Nancy’s work installed at Wooden Stone Gallery

from Nancy G. Cook

Don and I spent Thursday morning at Wooden Stone Gallery in Davidson NC installing my work as their Featured Artist for August. Wooden Stone is one of my favorite galleries featuring usable art. We have been shopping at the gallery for years and have found lots of work that we loved and brought home. It is a real thrill to be their featured artist for August.

Here are some photos from the installation. I Love the warm gold walls and how well all the art looks on them.


This photo shows two of my pieces, Mimosa Dancing and Sourwood Festoons, over some really interesting hand crafted furniture.


The photo above gives the display of five of my wall pieces and shows some of the smaller pieces available as well. Two of my newest pieces are on the wall here. The upper right piece was Best of Show – Small at the Charlotte Quilters’ Guild Show in 2009 which was another first and a great honor.


I love the combination of wall pieces with the pottery in this display. It really shows how well different art mediums work together.

There is a Meet and Greet the Artist scheduled for Friday, Aug. 21, 2009 from 6-9 p.m. If you are close by, I hope to meet you there.

An Update from Linda

Have been working on the blue orchid quilt for our orchid project. Still have a long way to go but colors have been chosen. Orchids and leaves will be very three dimensional (hopefully).

I decided to take a break from orchids and play with my felting machine to create "Undercurrents". I used my soy wax batik fabric from Janet's class, enhanced with silk and wool roving and highlighted with Shiva oil paint sticks and heavy quilting.

I am very excited for I leave tomorrow morning for Fall River, Massachusetts to take a Kerr Grabowski Screen Printing class. Will post details later. -Linda-

Post from Nancy

Thought it would be fun to share progress on my two latest pieces. I Have been working hard to get ready for 2 shows, details will come later. One opens in Davidson, NC next Thursday. One opens in Chapel Hill, NC Sunday Labor Day Weekend.

The first piece is Late Summer Dawn, featuring the wonderful crepe myrtle seed pods. Here are the threads initially pulled for quilting and a detail of the piece.

Aren’t the seed pods wonderful and equally as interesting as their fluffy flowers (flowers not shown)?

The next piece is of a little evergreen ground cover found at our local shopping center. As best I can figure it, it is a form of juniper. The bluish forms are not berries, but a young form of a seed cone. Seeds and fruit forms are endlessly fascinating to me and are continuing to feed my creativity. If anyone recognizes the genus, please let me know. Enjoy!

Do you like the un-quilted forms in the background? Let me know what you think, please.

Nancy

Nancy's Latest

Hi, I am so proud I could pop!! My husband launched a website created by Holly Knott that features his art made on gourd strata. If you enjoy sculptural work, check it out. http://donfaires.com. This piece is called Ta Nish and is a 5 foot high rattle/walking stick.

I promise to keep my future blog updates fiber related, but could not resist sharing his good news. He has always supported my art and work, so seems only fair to share my pride in his.

-- Nancy --

A newcomer's entry...

from Deborah Langsam

As a "newbie" to Fiber Art Options (not to mention blogging...), a post on a new venture seemed apropos...

It all started with a bag of rice purchased at a local East-Indian grocery store in Charlotte. The rice - which was wonderful - was gone and I was left with an illustrated fabric bag: colorful and a bit funky.

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I couldn't bear to toss it out. So with a nod to traditional flour/feed sack quilting, frugality (courtesy of Depression-era parents), and eco-friendliness, it is evolving into a beaded wall-hanging.


My initial thought was to mount it, complete with handle, on a background -- perhaps even stuffing it to give it the 3 dimensionality of a bag still being used for it's original intent. I haven't shut the door on that possibility. Since the bag is illustrated on front and back, a second lovely lady - this one including handle - still waits for me.

For now, however, I've taken a different route. I cut out the central motif and appliqued it onto a background of red, green, and black; I'm beading it for a more "Bollywood" effect. What you see below are pictures of the partially finished project...

Of course, the problem with beading is to figure out when to stop...and now I'm tempted to cover everything with beads (which also means beads appearing singly, in pairs, and in little groups on nearly every surface of the house...the bead explosion). What started out as "quick" project has, predictably, taken on a life of it's own.

As far as titles...there are two that are currently in the running:

"Recycling is the Mother of Invention"
"Bollywood Rice"

I'll keep you posted on progress...I'm glad to be on board.

Debbie

Susan’s first orchid piece

This is the start of a new piece I am working on for Fiber Art Options’ group exhibition. All the pieces will feature orchids. We are hoping to turn this into a travelling exhibition when we finish early next year.

