SCC Fibers Invitational -- Show #5

Christine Holtz curated the SCC Fibers Invitational currently on view at St. Charles Community College in Cottleville, Missouri. Besides my five pieces there are a host of other works by some of my SIUE peeps and also St. Louis Weavers Guild and MoFA members.

Participating artists:

Elizabeth Adams Marks
Tracy Deniszczuk
Erin Vigneau Dimick

Suzy Farren
Alicia Pigg
Kay Rice
Nicole Ottwell
Pat Vivod
Deborah Waldman-Pontious

Weaving, felting, surface design, rust printing, shibori, embroidery, fashion and works on paper are on display in the gallery and large wide hallway outside of gallery. One more week for the show.

Some highlights:

L-R Suzy Farren and Erin Vigneau Dimick who have work in the show, Christine Holtz, curator, and  Laura Strand speaking with one of Christine's students at the reception.

Two fashion pieces on mannequins by Deborah Waldman-Pontious
That's my Feast of Saint Frackcis on the wall in the back.

Close up of Deborah's work

Felt sculpture by Tracy Deniszczuk

Work by Suzy Farren

Another of Tracy's felt pieces.  

Rust print on paper by Eizabeth Adams-Marks

Sitting in Judgement, shibori rust on silk
One of my newest pieces.  

Sister Mississippi Project

Confession time.  Sometimes I need a kick in the pants to get restarted with art making once I've closed up shop for the season.  It usually comes in the form of a call for art.  Until I started Three Sisters, I hadn't been in my studio for much else excepting the laundry since last October!  Then several things happened at once (later posts will address the other happenings).

First, into my newsfeed at Facebook dropped a Call for Art for the Sister Mississippi Project.  Actually created independently by artist/art teacher Heather Harper of Mexico City, the project meshed perfectly with the ongoing trek of a group of Indigenous women from Minnesota who are walking the length of the Mississippi River as a physical and spiritual prayer for the river.  They began the journey on March 1 and as I write this they are in New Orleans on their way to the Gulf of Mexico--carrying with them a beautiful copper bucket that holds the sparkling clean water from the headwaters of the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota. 

Two friends and I met Sharon Day and the other Mississippi River Water Walkers on Sunday April 7 at Cahokia Mounds World Heritage Site which is the location of an ancient mound builder society in Southern Illinois not far from where I live.  We climbed Monks Mound for a beautiful water ceremony and then joined the walkers in Granite City where the group had left off the evening before.  I walked one 15 minute leg of the journey and my lungs were beginning to burn.  This is no leisurely stroll.  The walkers cover 30+ miles a day on average and the pace is brisk.  You can track and read about their progress here at the Facebook page of the Mississippi River Water Walkers.  

The Walkers are praying and singing as they go, while the Sister Mississippi Project is a prayer manifested in the making of the art, felting or stitching, weaving or dyeing, piecing or quilting.  As many as 300 people have contributed to the project sending pieces from all over the world.  The goal is to stitch together the art pieces into one long Mississippi River.  I documented the making of Three Sisters for this post.

Here I am with Elizabeth Adams Marks just south of the I-270 overpass on Rt. 3.  Elizabeth had the stamina to make it to Pontoon Road.  My apologies to anyone who has spotted that I'm not carrying the staff upright here.  Elizabeth's friend Nancy Hansel was following in her car. 

The photo above was shot by April Rhodes of St. Louis and that is Brooks Johnson also of St. Louis behind us. 

It seemed to make perfect sense to create the piece as a map where the Illinois and Missouri join the Mississippi above St. Louis.  The three rivers make such a beautiful design and there were three of us that day joining the journey.  The hard part was making the map work when I cut it apart to lay on the fabric.  Expanding the width of the river meant adjusting the map as I was going along.

I checked the Google map continously while working to keep some semblance of accuracy.  I could stare at Google satellite images for hours.  They are endlessly fascinating to me.   The dark fabric was chosen to represent the populated city areas and industry that contribute to the pollution and the blue/green for the river--both fabrics were rust printed, the brown fabric was composted years ago and stands in for farmland.  I pieced one section at a time onto felt, adjusting the map as I went.  

