Working with ARROW

This month, it’s been delightfully busy, and I think it is just a result of gearing up for the fall season. When it gets a little cool around here, all of us slower-than-molasses Georgia gals get crazy with excitement. This week, I could write about my experience with Rinne Allen and working with the great group at Arrow in Athens, but daughter Kate just created a post on her blog with photos of the event - so click here to see what we were up to! 

Kate has been encouraging me to post a dyeing tutorial - so I will do that in the next few weeks. But in the meantime, here are two more of her photos showing how much fun creating colors and watching the rainbow come to life at the workshop was: 

Here are two quick items to share with you this week:

1) The Birds silks that were at the Jittery Joe’s 5 Points location have flown the coop to live in New Hampshire! I received a call that a very nice woman wanting to purchase the birds as a set - she sang into the telephone:

   “I love them!

        They make me happy!

            They need to stay together as a flock!”

I am so pleased that they will be living on a lake in New Hampshire, happy to be together still.

  2) To help support our local gallery, ATHICA (Athens Institute for Contemporary Art), I took the silkscreen design that I had submitted to the Mystery Triennial exhibit and had it printed by the local print shop Satisfactory.  It was my first-ever professionally screened textile design! Satisfactory did a great job printing them up for us. The shirts are available at ATHICA, and would make a great gift for fans of Athens, the Chase Street Warehouses, Tracy Street Studios, or of course ATHICA itself!  A portion of the profits are donated back to ATHICA to help support the good work they do. 

Happy Fall season to all my friends!

Shears

Earlier this month, the New York Times Sunday Magazine had a spread on Designer Shears, curated by Carin Goldberg.

"For New York’s Fashion Week", she wrote, "some of the industry’s top craftsmen and  women pay homage to their tools":

I loved seeing this spread because, as I’ve noted before, the tools that you use are very important - and so very personal! They really become part of you, your life, and your creative experience. 

And here is this designer’s favorite pair of scissors, signed by the person who made them. They were a gift to me, they have the perfect weight, and they work superbly. And, as Isaac Mizrahi noted, I never use them on paper!

                                                                René Shoemaker, of Coffee Cup Press

Let me know about your tools. I’d love to do a post on reader’s favorite tools!

Pockets!

Have you ever wished you could have an extra set of pockets? I have!

I recently re-discovered a new/old way of providing pockets. And I think it is such a good idea, I wanted to share it with you.

Last week, I was at Ron and Marty’s house and ran across Marty’s embroidered textile collection. Now, Ron and Marty are pretty serious when it comes to collecting wonderful stuff from the Arts & Crafts period, and when I saw her textile display in the dining room, I got very excited. The designs and the needlework were fabulous, and she let me take everything down and touch and explore the pieces.

All this is a roundabout way to say that when I saw the first piece, it reminded me of some ‘external pockets’ that I had read about before. In the 1700’s to the early 1900’s, women used pockets in a similar way to how women today use a handbag – to carry their belongings. The pockets back then were often under their dresses, and they were belted or tied around the waist. If you can’t imagine what that would look like, here is a painting of a woman reaching into her pocket:

Now, we can see how unglorious it is to raise your skirt in public, so a way to put your hand in your pocket through the skirt was devised, and here is a picture of that:

There is even a game of ‘Find the Pocket” on this site at the Victoria & AlbertMuseum. It is fun to discover the ways people hid, and used, their pockets by looking at paintings. 

Now, back to Marty’s beautiful textiles, I wanted to share some of them with you:

     This is the first one I saw; it is made of linen and has one pocket on top of the other, and has two reinforced holes in the upper corners that make me think it was tied around a waist,

as opposed to this textile, which has a drawstring construction – it would be used as a bag..

And this one was not a pocket, or a bag, but a table cloth case, and I am showing it to you because the design, colors and embroidery is especially beautiful on this Art Nouveau textile.

So, you see how beautiful and useful these pockets could be? My intention is to bring these back into the public conciousness and see if people might like it. I could make some from my designed fabrics, such as these samples:

And maybe I can start a new fashion fad!

Searching for Quality Art Materials

  Supply shelves in my studio

I’ve discovered that good art supplies can make a huge difference in the quality of my finished works of art. Fortunately, I live in a town where art is very much alive and appreciated! I feel lucky to have access to a wonderful art supply store that is owned by a working artist with a great spirit, Scott Pope. Creativity and love of art is sensed when you walk into his store, The Loft.

Scott has been supplying Athens’ artists for over 30 years. I know, because I’ve been shopping (and dreaming, and finding inspiration) at his store for almost that long! I even featured The Loft’s Jackson Street storefront in an early exhibit, and you can still see the silk painting hanging in Scott’s store.

    The Loft #1 - 2002

At The Loft I can always find a) great supplies, b) great staff, c) an option to order what I need if they don’t have it in stock, and d) answers to my endless questions! The Loft can be found on the Web and on Facebook, but their real strength is in walking in the door, looking around and talking to a real (knowledgeable) human being. Leslie is especially helpful, she puts artistic signs all over the store, and I love seeing what she is up to with her own artwork. I can sense that she is a good manager, and that Scott can depend on her, but I also know that I can trust anyone they hire to provide good recommendations.

  Colors galore at The Loft     Canvas rolls at The Loft

For my web and mail-order needs, I use several different suppliers. I highly recommend each of them, and I have found that they are all very helpful if called upon with questions:

Dharma Trading Company has almost everything a fiber artist can use. Dyes, paints, blank clothing and fabrics - it’s your one-stop shopping place when you are beginning to dye.

At ProChemical and Dye, I buy Pro MX Reactive Dyes and the Pro Liquid Reactive Dyes; I use their chemicals, and sometimes I purchase their fabric. ProChemical and Dye has many other quality products and they are worth taking a look at.

Thai Silks has a great collection of silk scarves; they are often the first place I go for my scarves to dye.

TestFabrics is my preferred source of ready-to-dye material - their supplies are a little more expensive than some of the other places, but it is worth it when I am seeking quality. I first discovered them in 1979 when I bought white cotton batiste yardage to create my (white-on-white embroidered) wedding dress. TestFabrics sells a wonderful silk broadcloth that I am currently very in love with, and they also have a nice silk twill. Both are a little unusual, and have a nice weight and feel to them.

I am continuing to experiment with silkscreen, and silkscreen inks. I’m in the market for good inks, particularly sustainable/eco-friendly inks, and good screens. I am also struggling with the fixing process for silkscreening on textiles; I want to be sure my designs are not going to wash away. If anyone has suggestions or feedback, please let me know!

    Always a need for more supplies

A quick note: Tonight, the ATHICA Mystery exhibit opened. The reception was fun, and I saw quite a few of my friends there!  All artists submitted art in the same format, 8.5” x 5.5”, and the artist’s names were not revealed. The task of the viewers is to see how many artists can be recognize by their style. Over 100 Athens artists had been invited to participate in this exclusively Athens-artist event, and I was proud to have been part of it. See the exhibit before it ends on September 18, it’s quite a showcase of Athens talent!