Fiberart International 2013 - CORRECTION

My previous post was incorrect. I do NOT have any works from Fiberart International currently at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.
Instead, my two works will be shown as follows:

January 19th - April 24, 2014 Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

July 11th - October 26th, 2014 American Textile History Museum, Lowell, Mass.

I may try to make it to one of the openings and will post if I do.

Fiberart International 2013 - New Venue

Fiberart International 2013 is now at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose, CA. from November 6th to January 19th, 2014. There will be an opening reception on November 10th from 2-4:00 PM.

I have two works in this show. See my previous post for more information:

http://flyinghaystackshandembroidery.blogspot.com/2013/04/fiberart-international-2013.html

"Threads" Exhibit

I have been included in a new Fiber Art group exhibition entitled "Threads" at Tubac Center of the Arts in Tubac, Arizona.

On display will be this work, this one and this one, as well as current work from other contemporary artists working in fiber.

The exhibit runs from October 18th to November 17th, 2013 with an opening reception on the 18th from 5:00  - 7:00 P.M.
As usual I will not be able to make the opening but I do hope someone out there will!

New Exhibit

I will be exhibiting three works – this one, this one and this one in the show “Fiber Optics” juried/curated by Lisa Rockford at 1310 Gallery, 1310 SW 2^nd Ct., Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The show runs from September 21^st to October 11^th, 2013. There is an opening reception on Sept. 21^st from 7-10 PM as well as a reception on the closing night from 7-9 PM.

Also, the Gallery is participating in the local “Art fallout” event on Oct. 5^th from 5-9 PM.

There are a lot of artists in this show and it looks to be an exciting event. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend but if anyone does please let me know how it turns out!

New Work - "Mask / face / head"

I was working on the piece in the last post and decided there needed to be some kind of mask / face / head somewhere. I started creating one on a separate, smaller hoop and about a month later I was finished and ready to add it. However the face / head that I ended up with was just too big. So, I decided to use it as the 'center point' of an entirely different work. I stitched it to some larger fabric pieces but it looked a bit naked all by itself, so I added some collage elements around it. I started with a few small scraps of black fabric and eventually added pieces of velvet, lace, trimmings, and other odds and ends including stitched over shapes, not unlike the star shapes I have been doing in previous work. My inspiration was African and Indian clothing and fabric I have seen adorned with various different items. I wanted to keep everything black on black as I have been doing, and of course a photograph does not capture this well.

The face / mask / head was made with metallic floss - both 'pointillized' and also stitched over with smoky monofilament floss, and white cotton floss. 

New Work

The latest in the black fabric or 'star' series (I guess I could call them that as the star shapes inhabit 3 works so far). I cut the stars out of matte board and stitch through and on top of them, the idea being like gluing an object onto a canvas and painting over it for textural effect, in this case black on black (which is continually difficult to photograph).

In a previous post I talked about hand making multi-colored floss which I use a lot of here.

I also seem to have gotten temporarily possessed with pointillism.

I am expanding the use of collage and I think it will increase.

The human type figure took on a life of its own. It looks like an alien to me (unintentional). The face made from monofilament thread hovering above the figure looks to me like it is being 'beamed' from the alien straight into my brain (also unintentional). I nick-named this piece "The Alien Within".

Fiberart International 2013

Fiberart International is a triennial, juried exhibition sponsored by the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh. I have two works in this years exhibit.

The exhibit will initially take place at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and the Society for Contemporary Craft from April 19th to August 18th. After that it will travel to other venues in California and South Carolina. I will post updates regarding those events when they happen.

The opening is on Friday April 19th from 5:30 to 9PM at both of the above venues.
I will not be able to attend but I hope anyone out there who can, will.

Here is a link to a story about this exhibit with more information:

http://www.popcitymedia.com/features/FiberPgh041713.aspx

'Hello World' Art Exhibit

I will have this work shown in a group exhibit at 'The Service Station at Riverside' gallery , 3160 Riverside Drive, Los Feliz, CA. The show is called 'Hello World' and is the first exhibit for this new gallery and will showcase fiber art as well as graffiti.

The show will run from April 20th to May 18th. There will be an opening on the 20th from 2PM to 10PM and will feature many live activities including music provided by a DJ.

The curator, Luna George has created a Blog featuring the artists:

http://helloworldartexhibit.blogspot.com/


You can also learn more about the show and gallery at this Facebook page:


http://www.facebook.com/events/172887319533935/?ref=ts&fref=ts


I hope anyone in the area will go to this event, it sounds like a lot of fun. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend, but please try to go or at least invite your L.A. friends! Thanks!

Making multicolored floss

 I love multicolored floss (sometimes called painters floss), but I could never find any that had the extreme color variation that I really wanted. What I really wanted was to have a single piece of thread that gave a different color for every single stitch. Eventually I realized I just had to make my own.

I bought some white cotton floss and a set of fabric colors and started to experiment.




 I found the best method was to simply paint the colors right on the floss with a thin brush. I also found that it really helped to hold the floss taut and in place. I used tape for this.


I painted one side then flipped it over and did the other side and also filled in any little remaining blank spaces that needed it. This took several days since drying time for each color was needed.

                                                                                                                                                                              

After it was done I un-taped it all, put it in a 

small pouch and tossed it in a dryer for about 

20 minutes or so to set the colors.

I was happy with the result. I get a different color for almost every stitch, and as a bonus many of the stitches have multiple colors in them - some with different colors on each end or sometimes split horizontally down the middle.

I used this 'homemade painters floss' with this piece and this one.

Hopefully this is just the beginning.....

New Group Show

This piece is part of a new group show called "Stitch Fetish" at the Hive Gallery and Studios in Los Angeles, CA. The show is curated by Ellen Schinderman.
The opening is Saturday Feb. 2nd, 8 - 11:30 PM. It will run until Feb 23rd.
On Feb 14th the gallery will participate in the Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk.

I will not be able to make any of these events but anyone in LA should check out the show, it should be fun!

New work

Still continuing to work on black fabric. The center image was taken from an old anatomy diagram, but I changed parts of it to resemble an African mask and I did some more improvisational changing. In the end it turned out looking like some kind of 'un-dead' monster or something.
I used multi-colored metallic thread with transparent monofilament thread layered on top in an attempt to create the look and feel of skin tissue. I also used some cotton multicolored thread that I hand-dyed. I will post about that sometime soon.

The line images surrounding the 'head' I made by laying down a bright red/pink/orangey thread and then stitching over it completely with black (though bits of slight fuzz from the laid thread is visible). This technique is similar to 'couching' but I covered the entire laid thread….. I think it's called a 'trailing stitch', I'm not sure. The black thread on top of black fabric makes an interesting texture.

I stitched the black fabric to black velvet and stretched the velvet onto stretcher bars.

Of course, the monofilament thread over the multicolor metallic as well as the black on black make a fun photography challenge. Seems I'm always making things that are hard to photograph, why stop now?