbub. Now the MUC Gallery is in danger of being closed!

The art department moved into new digs on campus 20 years ago. Now those "new" digs are being renovated extensively and the (formerly) New Wagner Gallery in that building has been demolished. A new addition to the art department will house painting and drawing, a lecture room, a new larger gallery, and for the first time art history, art education and art therapy are moving in from across campus. It is exciting but awfully frustrating right now as none of the construction/renovation is actually finished yet and teachers and students are trying to carry on classes. What a mess.

I suspect that the MUC administration has decided that since the art department is getting a new gallery there will be no need of the gallery in MUC. They have announced the closure will take place in Spring 2013. What they have not considered is that there is great demand for gallery space, not only by art students, visiting artists, etc. but that other departments and entities on campus depend on that gallery space for exhibiting research. The art department has launched a petition drive in hopes of stopping the closure. If you are a student or alumni of SIUE, or a resident of Madison County/Southern Illinois who has visited the campus in past, please help the art department fight this closure by following this link and signing the petition.  Many thanks!  (SIUE is Southern Illinois University Edwardsville for those of you not from this area.)