Small Wonders

Our Exhibit is ready to be seen! Please join us for the opening reception on Sunday, September 7th from 1 to 4PM at the Etui Fiber Art Gallery in Larchmont, NY.

Here's the official invitation:

Diminutive bugs and birds, petite scale, delicate details of line and stitch – all in tiny treasures on view at Etui Gallery during the month of September, 2014. Eight artists brought together by a love of fabric and stitch show off their varied approaches to mixed media textiles in this exhibit of small works. Layers of machine and hand stitching intimately render buildings and homes both in Natalya Aikens’ works, which incorporate recycled ephemera, and in Kristin La Flamme’s fabric collages. Benedicte Caneill’s work incorporates impeccably sewn pieces of her monoprinted fabrics to create dancing compositions of color and line. Jane Davila and Gloria Hansen turn their focus on small-scale flora and fauna with an eye to graphic simplicity and macro photography respectively. Carol Sloan, Liz Kettle, and Beryl Taylor round out the collection with tantalizing layers of intriguing fabrics, delicate paper, painted textures, wee stitches, and tiny details that draw the viewer in for a closer look.

Here are a few photos to entice you to come see them in person!

Front facing wall with art by Jane, Benedicte and Gloria

Small wonders by Kristin

Corner view with work by Gloria, Benedicte, Liz and Natalya

Gloria's butterflies

Benedicte and Liz's work

Main wall with work by Liz, Natalya, Carol, Beryl and Kristin

A restful spot with work by Kristin, Natalya and Carol

 

Articles on Making Stuff

Carol writing today.

A few months ago, I received word that two of the article proposals I had turned in to Interweave had been accepted for the newest Pages magazine.

Imagine my delight when I saw the publication for the first time and my artwork was on the cover!

I wrote an article about creating artful niches for miniature books.
It is a really fun project that is not that difficult to create.
The carving and painting portion is my favorite part! And, if you mess up, it's very easy to "erase" that area and start over.

I also wrote an article about creating a triptych out of canvas, plaster and molding paste.
Add a few lines from a poem, some of your favorite natural items and you have wonderfully textured piece to sit on a shelf or a desktop.

"Forest Symphony"

The back side of
"Forest Symphony"

Pop over to this site and purchase your own copy of the Pages magazine.
This is the fifth edition and I have all of them. They really are chock full of wonderful projects.

MIA Post

Carol here, back after falling down the winter's rabbit hole.

I've been working on a few new things but mostly resting up, reading and drinking hot tea (and coffee).

One of the things that I do in the warmer weather is to rust fabric and different fibers so that I have plenty to play with in the cooler months.
I've been playing around with creating collages out of bits and pieces of rusted and naturally dyed fabric.
I do a compulsive amount of hand stitching on them in the evening when my husband and I sit together. I have to have something in my hands or I go crazy.

I thought I would share a photo of one of the most beautiful pieces of rust fabric I have ever had the pleasure of unrolling in my rust bin.
The photo really does not do it justice.

It looks like a sunset, doesn't it?

I don't think I can bear to cut this piece up.
So it will stay on my design wall for now.

I'll close with a couple of close-ups of a new collage I am stitching on.
I'm almost ready to call it quits on this one.

I still haven't decided what to do with it when I do finish the hand stitching.
I'll try to remember to do a follow up post.

Closed Doors vs Open Ones

Carol here.

I don't know about all of you but after I have a big push to reach deadlines, I have to take a break.

Literally I have nothing to offer.

I  just completed two articles for the same publication (with only two weeks to write them both) (my own schedule blocked me into that corner) and I am so very wrung out.
I feel like I couldn't come up with one bit of inspiration at the moment.

But I still crave the daily creative activity that I am used to.

What is a girl to do?

I read for a couple of days or at least until my vision was blurred.
Then I watched a couple of good movies followed by a couple of really bad ones.