Once the piecing was done I didn't like my original Horseshoe lake (seen above), so redesigned that section and did some fancy super secret fusible webbing magic.  With all the subsequent quilting, stitching, tree planting and interstate and secondary road building you can't see where the patch is.  

The deadline to have the piece in Minnesota was April 23 and I worked a couple of all nighters getting it all done in time and shipped via UPS.

The finished piece Three Sisters and a detail below. The red line tracks the path of the walkers who came down on the east side of the Illinois river after passing through Quincy, Illinois to avoid the loopy bend in the Mississippi and the red hearts represent we three who participated.  The Walkers crossed over at McKinley Bridge to continue south.  I'm not sure of the exact mileage for the walkers, but I believe it is around 1700 miles.  Oh my aching feet! 

It is my fervent wish, after creating this piece, that the Mississippi River Water Walkers are successful in raising awareness about the pollution in this life giving and incredibly important river.  Quoting the text from the River Walkers FB page:  The Mississippi River is the second most polluted river in the United States. Toxic chemicals from municipalities, farms and corporations are taking their toll on the river. By the time a drop of water reaches the “dead zones” near the mouth of the river, the water is nearly depleted of oxygen. We can stop this and the walkers intend to educate people along the way as to what they can do.
“We want the walk to be a prayer,” Day says. “Every step we take we will be praying for and thinking of the water. The water has given us life and now, we will support the water.”
To learn more or participate: Join the Mississippi River Water Walk 2013 Facebook Group.

Donations to support the walk can be sent to Indigenous Peoples Task Force: Water Walk. 1335 E. 23rd St., Minneapolis, MN 55404

Or please go to Indigenous Peoples Task Force web-page @www.indigenouspeoplestf.org and GiveMNorg bottom. 

And I hope one day to see the entire stitched Mississippi!

Amendment--May 3.
I can only identify the five core Water Walkers from the Ojibwe Nation in this photo I took on April 7 on top of Monks Mound after the water ceremony.  They are Beth Brent (on left bending over the white bag), Sharon Day, Barb Baker-larush, Deon Kirby and Ira Johnson,  all standing just beyond the blanket which is spread with bundles of sage, offerings of food and other gifts received along the way, and the copper bucket of water being carried by the women.  Most of the other people who attended the ceremony came from the St. Louis, southern Illinois region and have been following online the progress of the Walkers.  Today, May 3, another water ceremony will take place at Fort Jackson, Louisiana, the end of the journey,


At the Elder's Lodge in St. Paul, MN, the assembly and stitching of Sister Mississippi has begun.  Thank you to Deborah Ramos for the use of her photo. 

Fun in the Shade

Elizabeth Adams Marks returned the favor of the rust party at my house by setting up an indigo vat in her garden. I haven't worked with indigo since grad school and then I did little more than a couple of experiments. We played for a few hours on Saturday before we attended an opening at Art Saint Louis where she has a gorgeous paper piece in the Texture show.

The big shawl that Elizabeth rusted in my previous post, has now been transformed with indigo. Quite a striking change don't you think?  Actually, just realized I didn't post a pic of the finished rusted shawl.  The post only shows her sprinkling tea on the rotary hoe pieces.

Elizabeth's shawl just after rusting.

The other large piece is also Elizabeth's.  I was working small.  A couple of scarves, one of which had been previously rusted, a scrap of cotton, a t-shirt and a small piece of rayon that I composted several years ago.

This is a piece of cotton previously (but lightly) rusted.  Did a little popsicle stick clamping to get this pattern. For those of you who have worked with indigo this may seem like small potatoes to you, but I got a little thrill out of the magic that was made when the color oxidized and when I unbound the goodies.

Arashi shibori scarf -- just pure indigo on a new scarf.  Love the color variation resulting from the folded layers.

