Twisted Textiles

This is a detail of a particular Quilted Painting that I’m dropping off today at the Lexington Art League — their annual Member’s Open show starts with a “4th Friday” celebration on July 24th! Each member of the Art League submits a piece to this show, which equals about 120 artworks in the exhibit.

My Quilted Paintings series is largely inspired by dreams, sketches, and mental images that come from reading novels and works of fiction. It’s all fair game…I’m attempting to express in two-dimensions anything that I can squeeze out of my mind-grapes and put into more concrete visual terms.

This particular work was the very first in the entire series, and has a partner piece (entitled Inspired by Fiction, Scene 2) which was purchased in early 2008. I was sad to see these two particular works part ways with one another, but ultimately each image can certainly stand alone, with the ability to be interpreted and valued as a separate entity from the original pair.

These Quilted Paintings have been a fairly regular exercise for me, and definitely a welcome change from more traditional painting techniques. It’s been a little over a year since I started these, and I have many in progess that I’m anxious to finish!

I have been bitten by the purse bug again. Or maybe it’s the change in the weather, reminding me that Spring is already OVER, and I haven’t been on track with my self-imposed deadlines. Either way, be prepared for purses.

Oh yeah—and be prepared for some new clothing projects too. I’m really anxious to hold a new photoshoot with my photographer, and I’m getting on my horse right now, this very minute!

I’m having a wonderful week in my Watercolor Workshop!

Yep…I bet you didn’t know it, but I’m learning how to “pour” watercolor paintings, taught right here in Scott County by Stefanie Vallee. Stefanie is not only a superb artist whose work is widely known and shown, but a wonderful and delightful person as well! She is one of those people that is so full of joy and wisdom that you can’t help but be inspired…I’m so glad to have the opportunity to learn from her. And being around the other dozen-or-so artists in the workshop has been a welcome change as well! She’s also doing a demo and talk on Saturday.

I’m really enjoying the spontaneity…in the new art technique/approach, and also in our class conversations and miscellaneous group adventures around town! I know that I’ll be able to apply this technique to my fabric art in the future.

The image above is a closeup of one of my paintings so far, which was “painted” by pouring color onto the wet paper, no brushes were used so far (except to apply the masking fluid to keep the white parts of the paper from absorbing color). When I remove the masking fluid, we’ll see how I feel about it. I’ve got some pencil marks in there that will have to be removed also (…oops). Maybe I’ll just leave it be, and not use any brush-work at all!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

(I couldn’t help but try out this “slideshow” here…)
Been thinking lately about how in the heck to link all my sites together. (Argh!)
And there are still plans for an entirely new site with a new look, and definitely with better organization.

How, oh-how, in the world can we categorize the plethora of things here?!—I’m still working on it. In the meantime, enjoy the show.

Exciting update: I’ll be having another solo-show near the end of this year! More details and dates to come later. Cheers!

Here’s the other little quilted painting that I finished…oh, about…3 months ago. (Things are very busy around here, but I’m VERY much looking forward to makin’ stuff out of all the new petfood bags I’ve received lately!)

This lil’ one here is about 3.5 by 7 inches. Hand painted; both hand and machine stitched. Honestly, I just got into the groove of painting one day and randomly painted this on a scrap of cotton. I liked where it was going, and just ran with it.

I can’t wait to get it framed! These would be perfect for those boring spaces where nothing else will fit…perhaps bathrooms, definitely hallways. Anywho, hopefully I’ll have some super cool photos to share next time I post. You never know.

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