Several of us in the group took hundreds of orchid photos at several locations, and shared them with the group. Together, we picked this photo to use as inspiration or a jumping-off point for each of us to create one 12x18" piece:



I chose to zoom in tight on the amazing color and pattern on the orchid’s petals. I started by cropping a photo that showed the petals from a more straight-on angle on my computer, then sizing it to the required 12x18", printing it out on paper, and putting it on my light board. A piece of white Kona Cotton fabric went on top, and then I lightly traced the lines (using very soft lead in a mechanical pencil) from the photo onto the fabric.

Next, I taped it to my kitchen countertop (which is ancient laminate and can be easily scrubbed clean) and painted with Jacquard Textile Color, brushing the lines in with thick paint, and then with a brush loaded with lots of water to create the bleeding out and blotchiness. I used the same hot pink color on everything, but watered down in some spots, except for the tiniest bit of yellow on the edge of the lip.

The open areas will be another color, something dark. I’m very eager to get this under my sewing machine needle and thread paint it!

I have always loved orchids for their exotic looks. They seema curious mix of exquisite beauty and delicacy and something darker, more dangerous. Don’t the mouth parts look like they could open up and chomp you? (Well, maybe I watched “Little Shop of Horrors” too many times!) But I stopped having them in my house after a beloved cat ate some of the bark chips that they grow in, and developed Histoplasmosis, an infection caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum that can live in decaying plant matter. By the time we discovered what was wrong, it was too late, and I had to have him put down.

When I work on a piece based on something in the natural world, I usually do some research on it, so I can understand it better. It makes the whole creative process more meaningful. According to a great website called Beautiful Orchids, the orchid family has 35,000 species and 60,000 registered hybrids, and has “far more diversity and specialized pollination methods than any other flowering plant.” Vanilla is made from the seed pods of one variety.

– Susan Brubaker Knapp

ArtQuiltTransitions is now in Cary NC

The ArtQuiltTransitions traveling show has moved to Cary, NC at the Page Walker Arts & History Center. Here are three of my pieces in the show. The one on the left won Juror’s Choice from Susan Brandeis. What an incredible thrill for her to like my work. She is such a wonderful quilter and instructor. To see my post with more photos from this show’s opening in April, click here.

Page-Walker Arts & History Center
119 Ambassador Loop, Cary, NC 27512
Tel: 919-460-4963
Thursday, June 25 - Saturday, August 22, 2009

– Nancy G. Cook

Classes

Here’s a schedule of current and upcoming classes taught by members of Fiber Art Options:


House Rules
with Susan Brubaker Knapp
Online at Joggles.com
Starts Nov. 3; $50 for five lessons.


Embellished Travel Journal and Memory Book
with Janet Lasher
Online at Joggles.com
Starts Nov. 12; $38 for three lessons.

Fiber Art Options welcomes two new members

Last month, Fiber Art Options brought two new members into the group: K. Grace Howes and Deborah Michael Langsam. You can read more about them in the posts that follow this one. Welcome, y’all! – Susan

Deborah Michael Langsam

“Circuitous” might be the word to describe Deborah’s path to art. The colors, shapes, and textures of fungal spores led her to a doctorate in botany from Duke University and a career as a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. After twenty two years her attraction to the visual and tactile took a different turn … this time in the direction of textiles.

Working now as “Barking Dog Fiber Art,” Deborah creates contemporary wall-hangings and fiber art wearables. Her wall-hangings combine traditional quilting techniques and fabrics with an array of unique materials — photo transfers, beads, and found objects — to form original contemporary designs that play with color, texture, and light. Many of her pieces incorporate urban images and some of her most recent works draw on these images to form fabric mosaics and landscapes.

“Fiber art marries two of my passions … science and art,” says Deborah. “At the core, science and art projects are pretty similar: you usually need a little precision, a bunch of trial-and-error experimentation, and then a whole lot of creative problem-solving. And just as in science - where there’s always a story behind a discovery – there’s also always a story behind the fabric and stitching.”

In addition to private collections across the country, Deborah’s work can be found at Maddi’s Gallery and at Beet Contemporary Crafts & Functional Art (both in Charlotte, NC). The proceeds from Barking Dog Fiber Art are donated to SupportWorks, a non-profit charity in Charlotte, NC that helps people find and form support groups and research medical information.

E-MAIL: dmlangsa@uncc.edu


Havdalah I (2007) 20" x 20"


Tikkun Olam II (2006) 15" x 44"


Under the Watchful Eye of Queen Charlotte (2009) 28" x 46"


Under the Watchful Eye of Queen Charlotte detail (2009) 28" x 46"


Me'irah's Quilt: Study of Torah is Equal to Them All (2007) 33" x 22"


Driving Up to the Penguin (2008) 25" x 58"


I Wish I Had a River (2007) 15" x 39"


I Wish I Had a River detail

K. Grace Howes

“I have always been fascinated by fabric – it’s texture, its versatility, its ability to be manipulated and still be a tactile piece of woven material.”

