Scenic Hudson and Beyond

I went to upstate New York (for a family reunion) on Amtrak this weekend, a trip I have taken many, many times over the past 40 years. On the way up, I happened to sit next to a well-known photographer, who was snapping away with her top-of-the-line camera through the train window, getting some very cool shots.

On the way home I scrambled for the right side of the train, and snagged a window seat. Inspired by the photojournalist, I too snapped my way from Syracuse to New York, sticking the camera up against the glass as we whizzed and chugged along, looking at the old, familiar countryside through the eye of a digital camera.

It was interesting to see the landscape change, from the decaying upstate cities (similar to the midwest rust belt) and fields of cows wandering in wildflowers, to the swanky homes and yacht clubs on the banks of the Hudson, just outside New York.

Mixed Media Dancing Clown

This is unfinished, and has been for a while. I just can't seem to find time to figure out how to edge and finalize it. It is a group effort: 7 artists (plus me) each did a section. It is from a photo of my daughter, Amanda (now nearly 21) that was taken when she was about 3, playing a clown in a ballet recital. I blew up the photo about 500%, divided the photo into eight sections, then sent 7 people in my art groups each a black and white section.

Pink Journal

This is an oldie but goodie: the cover from one of the first journals I made during the beginning of my self-imposed art therapy healing path. I decided to keep anything that inspired me in the book. I put in poetry, my own writing, design ideas, photos torn from magazines, sketches and insights.

The cover was done by priming a commercial journal (about 9x12) with white latex, then painting over it. I used oil pastels (a.k.a.craypas) along with oils, and scratched texture into it when it was drying. I love mushing the color around, blending some parts but not others, drawing with the craypas onto the wet surface, scraping off/rubbing off parts and repainting. The hard part is knowing when to stop so you don't overwork a piece.

Meet Elsa!

This charming, one-of-a-kind sock monkey was a Christmas gift from my daughter, Amanda. She secretly went on-line and found a sock monkey pattern, then found a monkeyish sock at the local K-Mart, and did her designing when I wasn't home. Amanda is a writer, and doesn't think of herself as an artist (although she is quite good) and really doesn't enjoy sewing so creating Elsa was a true labor of love.

Elsa arrived naked, so I recently made her little wardrobe with some soy-batik fabric and a little red felt; the buttons are actually covered brads. Thanks Amanda!!

Collaging Like a Maniac and Loving Every Minute

I recently joined a new postcard exchange group at the urging of a fiber-addict friend. At first I thought maybe I was overloading myself with projects and regreted commiting to it, but after I went into creative overdrive this weekend I knew it was just the thing I needed to get out of my rut.

I made two styles: one collaged tissue paper with a hand carved stamp overprint and the other a collage of painted, distressed, recycled tyvek (from used fedex envelopes) combined with metal mesh, foil gum wrappers and gold painted coffee cup sleeves.

Ugly Orange Portrait

I joined a new art group, called Thread Society. Apparently a lot of members are really fascinated by different colors, textures and qualities of thread. I pretty much joined because a friend told me they were doing self-portraits, which is one of my favorite things to do...and also because the rules only required you to use 4" of thread to qualify. I'm not really into the quilty aspect of fiber art, but I CAN manage to sew 4" with thread.

I actually don't like this piece, but am posting it anyway. It started out with a recent photo of me (if you want to see the photo, it is in the back of Cate Prato's book "Mixed Media Self Portraits." [In photos I don't look nearly as crazy as my self portraits do, so I guess I am just crazy on the inside.])

I played with the photo in photoshop, tested out a bunch of filters, then brought pieces of different treatments into one document in a kind of Mondrian-inspired layout, which I printed on t-shirt gummy transfer stuff (after flipping all the images.) It was nice. But I don't want to make nice art. So I made it un-nice. It needed color, so I randomly punched it up with my favorite watersoluble oil pastels...that's an oxymoron...they are more like creamy gel crayons that melt when you add water. I look really scrunchy-faced and angry in the piece, which maybe I sometimes am. Anyway, art isn't all about being beautiful or presenting yourself as beautiful, and it doesn't always come out good, or the way you had envisioned it. Or maybe am I red and scrunchy-faced because I am mad about growing older?

