Composite

You know the trouble with memory is that sometimes you misplace it. Forgive me if I've posted something similar before. I've been gathering some images tonight and thought I'd finish a composite of scarf details that I started some time ago and that shows the wide variety of marks that can be made with shibori rusting. You may recognize some of the designs or colors from past posts. The blues were created with elderberries. One blue piece in the center also has some yellow created by turmeric. The rest is just the the usual rust and tea with whatever tannin I had handy.

Spring in Illinois

1:30 pm.
Snow started around 9 am.
Note the difference in the bushes in the next pic.

7:55 pm. I was enchanted by the soft light. Plenty of it with the reflective snow and daylight savings, but the camera turned everything blue because the flash would have done no good. 

My studio is way out there behind the barn to the right of the propane tank. Haven't measured. Heavy and wet and bowing the branches of trees and shrubs. Great for building snowmen.
It is still snowing.  It is the 4th day of Spring.  Yesterday was shirtsleeve weather.

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!

Save Once Upon a Toy Store

Sorry I haven't been posting lately...life just gets in the way sometimes.  I've been hibernating for quite a while now, but things are starting to happen.  I'm involved right now in photographing all the art work that is donated to the auction that benefits the school where I got my degrees-Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.  I'm responsible for posting the photos to Facebook and readying images for the slide show the night of the auction.  Haven't even had time to decide what I'm going to donate. 

I'm also trying to teach myself how to crochet.  My mom was fast and prolific, but alas, I could not grasp the concept as a child.  Lots of tears and failures back then, but now I truly want to learn.  And I'm also collaborating with friend Elizabeth Adams Marks to plan a fibers exhibit in 2014.  Slow going on that.  But hopefully there will be news on that front soon.

But in the midst of all that I've learned that a wonderful and beloved independent toy store in Edwardsville, Illinois has been forced to close its doors last week because the bank unexpectedly called the SBA loans (about 5 years early).  A fellow artist from SIUE, MFA grad and friend, Shawnta' Ray is the owner.  It is a sad situation, made worse by the short notice.  Shawnta' and her husband have been pursuing all possibilities.  Some very devoted friends started a Save the store page on Facebook and started a fund raiser at Crowdtilt in hopes of raising enough to satisfy the bank.



I'm posting the link to the crowdtilt site and hope that my readers might be moved to make a small contribution.  We have a daunting goal of $75000 and it must be met by Friday.  But amazingly in about 24 hours, over $26,700 (as of 6 AM Wednesday) has already been raised by the community determined that another small business will NOT fail.  The bank has promised to honor the loan if the goal is reached. 

If you'd like to help the cause you can read about the store and donate here.  FYI--your credit card is not charged unless the goal is reached.  

Shawnta' serves on the Friends of Art board as I do working with the auction which raises money for the visiting artist program at SIUE.  Last year she and her husband lent us part of their stock room to store donated items and we catalogued nearly 200 pieces in the store one Sunday last Spring, spreading the art out amongst all the merchandise.  I took these photos of the toy store after the catalog was complete.  Several areas in the store are devoted to play.  Love that green couch! 

The toys in this store are unique.  The experience of shopping there is unlike any ordinary store, most especially big box or chain stores.  I hope the campaign is a roaring success!  Shop local and independent whenever possible. 

Amy Reidel

Her mom cAmy Reidel acrylic and gouache on digital print

In a few months it will be 13 years since I last taught in my high school classroom in St. Louis. Long enough for me to have trouble remembering the day to day work and assignments as I was telling a friend the other evening. Long enough that I not only don't miss it, but can hardly imagine I was a teacher for 25 years. But certainly not long enough to forget the many students who dedicated themselves to their art. One of those students is Amy Reidel who graduated close to the end of my career.

Julia Storm cAmy Reidel  oil on canvas

Amy went on to earn a BFA from University of Missouri St. Louis. Next stop was University of Tennessee at Knoxville for an MFA in painting and drawing. She taught for a while in Tennessee but returned to St. Louis a few years ago.

Karen rising from the amethyst cAmy Reidel photo collage and acrylic

Amy has established herself making art and  teaching (something I never seemed able to do simultaneously) and showing regularly. Recently she was interviewed for a new online magazine and I felt this rush of pride and wanted to share her work with you. 
Read the interview here.

Rapture cAmy Reidel wall installation

Check out Amy Reidel's beautiful website here.

Rapture cAmy Reidel window cling

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

Just in the nick of time for St. Nick!

Finally got the tree decorated a couple days ago and this afternoon I set up my old Christmas houses inherited from my mom.  Some of the ornaments on the tree were hers too so they are older than I am.  

Let's just say they are decades old and leave it at that, lol.  

Long ago transitions

I seem to be looking backward a lot these days when it comes to my art. I pulled this piece out of storage tonight and pressed it and rephotographed it.  It is hard to believe that I was in the midst of panic over my thesis work this time a decade ago.  This piece was not part of my thesis show but done prior to my first experiment with composting.  It was however one of the key transitions from printing to fibers using imagery I'd been developing.

 

Town and Country c2001  

Hand dyed and printed/painted silk, vintage silk, viscose rayon, silk organza

The design was repeated in etchings as well as collages (scroll down this page to see some examples) and comes from my fascination with township maps and plats.  I have long been attracted to square things.  This piece is also one of my first attempts at layering fabrics.  This one is pretty complex in that regard and includes some vintage silk that had been in my mom's stash (the orange) but everything else was hand dyed or printed (fiber reactive dyes of course).  But some of the fabric (solid color squares and the multi color rectangle lower down) was dyed back in summer 1976 in that very first fibers workshop I took with Judy Millis at SIUE.  I was just talking about that red fabric in this post.

Where my mom acquired the orange silk I have no idea.  I left the fabric exactly as I found it.  It is only 20" wide with selvedge edges.  In the lower right corner is a written mark as well as a tied resist and there is an open weave structure across the bottom.  A layer behind the orange is purple, visible here from the side with a layer of organza over the top.