Life happens......

I was planning on updating this Blog with new work months ago, however life does get in the way of artmaking.....
I hope to have something new to share soon!
Tod

Exhibiting in new fiber show

 

This work and this work will be included in the upcoming exhibit: "Focus: Fiber 2014, A National Contemporary Fiber Show".

                     

 

       'Focus: Fiber' is a juried, biennial exhibition presented by the Textile Art Alliance of the Cleveland Museum of Art since 1970.

It will be held in the Bacon Gallery of the Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA from September 26th, 2014 to January 18th, 2015. Opening reception is on the 26th from 7-10PM. I will not be able to attend but I hope you will! There are 37 total artists exhibiting. It should be an exciting event.

New Exhibit

I have been included in a new group show of Fiber Art: "Materiality: A Fiber Arts Group Exhibition" at the Ann Street Gallery in Newburgh, New York.

On display will be this work and this one as well as work from 22 other artists.

The show runs from March 15th to April 12th, 2014.

Opening reception is on March 15th from 6:30 - 8:30 PM which I will try very hard to attend. I hope to meet some of you there!

Many thanks to Curator Virginia Walsh for inviting me into this exhibition!

New work

Still using black fabric. This time I wanted to merge my older, compact, solidly filled up, stitch-upon-stitch style with the new, black fabric, more texture oriented, looser collage style. No 3D stars or stitched-over objects in this one but I did collage in a few small pieces of fabric and it is stretched onto a frame. As usual a variety of embroidery techniques are used, but I took some of them further than I usually do: the pointillism, most of which is made with metallic thread, is a mix of colored dots - some areas with a total multi-color mix, and others made up of different hues yet still keeping a single tone. There are a few small sections where the pointillism is on plain, un-colored fabric. The three-dimensionally rendered parts are rendered, I hope, with more realism than I have yet achieved. I make much use of the smokey monofilament thread which is becoming one of my favorite flosses. I'm finding that French knots are a good solution to fill in areas when I have a loss of ideas.

This took longer than expected and I had to leave out some images that I wanted, otherwise I would be working on it indefinitely.

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".