Elements refers to the natural world--earth, wind, fire. The work done collectively by this particular group of artists, myself included, has exploited metal, clay, fiber, paper, and taken inspiration from nature through photography, painting, collage, surface design and sculpting. I would enjoy talking about my work with you at the opening. Hope you can make it over to Edwardsville on July 23rd, 6-8 pm. Main Street Art Gallery is at 237/239 North Main Street.
Two of my pieces in this show come from a single length of silk composted in summer 2006. I originally discussed this bit of cloth in a previous post and recently decided that the skirt must go. The ripper took out the seams and the silk has been reborn as wall art. A detail of one of the pieces is on the postcard above. I'm trying something new for this exhibit...mounting some of my silk over felt covered stretched canvas to show off the surface designs. I'll also have a large free hanging rusted piece on display.
Jacoby Arts Center 6th Annual Juried Exhibition opens tonight -- July 9 -- with a reception from 5-8 pm. The show runs through August 8, 2010. One of my small pieces, Organic Bailout, was selected for the show.
This piece features both rusted and composted silks along with a piece of rusted vintage dishtowel fabric that had been my mother's. I did a lot of free motion quilting and embroidery on this piece which measures only 11 x 8.5 inches.
For those you in the area who plan to attend the opening at JAC, you can gallery hop over to By Design. Lillian Bates has turned part of her fiber arts and wearable boutique into a full fledged gallery. Her first show opens tonight too with a reception from 5 to 8 pm. The show is called Varied Perspectives.
Lillian features my scarves, t-shirts, tights and other wearables in her boutique.
Here's a detail of a new piece I finished today--a collage of composted and rusted fabrics with free motion machine stitching that reminds me of the ongoing oil spill off the coast of Louisiana.
The title is Promises, Promises.
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.