Self Portraits and the Inner Critic

One of my favorite thing to do has turned out to be self portraits. My inner critic, who I am sure is really ugly and pointy and skinny and clearly mean, keeps whispering, "Aren't you sick of yourself yet?" and "My, my, aren't we self-abosrbed!" Maybe it just helps clean out the inner demons and keep me semi-sane.

These are two shots of one of my favorite pieces; it looks entirely different viewed from the left than it does from the right. They are all self-portraits, based on photos taken at different ages: kindergarten, highschool, college, young career girl, and recent. The pieces are hinged together with beads and wire, and fold accordion-style, which helps them stand up.

Textile Dots

I have been really busy finishing up a lot of art projects: getting sleeves on three quilts for a fiber arts council of southern california show (no, you don't have to live in California to participate [since I live in NY!]) and trying to make a bunch of art-o-mat blocks (50 of the yellow self-portrait, to be followed by 50 of the red and black energy man) and cards off for a May exchange. whew, I'm worn out. So...I am posting a piece I did a while back.

This was inspired by the cover of a book I got a the Met on textile history. Each little circle contains an original textile design (by me...since I was a textile designer for many years I have tons of designs.) Instead of being my usual free and painterly self, I tried to be really geometric and precise, especially in the quilting. I designed it in QuarkXpress (with art scanned to photoshop) and printed it on Avery printable cotton sheets, which are kind of stiff, but have great color reproduction.

Paper and Carving

I recently made a bunch of ATCs (artist trading cards...same size as a baseball card) for an exchange with my core group of artists. I had a sheet of pastel paper-fabric I made about a year ago that I didn't know what to do with. I tore leftover pieces of recycled colored tissue paper (the stuff that comes tucked into new purchases that you don't quite know what to do with, but can't bear to throw away.) I mixed it with a half glue-half water solution on top of a piece of an old t-shirt. Next I cut it into little pieces and stitched it, but it was still kind of boring. The idea struck me that I should stamp over it, so I took one of my hand-carved stamps and, using a purple commercial stamp pad, plunked a design over the paper collage. I loved it so much I could barely part with them. So, I just finished making a bunch of postcards with a jewel toned piece of tissue collage, with a bigger stamp, done in black. I will keep one for myself this time. Very easy, and and lots of fun.

New Art-O-Mat Designs

I got bored making the same designs for my art-o-mat (artists in cellophane) blocks, so I tested out some new designs. They all got the thumbs up, so now I am off to make 50 of each for my next shipment. Anybody want to vote on which one they like best?

Abstracting Myself

A few years ago I decided to teach myself to oil paint. Since I was home alone, I decided to start with myself as the subject, and looked at myself in the mirror to try and get the features right. What emerged was not particularly flattering, nor an exact likeness...but then, I was working through some pretty severe panic disorder at the time, and couldn't sleep...had dark circles under my eyes and green streaks in my hair from swimming to try and get tired so that I could sleep...and I wasn't trying to make it pretty. Later I scanned the painting and played with it in a number of ways to make different portraits on paper and fabric.

Here is the original painting, and then a piece that was abstracted from it. If you scroll through my blog, you will see some other work that used the oil self-portrait as a starting point.

This was pretty experimental: a while back I made a pincushion for my Threads of Sanity fiberart pal Lori, who collects pincushions. It was the first one I ever made, and I just winged it. I used all fabric that was hand dyed or hand batiked (by me), stuffed it, and added seed beads and dangly hand-rolled tyvek beads...and a little gold-painted lutradur star on top.

