I spent a very happy two hours painting in my garage this afternoon! Remember the deconstructed, screen-printed fabrics I made in the Kerr Grabowski workshop at the Quilter’s Studio in May? Well, I took one of them and added Setacolor transparent paints with a stencil brush and a stencil made from freezer paper. I don’t have a picture of the original fabric, but the 3 different sized circles were in shades of bright and yellow-green and also some indigo blues. They were definitely 2-dimensional, but not enough for a finished composition, I thought.

So I chose a light source (top, to the right side) and added shadows with dark blue paint and highlights with bright yellow paint. The circles have now become spheres with lots of depth. Some blank spaces left by the printing even disappeared! Here is the result:

Size is about 20″ x 27.” The next step will to be to add some applique work and some hand stitching. I have an indigo print that I may or may not use for a border.

I am also posting a photo taken of the design I created in Esterita Austin’s workshop at Sandy Turner’s retreat in May. My DH had taken a photo of a dingy at Morro Bay and I used this image to make this fabric design. I spent one day cutting fabrics and a second day painting highlights. The kelp is unfinished, as is the rope. Additional seaweed will be added along the right boat bottom edge, also.

I can’t wait to get back from teaching and work on these some more.

Andi

I just  got home from the marvelous exhibit at Cal Poly.    Twenty five incredible art quilts- on a par with Quilt National.  Carolyn Mazloomi has put together an amazing exhibit.  Run, do not walk, to go see it!

Fibervision member Lora Martin is pleased to announce that her piece Opening To A Compassionate Heart – Lessons from the Bodhisattva Quan Yin has been accepted in the 8th annual Buddha Abides Contemporary Art Exhibition in Santa Barbara, California.  This highly-regarded show is held at The Frameworks-Caruso Woods Contemporary Art Gallery, 813 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara, and runs from April 1 -30, 2008 with the opening reception to be held on Saturday, April 5 from 5-8pm.  Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday 10-5 and Saturday 11-3.

My quilt “Size Prison” has been juried into the exhibition “A Tear in the Fabric” at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo , which will run from May 9 through June 14, 2008. It is an exhibit of conceptual art quilts. Here is my artist statement:“Another January, another round of listening to women making diet resolutions. I created this quilt in January 2008 to represent my anger over the prison of size and dieting that we as women live in, in this culture. I wanted the raw edges of the fabric to express the rawness we often feel in this prison. Clothing labels ranging from size 2 to 2X adorn the bars. Measuring tape, recipes, and weight numbers chronicle that we go up and down the scale, never happy with who we are. The back of the quilt is fabric with 1950’s images of women that were echo quilted, giving the front of the quilt truncated distorted images of our figures.”

I was thrilled to receive a thermal imaging machine from SantaClaus this Christmas! I’ve been working on it quite a bit and it provided me with an alternate method to make one of the two political art quilts I’ve been stewing over for the past 8 years.

The screens burned on the imager are up to 8-1/2″ x 11″ After burning them, I tape them on both sides with duck tape and let sit for a day (if I’m feeling patient) until rinsing with warm water and printing onto fabric. I used Prochem or Jacquard fabric paints to print my various images of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, as well as financial information about Halliburton.

Screen, duck-taped with white tape, paint daubed along top edge of image.

Here’s a picture of the supplies and tools I used. A hard, plastic “squeegee” works best on these screens. There’s felt and a sheet on the table underneath the fabric being painted, too.

I learned a few things about the imager while doing this….double-sided tape behind the laser-print copy that you are burning onto the screen will show up in the painted image, as it interferes with the heat transfer through the paper. Also, thinner (read:cheaper) copy paper seems to work best for heat transfer.

Pic of Dick with obvious tape behind his thorax.

I created a background fabric for my masterpiece with a stencil and Micron pen. The text reads “LIESBRUTALITYLIESBRUTALITY etx.etc.

Stenciled fabric on Kaufman newsprint commercial fabric.

I added a “moral compass” from the current administration, rusted onto hand-dyed fabric by a lovely vendor at the NQA show whose name I don’t know. At any rate, the rusting resulted in backward compass, perfect for the situation at hand. S is N, E is W and the decider is in his throne.

Rusted moral compass

After playing around with the images I had painted and looking around for some tidbits, like quotes from G.W., I decided to add “Decider” and “God speaks through me” to round out my fabric rant.

Well, now that you’re bored to death, poor reader, here is a pic of the more-or-less final product. It feels really good to have gotten all that rage off my chest and onto fabric. Hope not to have offended anyone.

Unquilted as yet: “The Decider: Moral Compass” by Andi Perejda

The Fibervision exhibit at the Elverhoj Museum in Solvang is entitled Color & Cloth Redefining a Traditional Art Form. The exhibit opened on November 16, 2007 and will hang until January 27, 2008. Last weekend Fibervision had an informal panel discussion at the museum about the history of quilting, design, inspiration and technique. 

Four of our members (Anne, Jeanne, Kristin and Ranell), did a great job providing valuable information to the audience. In the background is a landscape quilt by Andi Perejda and two smaller abstract pieces by Kristing Otte.

Below are some closeups of a few of the pieces in the show:

Lorna Morck, Boxed in 4

Angela Moll, Secret Diary 16

Ruth Walters, Archeology

And here are some of the beautiful hand crafted items in the boutique.

For more information, please check the Elverhoj Museum website: www.elverhoj.org

Lora Martin:

I am working on a piece inspired by a photo of a liquid amber tree that I took in November.  It strikes me that this background I have created goes right along with Diana’s post.  If I really get moving, I could have this piece done in time for our January meeting and the Architectural Foundation show.

Diana Acevedo:

The image on these oilcloths are big, bright and busy. Oilcloth is like vinyl, but slick on only one side. It’s not hard to sew; I used a few pins in the seam allowances and helped feed the piece under the presser foot. A walking foot would have accomplished this better, but I was too lazy to attach it. I love the challenge of combining disparate fabrics! The areas of solid turquoise exert some control over the visual chaos, as does the strip of solid red. This strip is wide twill tape, folded over the edge of the strawberry piece. I should have a finished bag “soon.”