But I couldn't sit still much longer and not do something.
What I really wanted to do was draw or work in my art journal.

I don't know if you can really call one of the handmade books that I write/draw/collage in an "art journal" but I guess that's the best description at the moment.
Sometimes it feels like an "art" journal but other times it feels more like a regular journal.

It's a huge book that I made in a workshop that I took a few years ago.

I certainly learned my lesson there about making Big Books.

I prefer the smaller ones that I can complete easily or the "theme" book that I can carry on trips with me.

I have a "Colorado" book that I work in while I am visiting friends and teaching there.

I also have a "Charleston" book that I carry when my husband and I venture to The Holy City.
I used a printed copy of a rich beautiful painting by Robert Henri called "The Green Fan (Girl of Toledo, Spain)" that is owned by Gibbs Art Museum in Charleston, SC

One of my favorite paintings.
She stands 41 inches tall
and commands any room that she is in.

My Charleston Book (aka Book of the Holy City).
"The Green Fan (Girl of Toledo, Spain)"
Robert Henri

Having a book like that makes it really simple to decide what to carry with me when I travel.

But back to the Big Book.

She is almost six inches thick, holds a lot of pages and even more words and drawings.
Lots of room for random mark making.
I turn to her pages when I have that desire to draw (or write) and have no idea or concern for the outcome.

I opened her up yesterday morning, grabbed a couple of pens and set to work (while watching one of those bad movies).

Here's a sampling of the pages that I marked up.

A colorful owl that started out as a curved doodle.

I had stitched a doily/sun shape into my page
before I stitched the signature into my book.
Yesterday I journaled deep, dark secrets on the page.

Ah, more secrets.
I'd have to kill you if you read them.

Ideas for simple, yet engaging journal doodles.

You can see the progression in this page.
I love adding the tiny details to finish the doodle drawings up.
I'll go back in later and add journaling.

I also add in single pages with ideas for thermofax screens.

More blurring to make you wonder why I have
so many deep dark secrets.
Most of it is aimless pondering of a bored woman.
Like this one -
"We never consider death before it considers us"
What?
"Dead men do tell tales albeit quietly".
I am a fountain (a deep one) of thoughts.

So you can see that I have an expanse of fertile ground on which to practice my trade.
In other words- I have a big ass book that I draw and write in.

The Muse may be out at the moment but at least I left the door open for her.

Do you find that you close the door completely or do you leave the door open for ideas to flow back in?

You gotta leave room for the entry of creative ideas.
You also need to spend time with these ideas every day.
If you keep showing up and opening that door, they will show show up as well.

Providing Space For Possibility

I've been thinking a lot about that lately.

Carol here, opening a discussion on how we can open up a space for possibility.

I am smack dab in the middle of a huge purge and reorganization of my home.

It started out innocently enough with me wanting to clean out my studio.
It was cluttered, packed with useless ("I might need that one day") items that are easily accessible.

Why keep all of these things in my studio when I can pick them up locally for a few coins when I need them?
I understand that I need some of them  in front of me for inspiration but I was/am sick to death of a packed, cluttered work space!
When I am in the middle of a project (or two), my work table is always cluttered - but with purpose.
And that type of clutter is easily dealt with after a project is completed.

It's the ever present clutter that haunts me.

I truly believe that it inhibits creativity and restricts inner vision.

In short, it cripples my ability to bring concrete form to my creative voice.

With all of that in mind, I began the arduous task of picking through decades of "precious" items.
Some of them were easy enough to part with. They no longer fit my idea of suitable art supplies (to me anyway), my color preferences changed or I was no longer interested in completing that particular project.

But what I did notice was that the longer I worked at cleaning out my space, the easier it got to toss the items to the "throw away" or "donate" pile.
And, when that happened, I felt that a weight had been lifted off of me. I could really feel my spirits lifting.

I believe that I was opening up space for something new, something fresh in my life.

