Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Vignettes and Textile Art

I have a solo show coming up that I will be hanging at the local hospital on the 30th, and I've yet to create a single piece for that show.  Nope instead I've been working on other projects, ideas I just can't seem to get out of my head.


It's no lie, I've been struggling with what I want to say, what I want others to see, how I see the world, and this ties into my brand, licensing, and a whole nuther ball of wax.

So today, as I was cleaning my sewing table in desperate search for a needle I lost in hopes that the fur kids wouldn't find it with their feet, somehow the idea of 'vignettes' crept into my mind.  So I wrote the word down and once I was done clearing my table, no I didn't find the needle, I got onto Google and looked up the definition of vignette.

Vignette in the literary world usually refers to a small impressionistic scene.  Vignette in the visual arts world in a nutshell means that the edges fade into the background.

Corn No. 51

With the exception of election years and natural disasters Iowa pretty much has mastered the ability to fade into the background, maybe this is why the 'coasters' refer to this part of the US as fly over country???


In Memory of Corn No. 1

So now I'm contemplating the concept of a vignette and how this relates to the prairie and plains states and to fiber and textiles in general.  And then I started digging through old photos I've taken of this great state, and of artwork I've already created and now see that I may have been creating vignettes all along.  Sometimes it takes the artist way longer to see, than it does their audience, what they have been saying all along, sounds counter intuitive but it is what it is.


Queen Anne's Crow No. 2 detail

So I'm off to to do some more thinking, and possible some digital collage making tonight so that I can start printing fabric and paper first thing in the morning. The next eight days will be a flurry of creativity and most importantly stitching!

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Busy, Busy


Holes detail. Machine and hand stitched painted timtex with aurifil threads.

I've been so busy with getting things done for an upcoming solo show, at Mary Greeley Hospital in Ames, Iowa, that I will be hanging on April 30th that I have forgotten to post here.  Lots of stitching and experimenting going on trying to hurry up and birth this new idea I have forming.  Photos and soon!