Rayna's Class, Finally

I am so excited to be taking two, two day classes from Rayna Gillman next week. She is going to be teaching at my friend Jane's new Fabric Arts Studio in Grand Junction, CO. I'm having a great time collecting all kinds of interesting items to use to create marks on fabric. The first two days will be "Original Cloth - Original Quilts" and the last two days will be "Jump Starting the Art Quilt".

Book Recommendation

I'm really enjoying this new book by Angie Hughes. It has inspired my current "Planets" series. Her technique of saturating fabric with a PVA glue solution, layering various textured materials and threads with more glue, then covering all of that with gesso to create a beginning canvas is so much fun. After the gesso you add paint, images, papers, beads, whatever you want to create your finished piece. If you look at the closeup of my Planet I, below, you can see the underlying texture.

New Work, Finally

After months of not being able to finish anything, I've done something I really like. It is called "Planet I: Floaters" and is first in a series I've started. Planet I is going to be in the non-juried SAQA exhibit called "Layered Textures" at the Denver Mancuso Show next month.

Back From AQT

What a wonderful week! We had such a good time. Els Van Baarle's class was excellent and she is a delightful person. The link to her website is in my previous post. We used soy wax for batiking, which I had never done before. The soy wax works quite well in a classroom setting because there are no fumes to worry about and it is easy to handle. Since I've never used regular wax before, I had nothing to compare it with, but feel it will work well in my small studio. I'm also feeling more comfortable working with Procion dyes after this week. Els made it all very accessible for us, and I'm very pleased with the work I did. I was so caught up in what I was doing, I really didn't take many pictures. The one I've posted shows my tablemate erecting a barrier so she wouldn't splatter with the energetic dye application she needed to do. We applied the dye directly to the fabric with brushes, a technique which is also well-suited to my small space.

Tahoe Update

I was disappointed to learn that Rayna's class at AQT was cancelled because not enough people signed up for it. She is so great, I'm really surprised . I have her new book and was looking forward to trying some of the techniques in her class. Now, I'm determined to go ahead on my own using the book.

As an alternate to Rayna's class, I've signed up for Els Van Baarle's class. She was there last year and her class made some beautiful fabrics, so I know I will enjoy this as well. This is her web page: http://www.elsvanbaarle.com/ . Her work is really gorgeous.

Sold!

My art quilt guild, AQuA, recently exhibited in the gallery at Mesa Verde National Park. One of my pieces, "Windows and Doors: Inside" sold! This was definitely a bright spot for me. It incorporates hand painted fabric I did in Gerry Chase's class two years ago at Art Quilt Tahoe. (You can see some of her work here: https://www.artfulhome.com/artist/883.html )

This piece is part of the Windows and Doors series I have been working on using this fabric.

What to Do When You Can't Do Much of Anything

This is definitely one summer I will be glad to have behind me. My 91 year old mom fell in early June and fractured her pelvis in two places and her sacrum. Thank goodness she is now out of the rehab center and back home and doin pretty well. Now, my husband has become involuntarily unemployed, and my business is slow - people don't spend money they don't need to when gas and food are so expensive.

Creativity has been hard to come by. I have found one helpful outlet to at least be doing something. I got a small Japanese journal - all the pages are attached and they accordian fold out. They are made by Moleskine, and the paper is very good quality. I'm using my favorite color scheme and a variety of techniques and materials I've been wanting to explore. The images above show two sets of pages that I especially like.

The advantage of working this way for me is that the scale is small, so I can work in small chunks of time and still complete something; since I'm just "experimenting" there is less pressure to be perfect; and what I am doing can form the basis for future fiber projects.

So...I'm hangin' in there and taking joy where I can find it. Times will get better, and we have a lot more than many.