the little black dress

Sue B here...
My final piece  created for the Off the Hanger: form and surface exhibition that will be making it's debut at View in Old Forge NY.  The exhibit will run from Friday October 12, 2012 through December 2, 2012.  You can learn more about the gallery hosting the exhibit here.

"little black dress" 18" x 36" 

cotton, zippers, painted silk, machine quilted

And here's a look at all of the pieces that I will have on display at the exhibition:

clockwise from top left: Aging Gracefully, Cut 1 on Fold,  Little Black Dress, and Silk Shoes

cut 1 on fold

"cut 1 on fold" by Sue Bleiweiss

12"x12" painted silk over collaged pattern tissue mounted on stretched canvas

Created for the Off the Hanger exhibit.  Each of the 8 That Create artists will be making a piece in the same size and they will all hang together so that visitors can see a representation of our individual artistic styles in one spot. 

the empty space between

Sue B here...

In my last post here I talked about I had worked myself into a creative block over creating a piece for the "empty spaces" theme.   I really thought I was going to represent the theme with a vessel of some sort but I just couldn't seem to find the right shape for it.  It was after walking away from the project for a couple of weeks and coming back to it that the "aha" moment hit me and this piece came out of that moment:

 "empty spaces" 

hand painted silk, hand dyed black cotton, mounted on stretcher frame 12" x 24"

It's the empty spaces in this piece that create the imagery.  Without those empty spaces it would just be a solid piece of fabric.   Sometimes, in art, just like in life, it's the empty spaces that have the most impact.

"empty spaces" detail

progress...

After a bit of a struggle to get started I've started making progress with a piece for the empty spaces theme.  In my first post about working with this theme I mentioned that I had the problem of too many ideas.  That problem snowballed into too many ideas and not being happy with any of them which in turn morphed into a complete lack of ideas.  So I went back to my sketchbook...



These are just a few of the pages from my sketchbook that I created as I brainstormed what do do with this theme.  There are a lot more pages but I think you can see that I was a bit all over the place with my ideas.   Part of the problem was that I had convinced myself that I should create a vessel or some other 3d structure.  I latched onto that idea and because I wouldn't let it go but at the same time was feeling that it wasn't the piece I wanted to create I worked myself right into a creative block.

So I put everything away for a while and worked on some other projects.  I needed to stop trying to force the process and wanted to create some distance from it.  After a week or so I went back to my sketchbooks and flipped through the pages and I saw another theme coming through: the empty space created between the lines.  It was an aha moment and I was off and creating...

"the space between the lines" work in progress

a beginning

Sue B here...

I thought I'd give you a glimpse into how I approach creating a  piece of work once I've got a theme to work with.  Actually, this process is pretty much how I approach any new piece of work that I create and it all begins on the pages of my sketchbook...

Whenever I have a new theme or idea to work with the first thing I do is to make a list of words that relate to the theme.  For  "empty spaces" theme that we're working with my list ran the gamut from literal and abstract interpretations to techniques and materials.



As you can see from this shot of my sketchbook pages I am not worried about neatness and I definitely don't censor myself at this stage of the process.  By that, I mean I write down any idea that comes to mind whether or not I think it's a good or bad idea or even if I think I have the skill set to bring it to fruition. I'll keep coming back to these pages to review them and add to them over the course of days or even weeks until I find the ideas that I am the most excited about and that I think I want to carry off the pages and start developing.



For the "empty spaces" theme I find that I have the problem of too many ideas.  I know what you're thinking - how can too many ideas be a problem?  Well for me, too many ideas is overwhelming.  I need to narrow down the list so I know what to focus on.  Once I've got some focus I can start the actual art making process.  For this theme I have several ideas that I'm considering: the empty space in a vessel, lace work and the space between two objects.  Which one I will end up using will depend on the results of some sampling that I will be doing over the next few weeks which I've already begun by starting to paint a new piece of textured silk...

hand painted silk in progress

I'll be back with another look at my progress with this theme in a week or two so stay tuned!

introductions: Sue Bleiweiss

My name is Sue Bleiweiss and I've been a full time artist for over 10 years.  I work primarily with sandwashed cotton that I dye myself to create fabric collages with and I work with hand painted silk.

I have become quite enamored with aged, rusted and weathered surfaces and my work with silk is a result of this.

[caption id="attachment_35" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ravages of Time 30”x40” hand painted silk"][/caption]

 I've started a series of corsets and garments from the late 1800's using the techniques I've developed to create these aged painted silk surfaces.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="233" caption="Inside Out 52”x38” hand dyed sandwashed cotton"]

Silk corset Metal