New digs, part 2

My new outdoor studio was finished in June 09 and christened in the midst of the heat wave of the year.  It was miserable being slathered with both sunscreen AND mosquito repellent.  A little mist from the hose occasionally was a life saver.
 


Moving the workplace away from the house meant also moving the rust collection.  It took several days to clean out the shed and organize some sort of system for storing and easily retrieving items for use.  I bought a garden cart which is capable of holding 1000 pounds.  Absolutely great going downhill from house to shed!  Quite a task going uphill again as I discovered when I began other summer projects such as my first vegetable garden and collecting all the piles of bricks I had under various trees left behind from when I was doing mostly composting with my silk.  Bricks were used to weigh down the cocoon of plastic around the fabric.

In the studio I placed the utility sink and another small work table alongside it on the west wall making it handy to the long hose that I stretched down the slope from the house.  The studio was designed with a walk through area.  I can pull my garden cart in from the west in case rust items are too heavy to carry.  My neighbor installed a step on the east so I can access the yard or walk to the clothesline.

Near the end of October my husband visited the studio in late afternoon to shoot some pics of me at work.  In the photo above, in the foreground is a table with several shibori wrapped pieces bundled in plastic.  The large rectangular contraption is a decorative slab of iron with other heavy items being used to weigh down a pair of tights I'm attempting to rust with flat pattern objects.  The other table is being prepped to lay out another scarf.  I can walk completely around the big tables which makes it very easy to work.  My neighbor attached PVC pipe to the legs to raise the height of each which has saved my back from considerable stress. 

When the humidity is low as it was on this day, the wet silk must be covered so that  rusting can proceed before the fabric dries.  I use large ziplock bags for scarves wrapped on short poles.

As I write this, I have a portable heater on in the office and I feel like I'm freezing.  But here I am in shirtsleeves on a breezy 60 degree day handling wet silk.  I dont' recall minding the chill.  Go figure.

New digs!

Last spring after a neighbor cleared a large pile of brush away in order to re-roof and paint my garden shed for me, I began eyeing the bare spot of ground behind the shed as a potential place to work.  At the time I had work tables and a utility sink on the patio and buckets, boxes and piles of rusty items laying all over the yard behind the house.  The view out my sliding door from the dining room looked embarrassingly like a junk yard.  I consulted the handyman neighbor with my ideas.

One thing led to another as they say.  Three tons of dirt (to level the playing field) and two tons of lake gravel later, along with 100+ feet of railroad ties, five posts, 32 running feet of lattice fencing and a dent in my wallet, I had myself a beautiful 16 square foot outdoor studio with an airy privacy fence.  Follow the progress below.

I decided on a gravel floor rather than a deck for the studio as the whole process of rusting is messy and wet.  I can spill anything here without fear.  Landscape cloth was laid down first before the gravel went in to prevent the possibility of anything growing up through the rock.  The gravel is easy to stand and walk on.  The only drawback is keeping it clear of falling leaves and walnuts.  The rake wouldn't cut it.  Had to use the leaf blower several times as the season wore down.  Walnut trees are the first to lose their leaves starting in late summer!

Long Day

I spent most of the day Monday at the Department of Art & Design at SIUE making visits to several graduate and upper level classes.  As a member of the Board of Directors of the Friends of Art, I volunteered (along with two of my colleagues) to make presentations on the upcoming art auction that provides the funding for the visiting artist program plus many other projects for art at SIUE.   The goal:  to convince students it is in their best interests to donate art for the auction.  Hope they took the info to heart.

The real treat came at the end of the day when I returned to the fibers studio to visit with my professor and friend Laura Strand and fellow student, teacher and book artist Elizabeth Adams Marks who is working on her masters in art ed now.  Just spending a few minutes with these two gets my juices flowing.  Elizabeth and I used to exhibit side by side at ARTEAST.  I first met her when she was working on her BFA as I was working towards my MFA.  Laura was instrumental in turning me from traditional printmaker to textile artist. 

Oh my, I was so sleepy when I got home, I couldn't keep my eyes open to watch the medal performances for Olympic Ice Dancing.  Dang!  The last pair were in the kiss and cry booth when I woke up.   So I came downstairs to check email and discovered some really great news.  The SDA website has listed my blog on the Member Website list.  Woo Hoo!!  

Future plans for this blog include creating some links to my favorite sites and fellow artists, especially the group I came to know and admire through grad school.  And, I promise the next post will finally debut pics of my outdoor studio.   The pictures were taken last spring and summer so they should provide a nice contrast to the cold, gray days we've been experiencing here in the midwest.  

Rusty things and Pearls of Wisdom

I grew up on a farm where most of the equipment was held together with bailing wire.  I wish I had some of those old tools and machine parts of my dad's to rust with now.  Still, I have amassed a nice collection of iron.  I've bought, begged for, found and been given some very interesting things.  The lovely twisty thing casting a shadow on my newly painted shed is an auger I bought in Greenville which yielded some great scarf designs last fall.  One of my proudest purchases a few years ago at a local junk yard was six spiral toothy wheels, seen above, that were once part of a rotary hoe.  The kind man at the yard disassembled the machinery so I could buy just the spirals.  I've used them many times as in the photo below.

This shot was taken just after I'd picked up the silk from the work table.  The blue and magenta came from elderberries and poke berries tightly packed and mashed around the hub of each wheel.  The black resulted from the chemical reaction between tea leaves, fermented walnut juice, vinegar and the iron.  Both tea and walnut juice serve as mordants, but even with that protection, this piece was cured in a covered galvanized can for over two months before washing to preserve the wonderful blue.  The finished piece which hangs vertically is called Pearls of Wisdom.  It's over 100 inches long by 45" wide.