Roosevelt Island Spring

The cherry trees are blooming along the banks of the East River in front of the hospital where I work, so I tucked my camera in my tote bag the other morning and snapped a few shots. While I was at it, I decided to document the views on my daily tram ride.

Saving My Face

Well, I didn't win the Rock and Roll Challenge from Quilting Arts, so I guess I can post this now. This was a tribute to one of my favorite songs and singer/songwriter/musicians, KT Tunstall. I tried to do a paint/fiber interpretation of her song "Saving My Face." I started with a photo of myself, printed on Avery cotton, the painted over it and added some of my hand-batiked fabric.

Third Eye, but not Blind

Here's another self-portrait I did in my series for Cate Prato's book, Mixed Media Self Portraits. I called it Third Eye. It is about introspection and mediation and the creative forces inside the mind and soul. And influenced by Alex Gray a bit. And why the title of this blog? For the non-rockers who didn't get my little joke, Third Eye Blind is a band, not any kind of comment on blindness.

Mixed-Media Self-Portraits by Cate Prato

I was thrilled to have eight of my self-portraits in the book called Mixed Media Self Portraits by Cate Prato that came out this fall. It was all hush-hush, top secret for months, and I wasn't allowed to post anything to my blog ahead of time. But now that it has hit the store shelves I am free to post all I want.

This one is called "Mime" and is one I have gotten a lot of positive feedback on. It is also on the back cover of the book and on the acknowledgement page, so I guess it was Cate's fav too.

If you can't find it at a local bookstore or giant chain bookseller, you can get it from the quiltingartsllc.com website or through amazon.com. Its a really great book (and I'm not just saying that because I have stuff in it...)

Little Red Roosevelt Island Tram Quilt

This is the finished version of my little Roosevelt Island tram quilt, which is 8"x10". I like to work small, but I had so much fun with this that I am going to work on a big tram quilt. And thank you to Dick Lutz, who took the photo I used for this piece and has not only given me permission to use his photo as a basis for my quilt, but offered some of his other tram photos for future work.

The photo of the finished quilt was taken outdoors, and since I am not a professional photographer, looks a little off, but it really is rectangular and not at all lopsided. It is just meant to be art; art quilts are usually intended to be hung and are seldom used on a bed like a traditional quilt.

If anyone is wondering about fiber art and art quilting, here is a quick lesson:

Art quilts are any kind of art that is done that uses fabric and fibers. They are usually done as a 'sandwich' consisting of a top design, some kind of batting, and a backing fabric. A lot of traditional quilters feel confined by traditional patterns and have branched out to do their own designs. I came to art quilting another way...I am a textile designer who has always sewed and done crafts as well as dabbled in all kinds of art like watercolor, weaving, silkscreen printmaking, oil painting, ceramics and jewelry design, so I consider myself a mixed media artist who also does fiber art. I am not a traditional quilter at all. My latest passion is needle felting.

Journal quilts are small pieces that are done regularly, monthly or sometimes weekly, to either test out new ideas, materials and techniques, or to document what is going on in your life. JQing was pretty much invented by Jeanne Williamson, and Karey Bresenhan did a journal quilt project a few years ago and produced a fabulous book on it. If you want to know more, check the website quiltingartsllc.com, which is the site for Quilting Arts Magazine, Cloth Paper Scissors and Studios Magazine (look for me in the Spring 2009 issue of Studios!)

Roosevelt Island Tram

For the past two years, I have been doing an 8"x8" journal quilt each month. Now that I am living a nomadic existence (3.5 days in NYC each week and 3.5 days on Long Island), I have not been keeping up with my fiberart. This is the beginning of my January 2009 JQ. It was done from a photo of the Roosevelt Island tram. I take the red tram back and forth from the isle of Manhattan to the wee isle of Roosevelt, three days a week. It hasn't been stitched and edged yet, but I liked the way it looked so far. Hopefully I will have time to finish it soon. The tram is scheduled to be shut down this summer for repairs and modernization, so it is a tribute both to my new job on Roosevelt Island and to the tram itself.

