Field Study Series

Field Study is one of my more recent series that I have been working on.  The inspiration for the series came from a field outside of Ketchum (you can read more about in this post). Still "riffing" off that same field, I created Field Study (K2) and Field Study (K3).

Field Study (K2)

fabrics hand dyed by artist, machine pieced, free-motion stitching

38" x 29-1/2"

©2015 Lisa Flowers Ross

(Available for purchase)

Detail of free-motion stitching

Field Study (K2) definitely is further afield from the field (ha!).  In Field Study (K3), the abstraction is not as extreme and looks the most like a field of any in the series.  Although the goal is not to make it look like a field.  The goal is to make pieces inspired by fields.

Field Study (K3)

fabrics hand dyed by artist, machine pieced and stitched

29-1/4" x 30-1/4"

©Lisa Flowers Ross

(Available for purchase)

I plan to continue with this series using different fields for inspiration.

Foliaris IX

It's been quite a while since I've shown you some new artwork I've made.  The year has gone by quickly already and I only have a handful of artworks to show for it.  I hope that changes during the rest of the year.

I wanted to share the latest piece I just finished and shipped off for the Studio Art Quilt Associates online Benefit Auction that will start September 18th.   They have already started putting the images online so you can take a look at those people that plan ahead and get things done. But be sure to check back again throughout the summer as I'm sure there will be some artists, like me, that will be sending their artwork in close to the June 1st deadline.

Foliaris IX

fabrics hand dyed by the artist, fused appliqué, machine stitching

12" x 12"

©2015 Lisa Flowers Ross

Available through the SAQA Benefit Auction

This is the ninth piece in the Foliaris series which focuses on the shapes and lines of leaves with an emphasis on the edges or the veins within the leaf.  

I had drawn a little thumbnail sketch of this in my sketchbook and had planned to make a large version.  But trying to come up with something for the donation piece and a deadline looming, I decided to use it to make this small piece.  The artwork is fused and the machine stitching was kept very simple by just outlining the pieces.  To me, this makes it look/feel more like a drawing. It would be nice to explore this a bit more sometime.

I might still make this as a larger piece, as well, and if I did I would add a lot more stitching to create texture in the leaves.

Spring Awakening

The Treasure Valley Artists' Alliance has another exhibition up entitled, Spring Awakening.  At it's usual location in the Boise State Public Radio Offices, plants seemed to be a popular item for the Spring theme.

Here's a sneak peek.

At the opening.  Large work by Melissa Chambers.

Betty Hayzlett's Spring Arrives in foreground, my Spring Blocks #9 and Spring Blocks #8 in background.

The exhibition is up through July 17th during regular business hours at 220 E. Park Center Blvd.

Japanese Gardens

I just wanted to share a few pictures with you from the Portland Japanese Gardens.  I enjoyed spending some time there on my trip.

The color of these pink flowers was intense, especially against the lime green leaves!

Since I didn't have my husband and daughter to keep up with, it was a pleasure to take as much time as I wanted wandering around the gardens, taking photos and making some sketches.  This is one of them.

Art Around Portland

I'm not done with Portland yet.  There is lots of art to be found in Portland.

The glass piece was one in an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Craft.  I took this picture because it also had the drawing of the piece.  A panel member in one of the discussions at the SAQA conference had said that she finally realized that she didn't have to do a completed sketch in gouache, as one of her professors had done, before actually starting a piece.  This reminded me of her story.

Composition in Circles/Black and Composition in Circles/White by Christy Matson

North Light by Chris Kelly at the Augen Gallery 

The above photo is just a detail of a photograph by Ben Buswell at the UpFor gallery.  It catches the light and glitters because he made a bunch of scratches in the paper, like the detail below.  It was under glass so hard to photograph without reflections.  You really have to see them in person.

I enjoyed visiting the galleries in the Pearl district and seeing the public art around town. I didn't have time to make it to the Portland Art Museum.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!

At the SAQA conference I met lots of people, many of whom are mothers.  Many who have to juggle the duties of motherhood with time in the studio to create, both of which are the most fulfilling of pursuits.

Here are some of the wonderful people I met at the conference.  I was very excited to finally meet my virtual friend, Terry Grant (on the right), in 3-D, as well as Gerrie Congdon.  Both live in the Portland area.

Photo credit: Deidre Adams

It was great to meet new people, too, like SAQA Board Member Lisa Walton.

