You Will Love This!

For the past couple of months I've been obsessed with Ice Dyeing, also known as snow dyeing (but we don't do snow here on the west coast)! I am totally in love with the fabrics I've created, each one is a surprise and absolutely beautiful..... I just ordered a dozen silk scarves to work on for my studio tour next month, can you imagine wearing this fabric as scarves?

 Or this one:

 Or this one:

 Or this one:

 Or this one:

I'll have these up in my shop soon or you can see a good video on how to ice dye here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhBtRaltPIM
Interested? I'm having an "Ice Dyed Silk Scarf" workshop next month, where you will design and make a gorgeous scarf for yourself or a special someone. Since the fabric needs time to batch, I'll rinse, wash and dry the scarves for you and then wrap them up ready for gift giving!
I'll let you know the date soon!
PS. I guess you've noticed I'm back to blogging.....

A Coral Reef and Little Fish

When we're involved with fibre and thread, I've found it useful to be open to all possibilities, dont you agree? You just never know when something will blow you away!
I was teaching in Espanola, Ontario this month as part of their Fibre Arts Festival, a city wide celebration of all things fibre. Espanola is a small town near Sudbury, the part of Ontario that has thousands of small lakes, multi hued rocks bursting out from the landscape and autumn colours like no where else on earth, beauty all around!
There were spinners and weavers, lots and lots of yarns, classes for smockers, recyclers/upcyclers and much more, as I said..... lots of fibre!
But the best part was an art installation that brought together fibre artists from around the world, a Coral Reef, like no other! The reef was the work of Jody and a host of volunteers who knitted, crocheted, wove, tatted and laced a myriad of wonderous sea creatures to illustrate the importance of sea life to our environment. Have a look:

 School children made long spiky papier mache coral as an art project

 Check out the knit moray eel!

 Amazing brain corals!

 White areas of the reef depict dead spots from pollution and damage to the fragile ecosystem

Can you see the tiny little fish above? one weaver made over 100 of these for the reef!

The installation will be visiting other communities and galleries in northern Ontario. I hope it will find a permanent home sometime.
I think this shows how amazing it can be when a community takes on a project and works together to make it happen. The Espanola Fibre Arts Festival happens each year in October, plan a trip to visit, you will love it!

Remember the Self Critique?

Maybe you remember the work I had done at the beginning of the summer and had asked for comments as I was workting through the beginning od a new series? Well, actually its the first of what I might consider a sereies. It gave me an excellent tryout for some ideas that I had been mulling over and now I'd ready to show you some results.
The first work I showed you got cut in half

and became this:

                                                                   Cosa 12" x 12"

But the remaining half of the piece didn't make it! Not that it wasnt any good, but I used a hand dyed piece of fabric that ran, and ran when I rinsed out the blue marker. And I got this: 

Darn, darn and double darn! It won't even make a nice potholder!

But the other piece:

Gave me this:

                                                                   Vesuna 12" x 12"

And the fabric in the remaining half ran as well. The fabric is now in the garbage!
Having made a couple more pieces, I mounted them on canvas board and and very happy with the results. Despite some misgivings, they are both in the portrait format:

                                                                     Appia 12" x 24"

                                                                       Ostia 12" x 24"

So what did I learn:

• I prefer working with a more limited palette
• I may need to work on keeping my lines straighter (?)
• The quilting design is simple yet effective, I can't do curves well
• These pieces led me to develop a larger piece that I have entered into a show
• I love, love, love doing mark making on the fabrics I use!

Finally, the series isn't finished yet!

More Mark Making....

Yesterday I spent at the Bowker Creek Brush Up as one of the artists. We were encouraged to demonstrate some art making and while I was all ready to do some sun printing, I was in a shady spot. So decided to spend my spare time on Mark Making onto my favourite Essex cloth, a blend of cotton and linen. While I worked with white fabric, several of the pieces will be overdyed. Maybe I should have come with some coloured pieces, oh well!
So here is what I accomplished, some will need more work.....

Mark Making and more...

As soon as you put pen to paper or paint to cloth, you have started a journey of Mark Making. The term can be used to describe the different lines, patterns, and textures we create in an artwork. So anything from a dot to a scrawl or a pattern is a mark. It is the component of mark making that become art making, when the marks take on meaning, shape or a design, then they evolve into significantly more.
I began thinking a little more deeply about Mark Making (capitals added for emphasis) when I took a workshop with Dorothy Caldwell titled Human Marks. We spent five days focused on how we can make marks on paper and fabric and the variety of tools we can use to create them. It was an inspiring workshop, I had wanted to take a workshop with Dorothy for many years. Here are some pictures from the workshop:

I've been printing and stamping with black paint and ink onto white fabrics and using the fabrics in some of my recent work.

And here is part of a piece where I used some of the fabrics. I like to incorporate them as brighteners and visual breaks amongst the coloured fabrics.

Today my grand daughter came into my studio and watched as I used some markers onto fabric. She was quite interested and asked if she could do some Mark Making too!

She and I had a lot of fun playing with the markers, and I'm excited to use some of the fabrics we made in my art work!
Here's the markers I like to use:

I'll share some more Mark Making ideas with you soon!

Good Grief....Where has the time gone!

I knew I'd been busy and hadn't had a chance to post recently, but when I checked the date of my last post....June 9th, I knew I had really messed up!
So I got to thinking about this blog and what I am writing it for? Why do I take the time to post my words and pictures here to share? And most importantly, why do you take the time to read and respond?
Well, I don't have any definite reasons but part of it is to share my life as an artist.....we work mostly in isolation, people sometimes come to my studio for workshops or meetings and my assistant comes in one morning a week. But most of the days, I'm by myself and it can get a bit lonely...
So I write on the blog and share to hear from others, invite feedback and generally invite you into my studio. (I've been thinking of a virtual studio tour on Youtube, but honestly, its a bit of a mess right now)
A couple days ago, I posted this image on Facebook:

and got a couple comments about how I use my time and accomplish a lot in my day. And I began thinking that others might be interested as well. It's not complicated....I mess up with my planning....I'm not perfect, but I keep trying!

First, I set goals, not too many all at once-maybe 3-4, and I work on them every day! So the image is a show I want to enter and the due date for the image. I also put the amount of time I need to spend on it every day til its finished.
Also, I have a spreadsheet of the show I want to enter, which quilts and deadlines. I keep updating it as time goes by.

Second, I keep a planner beside me. I use it for almost everything in my life. I wish I could go digital but I like the feeling of paper and pencil. Right now, with five adults in the house and a 3 1/2 year old, we also have a calendar on the fridge with all our schedules on it - all five of us work at different times of the day (and night). As for the planner, I'm fussy about what I use, I've tried just about every kind, right now it's The Passionate Planner and its good, just a little bulky for the size I use.

Third, I've signed up for some online workshops and info sessions of time keeping and planning, not all the information is relevant to my life but I can "cherry pick" the good stuff and make it work for me.
Finally, I've learned to loosen up a bit, this summer is very special, with lots of family coming and going. I'm not sure how often it'll happen in the future so I'm taking full advantage of it, with lots of walk, picnics and planting seeds of every kind with a special little girl.
One more thing (though I'm a bit lax this summer) is to do a once-a-week "brain dump" into my planner and notebook. I put down all the things I want to work on, tasks and priorities....everything!
And get it out of my head and onto the paper. But I don't do this on a Monday, when we tend to be in planning mode for the week, mid-week works best for me.
So what are your ideas and how do you plan for and reach your goals?