Art Spirals

isn't this a cool shot? Feel free to use it in art if you'd like.

Taken in Pecos, TX June 2008

Amazing what a little "pond bacteria" bottled from the pet store will do to a pond without filtration. YAY! we had the fish, the good water levels from testing, the plants, but it was still murky. Now we can see the bottom -- found lots of interesting things there, a dead lizard with its tail gone...he got a proper burial...homework paper that had blown in, and two tiny new fish (maybe eggs were on new plants?) and a water snail. Unfortunately I took pics at noon, so the water lettuce plants, a nice green, are washed out with the glare. love the reflection! Bertrick, our five inch koi, seemed startled by the whir of the camera mechanism, but here he is. His buddy, Fishy, a shebunkin goldfish, is near him, but elusive to capture on camera. And last, a beautiful tiger lily beside the pond.

It's finally done, and yet it doesn't seem like it took long at all. A wonderful 9 months of work -- how fitting. I'll explain the symbolism of the piece. Mommy is who I am now (at least partly) to my two girls, ages 5 and 7. So this glove describes memories of being a mom. First, the four silver butterflies on the M are for the four miscarriages we had prior to our first child. Both girls are represented with ever growing butterflies on the first and ring fingers. The white owl under the O of mommy is for Harry Potter -- I've read the first five volumes to them and we've loved them. The blocks are for toys, the silver large hand and four small hands to the left of it are for growing hands and my hand training them.

The doll, is obvious. She has a piece of beadweaving half visible under her skirt that reminds me of learning this with my sweet older sister, Marti.

The heart and sequins in bright colors above the word Mommy are for living in this colorful border town of El Paso. The triathalon symbols in the yellow area symbolize our girls' love of this sport -- and they're quite good at it too!

Now, on to the fingers. The thumb is for my older daughter who loves lizards and nature...see the lizard charm where the thumbnail would be. The first finger has a paw for our older dog Cody who died last year. The three stars in a row are for Orion's belt. I remember teaching them that constellation when they were still in a double stroller and we had both dogs hooked up to the front, like reindeer, and we were pretending we were Santa in his sleigh.

The third finger has frilly and iridesent and pink stuff, see the little purse?, for the dress up phases they both went through, and the younger one is still in. The ring finger has a silver snowflake embedded in it and cold blue/ice colors for the snow that we have fun playing in in the mts of New Mexico. And the pinky finger has a fish on it, for our two fish in our new pond: Bertrick and Fishy. Also the sign language letters are: TLC and my older daughter loves learning sign language, she did that all through first grade. I am considering submitting it to our local Arts International show (for artists in TX, NM, and the mexican state of Chihuahua), but it says that all submissions must be for sale. Of course I don't want to sell this, it's too personally meaningful for me. However, now that it's finished, it's the memories and the process of doing it that are more important to me than the finished piece. My girls though, will definitely want to have this when they get older. So I guess I could submit it with an outrageous price tag -- $7000?? -- and I'd think no one would buy it. Hmmm.... The bead competitions that I've found so far, don't seem to mind if it's been displayed on a blog already (there has been some talk involving quilts onthe Quilt Art group) and the piece doesn't have to be for sale on them. So maybe I'll do those too/instead. Any advice for me?

I've had an idea floating in my head for awhile using funky resin beads from a vintage 60s necklace. The beads are in colors I'm not used to using: reds, yellows, oranges, but I'm loving them now. So I was originally going to bead the whole thing, but then thought...make a landscape collage from fabrics and then embellish to the hilt! So for Father's Day, my dh took the kids ice skating -- wonderful thing to do when it's 105 degrees here (yuch) -- and I had some me/art time for the first time in weeks. it felt wonderful. So I auditioned various fabrics using the black and white photo trick to see if the values would work. here's some of my process and the finished result:

The black and white and color versions of the same fabrics. Values are too close together and the sky is too bright.

Covered the sky with a gauze hanky, it muted it, but the flower design of the hanky gets in the way and there isn't a blank gauze area big enough.

So when things started working right, I forgot to take pics along the way. Here's the finished product (at least pre beading), fused down with a lovely piece of handdyed fabric from Anne Marie (Thanks!) as the lake.

I think the values work: dark in front, medium, light and lightest in back near the horizon. and I used white netting over the sky to tone it down.

And now on to the FUN part -- BEADING! and it's a good "carry in the car" project for the next couple of weeks of mini vacations.

I sent away for an envelope of cool sheer fabrics from Cynthia St. Charles. She's hosting a Salvaged Threads juried art quilt exhibition and the deadline to enter a small quilt is in January 2009. See the link for more info. She's gotten a whole BUNCH of sheer fabrics donated and for $2, you can get an envelope of random pieces and you use those in a quilt submitted to the exhibition. Here's what I received this week. Some fun stuff in it! The wheels are turning in my brain.... LOVE the lime green one!

I had an idea for layering fabrics, FMEing, and slitting open layers thinking it would be cool. I didn't like it when I finished, so I cut out other areas to make the ATCs for the Clothpaperstudio Fiber ATC swap using french knots.

So here are the fabrics:

Here are the layers, FME'd together, painted with lumiere paint, and some places slit open and stitched. I'm not happy with the slashing technique...could have picked better layer fabrics.

Here's my favorite ATC from the project:

I like this one a bunch too. Galaxy ATC:

This one is ok too. Flower Shadow:

I had fun painting over FME lines and then FMEing OVER the paint to create another layer. This is influenced by reading this wonderful book: The Painted Quilt: Paint and print techniques for color on quilts by the mother/daugheter team Linda and Laura Kemshall.

The main thing I’ve learned in doing these is how to slow down the machine, almost zen like, and make larger more uniform stitches doing free motion embroidery. And THAT is a lesson worth learning!