Debi Bright (TX), Teresa Wong (TX), Kathleen Probst (ID), Catherine Beard (OR) and Linda McLaughlin (ID)

Kathleen and I spent a wonderful afternoon with Cindy Grisdela (VA) and Lisa Kijak (CA) visiting art galleries with a quick trip to Powell's Bookstore.

Photo credit: Cindy Grisdela

Del Thomas (CA), Lisa Walton (Australia), Kate Oszko (Australia) in Ana Lisa Hedstrom's workshop.

There were many more people I met, but I don't have photos of them all.  What a wonderful group. 

SAQA Fiberlandia Part 2

The Studio Art Quilt Associate conference was filled with speeches, breakout sessions, panels and activities.

Namita Gupta Wiggers, director and co-founder of Critical Craft Forum and former curator at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, gave a wonderfully thought-provoking speech in regards to our fabric medium.  Maria Shell, art quilter, encouraged us to seek out funding opportunities.

There were breakout sessions on various topics as well as discussion panels.  The photo below is of the student fiber artists panel.

It was interesting to see the students artworks.  Most were very conceptual in their work. In addition, there was an international artist panel, as well as a local, Oregonian artist panel.  Here Sidnee Snell shows her work.

And there was a silent auction of donated works.  I did not get my act together to make one in time. Lots of great pieces were up for bidding and we were told that over $14,000 was raised.

Here are just a few of the pieces that I liked. The photos aren't great because they were all wrapped in plastic and the lighting was kind of dim.

 At the Market by Terry Grant

 Staccato III by Hope Wilmarth

Glee by Diane Melms

None of these came home with me.

SAQA Fiberlandia

I am not the best person for posting things in "real time."  It is more of an "after the fact" kind of thing for me.  Last week and this past weekend, I was in Portland, Oregon for the Studio Art Quilt Associates National Conference, Fiberlandia.

Some people were taking pictures with their phone and posting right away on Facebook and other platforms.  It was fun to see that, but for me, I like to take pictures with my camera.  Then, that requires loading them onto the computer after the fact.  Really, I am just not as attached to technology as most people are these days.

It was great to meet so many like minded people from all over the world.  As a regional representative, the conference started a day earlier for me with an all day meeting with all the SAQA representatives from all over the world.  It was good to hear other regions' success stories and that some of the other regions have some of the same challenges as I do.

Desiree Vaughn (Regional Rep Coordinator), Betty Busby, and Bill Reker (Traveling Exhibition/Shipping coordinator)

As most people were arriving on the day we had the rep meeting, there was an "Ice breaker" event in the evening led by Lyric Kinard.  A small project was involved, but the event was more about moving around and meeting people.

SAQA members working on the project.

Here I am with my portrait buddy Lisa Walton, Vice President of the Board, who is from Australia. The project involved moving around to different tables while working on it.  For the final project, we made a fabric portrait of our partner and gave it to them.

There were quite a few of us named Lisa at the conference.  At one point, there were about four of us traveling together on the MAX light rail!

SolarFast Printing

Last week, I was back at Linda's Studio B in Weiser.  We had decided to try experimenting with SolarFast Printing on fabric, as well as some fabric blueprinting.

Julie and Linda in Studio B

I had purchased a bottle of brown and black SolarFast paint, as well as the special film for negative printing to try.  I used their negative generator to print out a couple of photos to try.  I had one which was a close-up of tree bark and one of water reflections.

First, we started off by painting the paint on the fabric and then placing some opaque objects on top, covered that with a piece of glass and set it out in the sun to do it's thing.

Here's a piece where I put washers on the fabric.  This is the black paint, but it turned out really blue. (I wonder if they mislabeled the bottle?)

I really like how these two pieces turned out.  The one on the left is the brown paint with some faux gears and washers placed on it.  The other one is a mixture of the brown and black paint with some rubber rings placed on it.

This one below is a piece where Linda used the special film that you print on with the negative of a photo and place it on the fabric.  It should give a positive image on the fabric.  She did this one on green fabric with a mixture of avocado and brown paint (?).

Neither of my two photos turned out at all.  It was either not opaque enough, or I need to have more contrast in the photo to start with.  I will have to play with it some more to see what I can get to work.

Trische had great success using a Zig marker on Lutradur as you can see here.  She wrote the words on the Lutradur with a black Zig and then you get the negative on the fabric. She also drew some designs on the Lutradur.