Mr. Jones

This tribute to the Counting Crow's song, Mr. Jones, didn't get finished in time for the Rock On Challenge for Quilting Arts, so I decided to use it when the Fiber Art Traders group announced a bird ATC swap. The song Mr. Jones mentions Picasso, a gray guitar, and colors of red and blue, black and gray...so I did a cubistic design using those colors and a guitar, and of course, a couple of crows.

60s Rocker Chick with Pumpkins

This is one of my first art quilts. It is an abstraction from a photo of my daughter Amanda one Halloween when she was in high school. She was dressed as 1960s girl, kind of like Lulu in To Sir With Love. She is sitting on an ottoman with some pumpkins in the background.

Energy Man

This is an art quilt that I did from a painting, and I did the painting from a quick doodle. I did it for a show called "What Drives You/What Makes You Tick" and it is currently on tour through Fiber Arts Connection of Southern California. Anybody want to take a guess about who the model was?

Happy New Year...brrrrr

I thought that this was an appropriate image for New Year's Day: a hand needle felted card, with an impressionistic image of a sunset on icy snow and water. I looked out the window of my new office the other night as the sun went down; the icy snow had a purplish cast, and the sky was pinky orange. The colors here are pumped up, and certainly it doesn't look exactly like the east side of Manhattan as viewed from Roosevelt Island...I used a lot of artistic license. And Santa...I'm still waiting for the needle felting machine...my hand is getting sore from punching the needles in by hand. This is made from commercial felt, dyed roving (unprocessed wool...thanks Gabriela) and commercial yarn.

Velvet and Brass Mesh

This is a little 5"x7" piece that I did with one of my Yahoo art groups. The idea was to treat a leaf in a new way. Last year I used some oak leaves and printed them onto black pique fabric. I painted the leaves gold then pressed the leaf into the fabric. It looked pretty cool, but I didn't know what to do with the cloth. The fabric sat around in a drawer for a year, so I pulled it out, cut some leaves, then layered them on a background of black velvet (recycled from an 80s ballgown...yes, I did go to some fancy parties way back when) and contrasted that with some sewable, 100% brass mesh fabric. Kind of a tribute to Krystle Carrington and Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan Dexter...

Well, there was a snafu and this pix got unattached from the post. Here is the redheaded version of me.

Do Redheads Have More Fun?

Over the years I have toyed with the idea of becoming a redhead. My hairdresser nixed that idea, and since I respect her opinion, decided to do a virtual makeover. So...I took a photo (snapped by my brother Kendall at a wedding a couple years ago) and made myself kind of redheaded. It looks pretty weird, so I guess my hairdresser was right.

This was done by printing a photo from the computer onto Avery printable cotton, then overpainting it with watersoluble oil pastels, and machine stitching.

Tyvek ATC with Faux Chinese Coin

On my last NYC art shopping spree I found some fake Chinese coins in a bead shop. I wanted to get some tiny coins, but it turned out the tiny ones, about half the size of a penny, are more expensive than the larger coins. Apparently it is more difficult to manufacture the little ones because of the wee details.

I had no idea what to do with them, so I stitched them to a couple of ATCs (artist trading cards, 2.5" x 3/5".) They are a surprise for a couple arty friends who have not yet experienced the joy of ATCs.

The ATCs are made of leftover pieces of distressed tyvek that I used for my last batch of art-o-mat blocks.

Frostbitten Flower

This is my November journal quilt. I have been doing 8" x 8" mini quilts for the past couple of years, ever since I first discovered the art quilting world. I try out new techniques or document what is going on in my life. I chose the size because I was sick of working rectangularly, and it also fits nicely in my scanner.

Earlier in the fall I saw a beautiful frostbitten flower on Cate Prato's blog. She is an editor at Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors, and also the author of Mixed Media Self Portraits (the new book that I was fortunate enough to be asked to contribute to.) I admired it and Cate surprised me by sending me the jpeg.