I didn't want to allow the past, in the form of clutter, to hamper future possibilities.

The action of purging the studio fueled a passion to do the same thing throughout my home.

At the end of the day, the pain that I feel is an odd comfort.
It tells me that I am doing a good thing, that I am putting in the important work it takes to create not only a physical space that invites creativity and inspiration but I am also creating that same space within myself.

I did not plan on this being a New Year's resolution. It just happened to be this time of the year.

If I was one to make resolutions, I'd resolve to continue to simplify my life, my home and attitude.
For they have become much too cluttered.

I hope that you all continue to invite inspiration into your life.
A good place to start is to create a space for it - open yourself up to possibility.

Collage Fodder

Carol here.

My husband and I have been rusting fibers for several years now.

I love the color and texture that the rusted fabric offers.
I've made several wall pieces that began their life as bits and pieces of different rusted fabrics and fibers. It's a great base to build wonderfully textured art on.

This formula also works for felted backgrounds.

After working on the last two projects (Kindle cover here, here and needle case here) that had felted bases, I decided to use the same approach for a collage that I have in mind.
I wanted to create a palette of rust fabric on which to hand and machine stitch.

I am approaching this project much as I do most of my projects - with an open mind and a vague plan.
My vague plan is to felt the base, hand stitch on top of this, then add a machine stitched image over that.
I must admit I'm a little nervous about risking the hand stitched base when I add the machine stitching.
But my "fly by the seat of my pants" attitude is that I can always redo the base...just make another one, right?

So far I've felted two small pieces and managed to get some hand stitching done on each one.

I've also machine stitched a copyright free image (that I re-drew) on one of them.

I haven't done any free motion machine stitching (or would this be free motion embroidery?) in a long time.
As soon as I began stitching this small motif, I remembered how much I loved doing it!
So I definitely will be doing more of this.

I have one other section almost completed and I'll show more next time.

I hope that you all are creating every day.
You gotta flex those creative muscles if you want to keep them!

Stitched Felting

Hi all - Carol Sloan here.

I love hand stitching even though I don't normally do a lot of it.
But recently, it seems to have taken over my studio table.

When I visit my friend (and group member) Liz Kettle in Colorado, I love to play with her felting machine.
This year I thought about it before I went out there and wanted to create a couple of base pieces to stitch on at my leisure.

Well, you know how that went...I got so involved in the creation of the small piece that I quit working on everything that I was supposed to be doing!

I wanted to make a cover for my electronic reader for a couple of reasons.
One- because I hated looking at the plain black vinyl cover.
And two, because I could.

I love handmade items like that.

So I used the machine and felted down a few pieces of silk, torn scarves, roving and bits of this and that.
Good friend that she is, Liz let me pick out thread to use too!
I added a lot of mine when I got home too.

Once I started stitching, it became a tiny obsession.
I spent hours (lots of them) stitching on the cover or thinking about what I would do next.
Well, I guess that I thought more about what thread or what color I would use next as opposed to what I would do next.
The doing part seems to work itself out when I get out of the way.
Here's a few shots of the completed cover.

I decided against adding beads since I would be holding the Kindle in my hands while reading.
I figured that the beads could become a problem if they were in the wrong place.

And, I was ready to finish the project as I had another one calling to me.

Now, where is that rusted fabric...?

Summer in the Southeastern USA

Carol here.

I live in the upper left hand corner of South Carolina (called "the Upstate" around here).
For years, decades really, we have been classified as an Agricultural Zone 7a-7b, depending on where you are in the state.
In 2012, the zoning map was re-evaluated and the zones in our state changed.
We now run from 7A to 9A (Charleston area only).
That would explain why I rarely wear a heavy coat in the winter as well as why I stay in the house (in the air conditioning) during the heat (and humidity) of the summer.

But one of the truly wonderful perks about living in this near tropical environment is the cornucopia of fragrant flowers.
If you step out into my backyard right now, you would be treated to the scents of gardenia, magnolias, lillies, petunias, roses as well as many other odoriferous delights.

