My Saturday

Last Saturday was a rare treat of a day for me...a weekend day to spend entirely as I wanted while my husband watched our girls. After rising early, I went to Starbucks to enjoy a leisurely breakfast, but mostly to sit quietly, gather my thoughts and decide what I wanted to accomplish in the studio.

 

As noted in my last post regarding the indigo prints on cotton, indigo has been on my mind. The picture above is of the pieces printed a couple weeks ago while having a Skype studio session with my friend Pam. There are more pieces from that day, but they wouldn't all fit on the board. They are a combination of original screen printing and monoprinting off the excess paint.

I've been seeing these pieces...or pages, for to me they are pages from a book...with bits of red. After returning home, more indigo pages were printed.

And then it was time for red. This is Jacquard's True Red and it is red...more like fire engine red to me. Seemed a bit too bright for the indigo and a comment that Pam had made kept knocking at my brain. 

So the paints came back out and I mixed up a green that matched the studio wall. It's a tad more subdued than the red and will look great against the indigo. Of course, I'm still envisioning touches of red on the pages or maybe even a red book instead.

At the end of the day, the walls were covered in cotton hung to dry. The paints were put away for. The tools all cleaned. I showered and got all the paint off me too. The babysitter arrived on time so my husband and I could go out to enjoy a grown up dinner. All in all, a wonderful way to spend a Saturday. 

Indigo

Last Friday Pam and I had an all day Skype studio session and it was amazing. When we began, I'd planned to continue working on the sketchbooks, but soon found myself putting them aside and getting out screen printing materials to print in indigo on white cotton, then monoprint off the excess paint to create layers. The photo above is just a sampling of what was created. 

Oddly enough, while I love indigo fabric, especially Japanese working kimonos like these

which were exhibited at the Surface Design Association conference in 2005 in Kansas City, it never occurred to me to work with the color. However, I'm addicted now. 

Last Friday night found me dreaming in shades of indigo as well as dreaming of indigo. I woke the next morning filled with ideas for screen printing, hand-stitching, painting, text, etc. All things that could be added to the indigo prints. 

As I sat at Starbucks Saturday morning, the notebook came out so the ideas could be listed. And it didn't stop at Starbucks...the ideas continue to flow while I sat for a pedicure (an indulgent delight discovered only last year...the foot massages rate right up there with dark chocolate in my opinion) and then while I waited for the chemicals the colorist put in my hair to do their bit in hiding my grey. See what I mean about being addicted?

The week since has been busy and more ideas have been written down. Still, I've managed to grab a few moments of studio time to screen print on organza and even got in a stitch or two. There's a series in mind which will take time.

Visions of sections/details of pieces keep flitting in and out of my creative consciousness. As much as I'd like to actually create the visions, I know that an open mind is needed because the art has it's own ideas of what should be done. If I'm quiet enough and receptive enough, hopefully I'll hear the art and together we'll create something worthy of high indigo or indigo high. Hmmm...which should it be?

Artist Retreat - Thursday & Friday

When Pam and I dubbed this visit an artist retreat, I doubt either of us had an inkling as to how accurate it would be. Once we decided just what it was that we wanted/needed to do, we worked diligently.

We devised a system that made use of all the paint pulled through the screen. It gave us yards of original screen printed fabrics as well as yards of fabrics monoprinted from the excess paint. After finally calling an end to the process last night due to our brains being spent from the pace of the last few days, we starting trying to figure out just how much fabric had been printed.

For myself, it's along the lines of:
5 yards black linen
4 yards white linen
5 yards white silk organza
5 yards white cotton
2 yards black cotton

My silk organza is original screen prints while the rest are monoprints. Pam was using organza and sheers that were 108 inches wide and I don't remember how many yards were printed, but it's around 15 or 20 plus a bit of cotton.

Thursday was a semi-play day. We had lunch with Diane of Diane's Artisan Gallery at a funky little new age sort of southwestern restaurant

where Diane ordered the largest burrito we'd ever seen.

After lunch Pam & I went in search of gifts for my daughters and then ventured over to Diane's.

As lovely as the fiber, jewelry and clay in the gallery are, it was her yarn display that really held my attention. The colors that she weaves with are vibrant and alive and I couldn't resist getting a photo.

Next was a trip to the Spenser Museum on Kansas University's campus to see an exhibit by Kim Jongku entitled Mobile Landscape employing metal filings to create landscapes.

This piece ran the length of the wall and was exquisite.

We weren't sure if the artist intended for viewers to walk through the filings on the floor so we just stood and admired...and watched our feet being projected on the screen above.

As we left the exhibit, I turned for one last view and was struck by the mirror image of the reflection.

After a day of play, it was back to work yesterday. Here's just a sampling of what we did.

I fly home to Connecticut in a few hours. Two boxes of printed fabrics were mailed yesterday...just not enough room in my suitcase. However, there are three pieces too precious to hand over to anyone and they are in my backpack for me to carry home.

I'd like to say I'll rest on the flight, but my creative mind is already at work wondering what comes next with the pieces we created as yardage. Some will be cut into smaller pieces, but a few will remain large...and hopefully I won't screw them up in the process.

Thank you Pam for a lovely week! And thank you to John and Mike for being such understanding husbands. Now...when can we do this again?

Artist Retreat - Wednesday

Pam and I had a very productive day producing yardage for later use. 

 While she screen printed on organza,

I made monoprints on cotton with the excess paint.

Screen printing on discharged cotton.

We knew we'd worked hard, but it wasn't until the end of the day while hanging the yardage for a show-and-tell with another friend tomorrow that it hit us just how productive the past two days have been. Whew! Time for rest. Tomorrow we play. Friday we get back to work.

Artist Retreat

I'm visiting my friend and fellow fiber artist, Pam Sullivan, for a week. We've dubbed it an artist retreat and have been locking ourselves in her studio to play, laugh, experiment, get our hands dirty, forget the outside world and just enjoy being friends, artists and the act of creating.

Upon entering Pam's studio on Sunday, two collections caught my eye.

Spools of thread in vibrant colors.

Remnants of my fabrics from our project eXperiment. 

The top rust fabric is Pam's.

Pam has a this funky material that she found...well, I forget where she said...but it has holes punched in it, a grid of circles in places and is like Tyvek. She mentioned that she thought it would be fun to have words printed on a piece to cut up and play with so I stamped on story on it for her.

First I colored a bit of cotton to lay under it to catch the letters that fell through the holes. This is my piece and I love it.

We decided that we both are in dire need of yardage so that's what we've been concentrating on. Pam has been screen printing on very wide fabric and I've been monoprinting with her leftover paint.

The long pieces on top are Pam's. The little square beneath is mine.

During an excursion for supplies, I thought I'd found an inexpensive black cotton that would discharge to white. So far, it has discharged to grey. We wondered if it could be over-discharged in places to white so before retiring for the night, I went over a few spots and left them. Hopefully, I'll have a nice surprise this morning.

Of course, I can always do as Dorothy Caldwell says she does...take the bleach pen along to the fabric store, get samples cut, take them to the parking lot to discharge and see which what happens before buying.

Stay tuned for more fun and creativity.