We also played with using already prepared blueprint fabric.  It's the same idea.  Put opaque items on top of the fabric and put them in the sun to print.

Here are a couple of my blueprint fabrics.  One with washers, one with rubber bands and one with string.

I really like the fabrics with the washers and I need to work with that SolarFast film some more because I think it has some potential to make some nice textures.

Stitch & Post 2

This past weekend I taught my Stitch & Post workshop again.  This time it was through the Livestrong program at the Y.  Once again, I had a full class with eight people signed up.  But one person wasn't able to make it, so there were only seven.

The coordinator thought it would be better if we had the class for only two hours.  I said o.k. and tried to adjust what I did from the first workshop to hopefully speed things up.  I didn't show the participants the slides I had of other artists that use hand stitching in their artworks.  I did show them a few of the postcards that I had made with hand stitching so they would have some ideas.

During the first workshop, I demonstrated a stitch and then had the students practice it and also use it in several different ways.  Then I demonstrated another stitch and had everyone do that.  This time I demonstrated all the stitches at one time, had everyone start practicing their stitches and then I went to each table to demonstrate any stitch they wanted to see again and help anyone that needed it.  I didn't ask them to come up with different ways to use the stitching.

Then, I had them start composing their pieces (everyone decided to make a postcard size piece).  And the rest was the same as before.  They fused their compositions together, added accent stitching and then fused it to the stiff interfacing.

I told them that even though the class was scheduled for two hours, they were welcome to stay longer to keep working.  A few people did have to leave after the two hours and they took their pieces home to finish.  The rest stayed for another hour and one person was able to get completely finished and the others were close.

I like people to have a completed project when they leave because I know it might not get finished if they take it home.  I know this because I have done that myself.

Despite not finishing the project, I think most of them had a good time.  One person said she had never been able to do a french knot and now she did.

Here are Stephanie, Bea and Carol working on their compositions.

In the previous picture and the next, you will see some cut mats.  This was something I learned from my last workshop, that it would be helpful for people to see the finished size so they would know where to end their stitching.  So I cut a few mats they could lay on top to help visualize.

Work in progress.

This one, by Ginny, is really fun with the cat scuba diving.  This is still a work in progress and she took it home to do some more stitching.

I had a bunch of cats already cut out from a long time ago and a couple of people used them.  This is Carol's piece and the only one that got completed. She was the one that said she couldn't do the french knot previously and look at all the ones she put in the sky!

Overall, it went well.  I am thinking that, ideally, if I were to teach this again, that two classes of two hours would work best.  We could take our time in the first class looking at examples and practicing the stitching.  Then, the next class could be spent composing and accent stitching the actual piece.

Thought of the Day

"Conservation is sometimes perceived as stopping everything cold, as holding whooping cranes in higher esteem than people.  It is up to science to spread the understanding that the choice is not between wild places or people, it is between a rich or an impoverished existence for Man."

                                                                                                        

                                                                                                               - Thomas E. Lovejoy

Art on a Budget

The days slip by me quickly and then I realize it's been five days since I posted.  How does that happen?

This past weekend my artist friend, Rachel Teannalach, hosted an art sale at her studio.  It was called Art on a Budget and she invited local artists to come set up a table to sell artwork.  Her studio is in her back yard and that is where everyone set up.

The sale was for three days, for only a couple hours each day, and had a price range for each day. The first day was artwork for sale that was under $100.  The second day price range was under $200 and the third day was under $500.

I participated on Thursday only and brought some of my smaller artworks that I already have packaged up and in buckets in my studio.  This made it so that I really didn't need to get much ready to participate.

Here is my set up at home.  I was seeing if the table was going to hold everything.

Some of the other artists getting set up.  We were lucky to have nice weather. That's Rachel walking on the left.

Artist Lauren Kistner talks with some visitors.

And here is Rachel's table.  She also had a "Deal of the Day" which was one or two pieces with a special price.

I sold one piece of art and some notecards.  But then turned around and bought a couple of Rachel's tiny Expanse paintings (those small ones you see leaned against the fence).  I had a feeling I would be spending money.

I didn't participate on Friday and Saturday, as I didn't want to bring larger pieces that would be exposed to sun and other elements.  I also didn't have a good portable hanging display.

I enjoyed talking with the other artists and thought it was a good idea for a casual, informal sale of artwork.  What creative ideas do you or artists you know come up with for art sales or exposure?