When I go out to clip leaves, stems or flowers for natural dyeing (or eco printing), I am frequently distracted from the job at hand by the abundance of natural beauty right in my own yard.

Not to mention the blackberries that are ripening up right now.

Print from a blackberry stem.

I picked a few leaves from the bushes while I was checking out the progress of the berries.

We really have to be diligent about picking them or the birds will eat them all!

I'm gathering  a big pile of natural dyed fabrics to being a stitching project soon.

I'll be glad to get to that part of the fun since it's been a while since I've been able to make something.

And that's one of my very favorite things to do - making something.

Nature's Colors

Hi everyone!
Carol Sloan here.

I am a real nature lover.
I love to hike out in the woods, sit by a rushing river (or a quiet river), kayak, ride my bike down a country road...anything related to getting outside catches my attention.
I also have been a lifelong leaf, rock and bark collector (dead bugs and dried bones but we won't go there right now).
I have tried a few experiments with natural dyeing over the years but never had much luck until last year - when I got really serious about figuring it out.
I purchased India Flint's book, "Eco Colour", and checked out every book at the local library that I could find on the subject.
I did Google searches and read blog entry after blog entry (and there are a lot of natural dyeing blogs out there), all the while taking copious notes.
I experimented for several months, getting little to no results but I kept on trying.
After months of trying all sorts of things, I finally hit pay dirt!

I live in South Carolina (USA) and in my corner of the state, we can grow eucalyptus trees. Sometimes if it gets too cold, they will get a little burned but they usually do pretty good.
These are a few of the results that I got with dyeing silk, cotton and paper with leaves from a local tree.

This is linen fabric. I know that it is much more
difficult to get color on anything other than silk.

Finally! Spectacular color after many, many tries!
Eucalyptus on silk

Different colors from eucalyptus on silk.

Yet one more color from eucalyptus on silk. I love the small fern in the
upper right hand corner of the piece.

I didn't look at my notes but I think that this eucalyptus
has a little walnut color on it (or onion skin).

I did get some nice prints on cotton fabric as well. The leaves created beautiful colors, shapes and prints.

Black Walnut leaves left a gorgeous print on this cotton sheeting.

A variety of leaves were used on this cotton.

The next two prints are pieces of cotton fabric that were facing each other with leaves sandwiched in between them. I love the different looks that I got!

What I really loved was the color and prints that I got from leaves on watercolor & vellum bristol papers.
I gathered a ton of leaves, all kinds of varieties (both plant and tree) and spent several days experimenting with them.
I am totally in love with the results & completely in love with the imprinted memory of those glorious leaves
on the paper.
And I can't wait to do more of it this year!
I am using the papers to make beautiful books full of memories of the forests that the leaves came from.

300 pound watercolor paper
I just noticed the face in the lower left hand corner.
I am not sure what kind of glasses she has on...

300 pound watercolor paper

The prints looked a little different on the vellum bristol paper versus the watercolor paper but I like them equally.

This is a close-up of one area of the paper.
I love the bright green color!

The full page from the above close-up

The green color on the left side is from a
huge dandelion plant!
Can you believe that? 

As you can tell from the dandelion comment above, I truly picked leaves all over my yard.
I tried free fall leaves (litter from the ground), fresh leaves from the trees as well as weeds and leaves from the garden.
(Addendum - some of the tree leaves are from a local farm that my husband and I hike at).

Here is a miniature book that has the pages made from scraps of this paper.
I painted a small piece of some other paper to use for the cover.
It's just a little bigger than a quarter.
This is the kind of thing that I do when I want to do something creative but I can't figure out what, when I am trying to get out of working on a deadline project and/or there is housework to be done...

I hope that you all are finding small ways to avoid housework, I mean exercise your creativity on a daily basis.
I certainly am!