stirred, not shaken

As I logged onto my blog today, the very first song that came on was -- Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." No matter what belief system informs your stance, today is a day to be stirred, not shaken. Now on to my own recent rule-breaking foray into the world of art...

The Buenaventura Art Association produced a beautiful postcard for the show I have written about. I submitted three candidate images, and they chose the original "nude stitches" --



Hanging the 20 pieces was actually enjoyable. With my husband's German-inherited diligence combined with my military-childhood-instilled worship of efficiency, we managed to get things level and grouped with a semblance of order. Two new pieces:

A previous blog post ("i am not a crook/failure") chronicled the transformation of some alstromeria photos into this image:


I printed four copies of this image on a 40 inch roll of silk satin.

Then I printed these images that were derived from the alstromeria photos (and variations of these) on organza.


These were fused to silk dupioni. I wanted these to really pop out, so I frayed the edges -- the tangerine silk has a fuschia undertone, which came forth in those frayed edges!


A tomato red taffeta was a nice complement to the alstromeria colors, and I mounted the images on that. The binding is a pale green silk dupioni, which is the same fabric used for mounting two of the organza images. Here is the finished piece before I attached it to plexiglass:



And here it is on the wall before its trip to the gallery!!!


Ah, the rule breaking...the stitching. Conventional wisdom holds that these pieces should be evenly quilted, and empty spaces are naughty. For several reasons, this piece was a rule-breaker.

First, I felt that stitching on the images would distort them. And my own aesthetic of 'spare' compelled me to exercise restraint -- I wanted the eye to rest on the images and not be distracted by heavy stitching. The piece is attached to the plexiglass in several places and hangs nicely. Enough said/written --

I'll post on my other new piece later -- my other news is that I have a piece in Rose Hughes' new book "Dream Landscapes" (available at her website and other conventional book sources):



My favorite part of that piece is the Modigliani-esque button on the right, which was in a grab bag at a cheap fabric store. I had been waiting to use her for years, and this piece was the perfect venue for her hauntingly beautiful self!

The reception for the show is this Friday night, so if you're in the Ventura area, come for free food and drinks!