This my favorite piece however. Just a small sueded rayon scrap about 15" big that had previously been composted with walnuts.  There was a lot of light creamy areas left in the design which allowed the pure indigo to shine through.  I preserved some of the brown with rubberbanded circles, other parts of the walnut turned very dark.  The fabric is translucent.   Very much would like to do more indigo with some of my old compost experiments.  But it will have to wait till after I get several pieces done for an upcoming show.

Fun in the Sun

Despite the heat wave and the drought some good things have come out my efforts this summer:  one--to make new work for an upcoming show and two--to work with my friend Elizabeth Adams Marks. She wanted to learn about rust and both of us wanted to experiment with eco printing. Elizabeth came for 3 days in July about the time that the temperature hit well above 100 degrees F for several days in a row. She has written a wonderful blog post on the experience. Swing by to see all the pictures and read the story here.

A year ago June I had hoped that Elizabeth would join me at India Flint's workshop at Craft Alliance in St. Louis, but travel plans to Cornwall, England had already been set. As a papermaker who works with natural materials and plants, Elizabeth's interest in the eco dyeing/printing process could no longer be contained. So, in between rusting spells we gathered what we could from the scorched garden and set about making bundles.

Elizabeth brought a large wool shawl with her and did an impressive job of bundling on one of my solid iron window sash weights.  After cooking all of our bundles on the patio we hung them from plant hangers. That was July 19. Then she flitted down to Florida and I was left to contemplate the bundles outside my back door and itching to open them. Actually I confess I jumped the gun and opened one of mine on the 20th and then was immediately sorry I didn't let it cure sufficiently.

Today was the grand unveiling. Elizabeth arrived mid morning and we rushed out to the studio. She had bundled some goodies at home before flying south and so had many more presents to open.  Mine are on the right.  The following pictures are of her shawl.

 The golden brown color is from tea.

The big bundle was cooked in my oblong container-the only one big enough to hold the iron rod. A lot of echinacea and other dried flowers had been added to the brew eventually turning the water black.

Walnut leaf cluster left a beautiful resist print, a maple leaf turned black. Walnut stems left wonderful lines behind and I'm sure more subtle prints will be revealed when the wool is washed and pressed.

I only had two bundles to unwrap--this silk hanky square was wrapped on copper and is imprinted with walnut leaf clusters.

I also bundled a silk satin scarf with sliced red cabbage, flower petals, onion skins and leaves on a walnut twig. The bundle shrunk quickly in the heat and felt hollow when I touched it unlike all the other bundles which were tight. I was afraid all the work was going to come to nothing if the bundle was loose. But appearances can be deceiving.

Was very pleasantly surprised to see all the color on the interior of this very dark bundle.  I've got blues, violets, oranges, greens, pinks.  Really excited now.

Doc Martin Saga

Tonight I saw Elizabeth Adams Marks  at the JAC Juried show--where two of Elizabeth's beautiful Cornwall inspired paper pieces are displayed.  She handed me a little surprise carried back from a recent trip to England.

I won't repeat any of the story here because Elizabeth tells it so well on her blog.  Suffice it to say, she made my day with a gift of some beach rocks from Port Isaac which stands in for Port Wenn on the British TV series Doc Martin that airs here on PBS, AND, a precious autograph from a character in the series.

Read all about it on Elizabeth's blog 2nd Hand Paper here for Doc Martin Part 1 and here for part 2.

Elizabeth is a talented illustrator, papermaker, book artist, full time middle school art teacher-currently working on her 2nd masters degree, wife, mother, avid gardener, and all around wonder woman (she remodeled her kitchen too for God's sake!).    Explore her blog 2ndhandpaper, where in addition to Doc Martin and other Cornish delights, she has offered some of her middle school lessons on indigo dyeing and handmade paper.

Photo by Peter Marks

Ian McNeice, sporting Elizabeth's scarf that I made.  Ian plays Bert Large in the Doc Martin series.  The colors of the rocks Elizabeth collected for me match the scarf quite well.