Comparison

I washed the soft gray scarf seen in yesterday's post and the color is warmer now with some pinkish tones.  Interesting, but I wish I could hang onto the cold gray tones.  I have hard water.  I neutralized the rust with baking soda then washed by hand in Ecover.  Will take some experiments to discover why the color shifts.  Not much I can do about the hard water.  Not sure it is the culprit as I do a thorough rinse of the rusted silk outdoors with the hose immediately after the reveal and nothing changes then.  I scanned approximately the same area as before.

Details

A few days ago I wrapped this 60" long scarf on one of my rust rods.  (BTW, this is a scanned detail.)  I rolled one direction then overlapped the next layer going the other direction and still had scarf left for a partial third layer.  The rust does a remarkable job of penetrating the layers, In this case--with pleating, there were 12, but the timing and the 3rd layer resulted in a much lighter toned design in parts of the whole length of silk.

The soft grays come from used tea bag dust, which reminds me I have hundreds of tea bags in a sack that need to be emptied.  I have not yet washed this scarf and I suspect I'll see some color shift when I do.  I'll post the washed pressed scarf for comparison later.

Stripes were created by an auger.  This is a 72" scarf so a portion on either end had to be folded over before being wrapped on the 4' long iron piece which resulted in the chevron pattern.

Rusty bits fresh off the press

Another hour or so and I might have had to kiss this silk good bye--at least for wearing.  I nearly forgot to unwrap the goodies.  Humidity was high and the results are strong.  Silk satin is difficult to photograph--too much shine--and the scarves never want to lay very flat, so I threw these on the scanner and just did details.  All but the last one will be at the EAC gift shop soon.

                                                                           

Pocket Square

I've spent a good deal of time lately in the garden getting the tomatoes and other veggies in the ground as well as planting flowers.  I just made a list of all the shows I have on the calendar this summer and fall and scared myself silly tonight!  Thought I would post some scans of scarves to prove I've actually been working in the studio too.  This is a detail of a pocket square 17" on a side before rusting.  It was done in the shibori method.  Quite a bizarre design isn't it?  More new work to see in the next post.

Promises, Promises

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.  

Looking ahead to ARTEAST 2010

I will be in a new place to exhibit for this year's ARTEAST event.  I am so excited...and grateful to Alison Reeves, my fellow exhibitor who designs and makes jewelry, for arranging it.  Hopefully all four of us who exhibited last year at the winery can reunite for ARTEAST 2010 at the Edwardsville Fitness Studio at 201 Hillsboro Ave, Edwardsville, IL.   

I hope the owners don't mind that I've borrowed a photo of the main room from their website.  I visited today with Alison who takes classes there and she introduced me to the owners, Sally Burgess and George Johannes who are eager to lend the space to us and get involved in ARTEAST.  The space is more intimate than the large high ceilinged room we shared at Villa Marie Winery in Maryville last year, but I think we'll manage quite nicely in the place.  The studio is beautiful! Plus there is a small lobby where we can set up refreshments and another room up front that can be used for exhibit space too. 

Even nicer is the location...in the heart of Edwardsville, and easy walking distance to many other ARTEAST sites.  We'll be just a block from the Edwardsville Arts Center where a large group exhibit will be set up; and a block from Main Street, where several ARTEAST exhibits will take place at various locations.  

The winery was a great place last year and the owner did invite us back...but unfortunately in this economy I'm sure she could not afford to turn down paying customers.  A wedding reception and party were booked in both available spaces there for the same weekend as ARTEAST.   So my little group was forced to find a new place.