This was printed on the cheap transfer sheets that you use to iron designs on to t-shirts. I hand and machine quilted it ... after playing with it in photoshop ... applying a filter and punching up the contrast.

Tyvek: Not Just for Mailing

My second batch of tyvek blocks for Art-O-Mat is ready to ship. Who would think that those practically indestructable tyvek FedEx and USPS envelopes could be recycled into art? I love making these little blocks, as well as tyvek beads and art quilts with them.

I added coffee-dyed waxed masa (rice paper that used to be used by textile designers...which they don't seem to manufacture any more) to simulate leather, and dimensional metallic fabric paint dotted on to simulate metal studs.

If you want to know more 'how-to's, go to quiltingartsllc.com and put my name in the search box and you will get step by step instructions. Or, you can go to the joggles.com tutorial on tyvek, which is very good.

These photos are the box of 50 ready to ship and an individual block from my last batch.

Mini Quilt Art-O-Mat Blocks: Ready to Ship!

I just finished 50 mini quilts that are mounted on tiny wooden blocks for Art-O-Mat, also known as Artists in Cellophane. I did 50 Mystery Women and 50 Tyvek Abstraction and they are just about sold out. It is such a great program: they take vintage cigarette machines (cool, right?) and retool them to dispense affordable art.

So, 50 of my Mystery Women are enroute to Winston Salem NC to Art-O-Mat headquarters. I am just finishing up 50 more of the tyvek blocks, and trying out a few new designs...possibly some abstract self portraits.

Cha-ching!

Wow. I just checked the Alzheimer's Quilt Initiative, and I sold 2 more postcards. "Kids of Color" and "Golden Rainbow Spiral." I'll have to get busy and make some more postcards! Four out of five have been sold. I just boxed up 50 Mystery Women blocks for Art O Mat since they are nearly sold out of my first batch. And I am waiting anxiously to see what happens with my SAQA 12"x12" quilt of Broken Chakra Girl. Their auction started yesterday. My piece didn't sell yet, but one of my art friends, Sherryl, sold hers the first day...a gorgeous ginko. Mazel tov, Sherryl!

Don't Throw Away the Scraps

Similar to collage, and maybe a little like making handmade paper is the technique of making 'scrappy' fabric. I pile leftover fibers on clear, water-soluble stabilizer, making a 'sandwich' of it all with a layer of stabilizer on top. I then stitch it all over, covering every half inch with either a zig zag or another decorative, strong stitch. It can be used for all kinds of quilty/crafty projects. My favorite thing is to use it cover blank journals, and then I use some fiber with my handmade tyvek beads for a page marker. And with the leftover scrappy I played around and made some medallions, backing them with timetex and edging with seed beeds.

Hippie Chic Bag

Today was like a combination of Christmas and my birthday. I got a surprise package in the mail today from my friend Kate, in Texas. She is, in addition to a being quilter, artist and doll-maker, a knitter. Well, I don't know a knit from a purl, so I admire her skill and creativity. She made me what she calls a "hippie-chic" bag. She knitted it (without a pattern, just listening to her inner artist) then felted it. As of today, it is absolutely my most treasured possession. Thanks Kate!

PinkPupJQ

I loved the pink pup photo so much I turned it into my journal quilt for October. I printed the photo on Coquille watercolor paper, sprayed it with fixative and overpainted it with water-soluble oil pastels. I sprayed that, and stitched it to batting and backing, and framed it with an old pink Javanese batik I bought in SoHo years ago (when I was both single and childless...way long ago!)

Shattered

What if the world were only black and white? That was the question presented by Fiberartsconnsocal aka Fiber Arts Connection of Southern California to the art quilt world. The result of pondering that question and trying to work in only black and white is here: my quilt entitled 'Shattered'. The name came to me as I was shuffling 8.8" x 11" sections of the design, trying to decide whether to put it back together the way it was on the computer or shuffle the pieces around, and whether to connect them with wire, beads, wool, buttons or chain link. The old Rolling Stones song "Shattered" ran through my head, and it seemed an apt title.