K. Grace Howes has worked with fiber for most of her life, first making garments for clients in her native Bahamas then, with a family move to North Carolina, shifting her focus to quilts. This shift in how she worked with fabric eventually evolved into the fiber art pieces she now produces.

Grace’s work is a process of exploration whereby she creates pieces that are mostly abstract in nature using colour and form in a non-representational way. As she describes it “I play endlessly with line and shape, letting a piece speak to me as I try to map out its formation.”

These days you can find Grace in her studio making quilted artworks, playing with paper and fabric to produce her handmade journals and sketchbooks or up to her elbows dyeing or adding surface design to fabric.

With her fascination for colour, deeply rooted in her cultural history, and a connection and adherence to her own spiritual authenticity, Grace’s journey in art making is a never ending process.

WEBSITE: www.redbarn-studios.com
BLOG: http://www.redbarn-studios.com/blog/
ETSY: www.redbarnstudios.etsy.com
E-MAIL: grace@redbarn-studios.com


Red Moon (2009) 17-1/2" x 19"


Mother Love (2008) 29" x 25"


GreenPiece (2008) 10" x 9"


The Place to Be (2007) 11" x 9"


Breathe (2009) journal

What next?

I think I am almost done with the embroidery on this piece. I have really enjoyed working on it, and it was the perfect thing for me to take to the beach last week; very portable and small. I have decided to call it “Petri Dish Promenade,” because the circles are starting to look more and more like the circular petri dishes used to cultivate bacteria in the lab. Now I have to decide how I am going to finish this piece. I'm considering a frame of pieced hand-dyed fabrics.

The entire piece is shown above, and a detail shot is below. You can see more info and detail photos on my blog here.

Surface Design Conference 2009

Janet just got back from the Surface Design Conference held in Kansas City.

Hooray for summer and BBQ - which is everywhere this time of year in Kansas City. I had an amazing time.

All the exhibitions were wonderful and covered all types of fiber art, including encaustic, machine and hand embroidery, some amazing felting, knitting and crochet, beading, textile design, and well - everything!!

It is a wonderful conference with something for everyone, lectures on art v. craft as it relates to fiber, demonstrations, great talks on ethnic textile traditions, and multiple day workshops.

Alice Kettle's extremely large and heavily embroidered tapestries were on exhibition at the Belger Gallery - they were spectacular. She gave a talk one evening and discussed how she works - for hours on an industrial machine to stitch these heavy pieces onto a canvas foundation. She uses every type of thread working from the top and the bottom of the pieces.

Here are a few photos taken at Alice's exhibition.

I took 2 great workshops - one using on textile design and was lucky enough to assist Els van Baarle in her 4 day Batik workshop. I have posted a batik book I worked on during that workshop on my blog click over and take a look!

I am back in the studio for at least 2 solid weeks - I will post on progress soon!

Susan! - what wonders you are making with the samples from our workshops together!

Peaceful handwork

I started working on this yesterday, and I’m completely hooked. I think it is because I’ve been doing way too much computer work, and I needed to do something by hand, something tactile and fluid. Something where my brain could mellow and the work would take me where it wanted to go.

This started out as white fabric that was partially transformed in a soy wax batik class with fellow FAO member Janet Lasher (see previous post). Here’s what it looked like after that class, but before the wax was removed and before it was washed:

Here are some more shots of what it looks like now. I’m embroidering it with lots of different kinds of floss and thread, and couching down bits of thready fluff that came off fabric yardage after I washed it.

ooooh, this is highly addictive.

Linda's Latest

I have finished a small (16 x 16") embellished piece that does not have a name at this time.

It was basically an embellishment experiment using painted background fabric, metallic quillting thread, metallic mesh, buttons and soft modeling clay and beads.

Since completing this I have been concentrating on the first of my orchid quilts for our Fiber Art Options project. First I sketched the layout from my photo of blue orchids.

After that I chose a background fabric that I dye-painted and commercial hand dyes as shown. This is my first time working with bamboo batting. Will let you know how I like it.

-Linda-

Nancy’s Hemlock, continued

I have finished the machine quilting on the hemlock piece. As you can see, the echo quilting leaves wonderful patterns on the background negative spaces. The larger the background area, the more I can built up a rhythm to the quilting.

I showed the threads that I was going to consider in an earlier posting. My original background threads were too light. Here are the ones that I actually used. I ended up buying that Sulky thread 3 from the left for the background. Now I will do the hand embellishments with embroidery floss.

I love thread and hate to see the end threads being discarded. So I save them for each piece. I gave the threads to my friend Janet who will use them as base threads for her wonderful machine sewn cords. Here is the thread pile from my next quilt. Janet, more are waiting for you!!

Am considering "Stitches for Socrates" as the name of this piece. Feedback on this name will be greatly appreciated. - Nancy-