Friends of Art

I've been a supporter of the FOA since graduate school and a board member for several years helping organize the auction.  As I have for the past couple of years, I photograph every single item that is donated--183 items and counting to date.  (Which explains in part why I haven't been posting lately!) Donations come from students, faculty, alumni and friends in every medium.  SIUE's event is unique among art auctions in this area in that we hire honest to God auctioneers whose rapid fire calling keeps everyone on their toes.  So much fun!  Check out our Facebook page at Friends of Art SIUE to see the donations as they roll in.  You can also view items by media category at our website:  www.siuefriendsofart.com

In addition to working behind the scenes I am donating these two pieces:

This is one of the shibori rust scarves I made while teaching the rust workshop last year at the university. It measures 72" by 14".  Silk Satin.

This is a quilt collage piece I did in 2008 inspired by the presidential election. The title is The Madness of King George.  

The fabrics include composted silk, rust printed silk, rust printed nylon, wool, wool blend felt, commercial  print fabric as well as one small scrap of one of my mom's dress fabrics. Free motion quilting was done with silk thread. It was pieced in process onto a commercial wool blend backing and is mounted on 1/2" fabric covered foamcore.

If you live in the area, consider yourself invited!  You won't be disappointed by the quality of the work donated and the cause is a good one--all funds go back to the SIUE Department of Art and Design to fund the visiting artist program.  SIUE is Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.  See you there!

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

Decision and Delivery

You might guess I changed my mind again.  Not much time to think about which way should be up as I had about 20 minutes to spare when I walked into Jacoby Center today to deliver the piece.  Decided on the original format.

Stippling in the rusted cotton which used to be a dishtowel of my mom's and meandering in the area below to define the elderberry impressions left during composting the silk.  The lighter silk in the picture above was composted at a different time and once again I found  rivers and topography in the walnut stains.

The finished piece with machine free motion stitching, some metallic threads, some rayon or silk thread and bead embellishment.  The blue area is walnut composted sueded rayon that was indigo dyed this summer.  The orange dress fabric also belonged to my mom.  I think it is cotton, but it is very crisp.

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.

New direction

New work is actually old fabric, created through composting way back in 2006.  I haven't done any composting since then that I can remember but I have many many pieces of silk that were composted -- some whole cloth, some in pieces that may some day be dealt with.  The silk below so reminded me of the recent oil spill (I hate that inappropriate word) that I felt compelled to work with it for the group show Elements at Main Street Art Gallery.  

I have been making free hanging silk pieces since 2001.  In 2008 I began a series of quilted/felted collages but for this silk I needed a different way to present it.  I did not want to embellish the silk which I felt would take away from the exquisite patterns left in the silk from the composting process.  In the end, I purchased ready made canvas stretchers, covered them with felt and stretched the silk over all and stitched it in place on the back.  I'm a little concerned about the wrap around edges, but I think the pieces turned out well.  

Nevereverland c2010 is 36 inches square. 

Moon Garden c2010 measures 24 x 30 inches.  

Gold Coast c2010 measures 40 x 30 inches.

Frond c2010 is the smallest at 14 x 11 inches.