Vintage Textile Design and Early New Year's Resolutions

Last week we purchased a new item--a shelf unit with bins for my art supplies. They were really taking over the house, piled on the dining table (making it unusable for anything but art) and piled in corners in ugly plastic bins and cardboard boxes.

In the process of getting my supplies arranged just the way I want them, I have been forced to sort through several years' accumulation of papers and paper scraps. While I was rummaging around for papers to use on today's journal page, I found some magazine pages with gorgeous antique textile designs. I knew immediately that I had to use them.

Two things occurred to me as I was working on the page: 1) why save things for "someday"? why not use them NOW. So maybe it will be an early New Year's Resolution to stop saving beautiful things--art, paper, jewelry, clothing, food--for a special time and make NOW the special time. 2) I realized that no matter what else I do, I am a textile designer at heart. I can't seem to make a design without wanting to put it into repeat, visualizing how it would look on cloth or clothing, and imagining various color combinations for the design. Of course I love to paint, to sew, to draw, to weave, to write, to be creative in almost any way. But fabric design? That is a deep, integral part of me that feels right and good so maybe that's the second New Year's resolution--follow that path again in my art.

For this collage, along with the reprint of the vintage textile designs, I used assorted commercial and original paper, painted newsprint, washi tape (recycled from an envelope seal) a white signo pen, and some Julie Fei-Fan Balzer stamps.

Dreaming of Art

 

A few months ago there was a Cloth Paper Scissor challenge for quilted postcards. I have been making them for years, so it was right up my alley. I combined an old photo [my kindergarten portrait, circa 1960] along with a Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ hat and a pair of clipart scissors. I used a background of newsprint, and made skyscrapers out of more newsprint. A little lace for a pinafore and accents with water-soluble oil pastels, a little stitching, and the postcard was done.

The basic design was done in photoshop, and I output it directly on fabric. Somehow streaks appeared in the face, but I kind of liked it because it reminded me of lined paper that schoolchildren use. In the background is a portion of my favorite quote, from Buddha, which says: “Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.” If five year old Linda knew that she would make a living one day doing art [fabric design, newspaper & magazine layout design] she probably wouldn’t believe it possible.