I started with an oil painting, a self portrait that I did of myself a few years ago, scanned it into the computer, and played around with it in QuarkXPress, adding other designs of mine and drawing over an eye and mouth with the program. Next I converted the color piece to b/w in photoshop. I then blew up the piece by about 400% in Quark and printed (from the computer) each section on some cotton that I had ironed to freezer paper.

It will be part of fiberartconnsocal's black and white show, and be on tour for the next two years.

Turkeys?

Lately there has been a roving band of birds hanging out in my neighborhood. Where they came from is a mystery, but they seem to wander out from the woods and on to the lawns of the neighbors, then across the road to the other wooded area. We live right at the end of a greenbelt, so there are often unusual animals around. I think these are wild turkeys...can anyone identify them? I snapped this shot on my neighbor's front lawn.

Pink Pup

Today I had a big chunk of free time, so I thought I would seize the day and do some batiks. I gathered up my supplies, melted the wax, painted wax on white fabric, and prepared some dye baths. I set them out on the sunny deck and yard and moved the chairs away to prevent nosey dogs from snooping around.

Then the phone rang, and I chatted a while with my college-student daughter. After I hung up, a living candy cane whizzed by me. Needless to say, some little Maltese named Coco was popped in the bath before the dye could set.

Eight Out of Nine Isn't So Bad

Now that I have finally gotten my copy of Mixed Media Self Portraits, by Cate Prato, I see that they used 8 out of my 9 in the self portrait series. Soooo...I am posting my Frida tribute portrait here. I prefer to think that they didn't use this 9th portrait because somebody else did a Frida tribute, rather than thinking it wasn't so good. Well, I love it. That is my face, circa 1977, overpainted with watercolor, colored pencils and markers. I have always loved sock monkeys, so a little printed fabric monkey slipped into the piece, and I added my own drawings and stamps of flowers.

Backflips with a Half-twist in my Happy Dancing

No, I am not actually doing backflips. But I SOOOO want to. And if the old rotator cuff wasn't so weak and wobbly, I would, even with my half-century self. Today I got my shipment of MIXED MEDIA SELF PORTRAITS and I am celebrating both the book's beauty and creativity and my own contribution to it: 3500 words and 9 pieces of art. I can't post the pieces here though, it's forbidden by contract with the publisher. But you can get a discounted copy on Amazon, and they even let you take a sneak peek. I have a piece on the back page and the inside cover, oh, and one on the index page...look for the piece with the half white face and rainbow eyes, and the other one with a fuzzy, dreamlike face with net and a turban. And even if I didn't have work in the book, I would still highly recommend it. It is full of creative, innovative work and lots of 'how-to's.

YMCA

Inspired by the mid-20th century modern design of my local YMCA, I started this little geometric color play piece. It is only pinned together at the moment. I am also working on a bigger version of this theme. The Y has a kind of Scandanavian simplicity, with cool angles and room dividing panels made of circles cut into wood that made me feel like going retro-modern. I used commercial cotton calicos and also some of my own hand dyed or hand batiked fabrics. Of course, me being me, I couldn't do something really precise; I like the off-center and lopsided squares...I think it makes it more interesting and appealing in a child-like way.

OMG: October already?

October 1? Wasn't it just 4th of July? Well, I have been busy, but don't have any photos ready right now. I've been working on the Rock and Roll Challenge, some stuff for FAT (fiber art traders), mulling over the Sacred Threads project, and mostly puttering around, leaving a trail of threads and fabric scraps wherever I go. I did an interesting self portrait yesterday...gave myself red hair. I always wondered how I would look as a redhead; my hairdresser said 'don't go there' and after I did the painting (on fabric) I knew she was right. Of course it didn't help that I painted half my face orange and the other half yellow, but still, the red hair is a big fashion 'don't'.