Hello Darcy!

Darcy is my lone cat.  Her companion Uma, pictured in my profile, is no longer with us.  My husband thought it was unfair that Darcy was not on the blog too, so allow me to introduce her.  Darcy was rescued from a pothole in a parking lot by my niece.  She was so tiny--only about 5 inches long when she was brought to me.  Thirteen years later and thirteen pounds heavy, she is healthy and happy, although missing one eye now.  She does pretty well with out it!  Her favorite napping place in the summer used to be on the screen that covers my utility sink, now moved from my patio to the new studio that I'll show you in an upcoming post.  

As it's been so cold lately, Darcy spends only a few minutes at a time outside and loves to snuggle in any of several places around the house.  Tonight she slept on my lap while I watched episode 2 of LOST.  What a sweetheart she is, drool and all. 

Happy New Year

I was once embarrassed into standing up to take a bow at a faculty meeting because I had scored the lowest of anyone in the room on a time management test given by a guest speaker.  It didn't help that I sat next to someone (a nun of course!) who got a 95 compared to my 5.  I was told my score reflected a chronic problem connected to perfectionism.  My fellow teachers and I had a good laugh, but honestly, I had not previously thought of myself as a perfectionist, nor made the connection to procrastination.  Later I Googled the two words and found I had a choice of 140,000 possible articles to read.  Now you know why it has been over two months since I last posted! 

Here it is the end of January--I don't suppose it is too late to wish everyone a happy new year.  It has been very cold.  The propane tank was filled again today for the whopping price of $3.36 a gallon.   Snow is supposed to be on the way tonight although the prediction is only for an inch or so in this area.  Darcy my one eyed cat who usually loves to be outdoors is content to sleep in her warm basket, just about 24/7.  I am wishing I had some fingerless gloves to keep my hands warm.  It is chilly in the basement where the computer lives.

A friend emailed today asking about tights she'd heard I made.   I took these pictures at the fashion show I spoke of in the November post.  The model is wearing a dress and boot legs designed and made by Lillian Bates.  The tights are my design using the shibori rust method I use to make scarves and larger silk pieces.     The 3rd image is a detail of a different pair of tights.  No two ever come out alike, but I was completely surprised when the design was mostly black and cream with hardly any rust color. 

Fall Color and Fashion

 

The view from my patio was spectacular last week despite the drizzle of rain.  October was declared the wettest October ever, and the fourth wettest month in weather recording history.  I had a bit of water in the basement despite new window wells -- one of them leaked water slowly into my studio, but it was not a major disaster and thankfully the leak was plugged and everything was dry by evening.

The rain unfortunately sped up the leaf dropping process so that by November 1st the maple trees were nearly naked, matching my walnut trees that began dropping their leaves weeks ago.

I barely had time to notice the beauty outdoors because I was sewing madly for a fashion show to be held November 7 at Jacoby Arts Center.  I completed and delivered two outfits on Tuesday along with some of the tights I've been rust dyeing.  

Heads & Threads for Love is a fund raiser for Love 146 --dedicated to abolishing child sex slavery and exploitation--sponsored by Lillian Bate's By Design boutique at 136 Front Street, Alton and Fringe salon next door.  Lillian has been selling wearables for me since she opened a year ago.   I was excited to be invited to participate in the fashion show. 

 

In summer 2006 I was beginning to explore rust dyeing, but I did quite a lot of solar dyeing because the temperature was in the high 90s and 100s.  I also laid a few pieces out on the ground for what some natural dyers refer to as compost dyeing.  I usually refer to all my processes as organic printmaking.  The silk pictured above was arranged with black walnuts, elderberries, orange slices, radishes, watermelon rinds, rhubard stalks, turmeric spice and slices of red cabbage in the center which were pounded to break the cells in the leaves.  The silk was covered and sealed with black plastic for three weeks.  I've done composting in the past that took months to produce color, but the heat worked to my advantage.

This is the result of that experiment immediately after picking up the fabric and disposing of the veggie detritus.  The color looks rich here, but keep in mind the fabric was damp and as with many naturally derived dyes, the color changed and faded despite leaving it to cure for two or more months before washing.  

This summer, I've noticed a dramatic color change when I've used elderberries.  Scarves that were magenta in color when I removed them from the rust objects, quickly turned blue on the clothes line. 

I put the fabric away for three years and rediscovered it two weeks ago.  The fashion show concoction that I'd had my heart set on making for weeks went out the window in favor of using this fabric to create a dress.  I confess the dress didn't work out either.  I turned the bodice (which is made from another piece of composted silk) into a finished blouse trimmed with vintage cotton lace and the full gathered skirt into a long narrow wrap skirt.

 

The silk gauze sleeves are from a third piece of fabric that was rust dyed also in summer 2006.  The blue comes from elderberries that were packed around the rust objects.  The color in the skirt fabric is now blue/violet gray with deep blue elderberry spots along with swirls of deep walnut brown, cream, pink, bronze and yellow.  Really a beautiful piece of silk if I do say so.  

To make sure the wrap measurements would work, I did a practice run on some commercial fabric I had in my stash...a wonderfully soft, drapey, probably rayon blend paisley in rich fall colors.  It paired beautifully with some rusted organza I made just a week ago which I transformed into a poncho/shawl with bead fringe.