"Quilted and Carved" Artwork by Sue Sherman

I have recently been dabbling in a whole new way to give a voice to the wild animals I have photographed, by framing their images in a way that may be meaningful to them.  The technique is an extension of what I have been doing for the past 6 or so years: using thickened dyes and heavy thread painting to create realistic animal portraits.  

What’s new is that I’m adding a frame to the portrait.  The frame is created with metallic fabric paint, quilted, then closely carved (trimmed) close to the stitching lines.  The edges are then finished with matching paint to create an integral frame that’s a reasonable imitation of a real one.  Using this technique I can create whimsical, meaningful or slightly wacky frames, each one unique and matching the character of the portrait.

The portrait starts with a photograph, from which I have created a line drawing.  The line drawing is then traced onto fabric treated with soda ash, and then coloured with thickened dye applied with paintbrushes, to create a face as realistic as possible.

After the dye has worked its magic and has been washed out, the frame is outlined onto the fabric and painted with metallic fabric paints.  For a 3D look, I usually include some shading and highlights in the paintwork.

For the cardinal's frame, I created a natural looking design by tracing actual maple leaves that had fallen from the tree in my backyard.  I then painted them using a mixture of gold, brass, bronze and copper metallic paints for a natural looking mix of colours, reflecting the way the leaves looked on the tree in October.

After quilting, I trim the edges very close to the stitching and then finish the edge with more fabric paint.  If you look at the below picture you can see that the loop of chains on the left has its edges finished, but the edges of the loop on the right are still white fabric.  This step is just a small detail, but it makes a big difference to the finished artwork:  it stops the edges from fraying, it covers up the remaining bits of white fabric, and it stiffens the piece just a little more (which helps it hang nice and flat).  After this step, it is usually necessary to trim off some remaining frayed edges.

The whole process takes a long time to complete and is very finicky but I’m very happy with the results.  Here are a few examples of finished pieces using this technique:

For this king penguin, I thought its regal name deserved a regal looking frame.  This is a smaller quilt than the others (only 12”x12”), and it was made for the 2024 SAQA Benefit Auction. 

Here’s a hornbill photographed in Kenya.  The most notable thing about him is his spectacular beak, so I wanted to make sure it was the most attention-grabbing part of the piece.  The best way I could think of expressing this was to have it be just too big to fit into the frame.  

The emu has so much attitude, it just needed a punk frame featuring chains, skulls and spikes, around a studded black leather band.

The puffin is framed with tiny sand eels, their favourite food!  The silvery eels worked out very well in silver and gold metallic paint.

The cardinal’s frame is a reflection of my association of this beautiful bird, photographed in our backyard, with the maple tree where it spends a lot of time.  It’s the most natural-looking "quilted and carved" portrait I’ve done so far, and definitely the most complicated.  I really enjoyed making him!

This is becoming a whole new avenue of fibre and stitching creativity. I have so many ideas for the future!  

You can see any future pieces in this series by following me on Facebook or Instagram (sueshermanquilts).  If you don't do social media, you could email me at sue@sueshermanquilts.com and ask to be added to my newsletter list.

by Sue Sherman

link to Sue Sherman's website

MAḎAYIN Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala by Barbara Schneider

 https://madayin.kluge-ruhe.org/

I just experienced the most interesting exhibit now at the Asia Society in New York. The article showed the most intriguing  aboriginal paintings and referred to the exhibit at the Kluge-Ruhe Museum in Virginia.

When I went to look at more on that website, they wrote that the exhibit was so extensive that they had built a separate website so that you could experience it in a new way.  It is fascinating and so full of information and the ability to look very closely at the art. Even though I can't go to the exhibit in New York I feel like I have had a wonderful experience of it through this new site.

I am also going to comment on serendipity.  I had recently listened to a book I read some time ago - Color by Victoria Findlay.  Listening to it was a very different experience than reading it. But because I had done this so recently I remembered quite well her section on bark cloth which also covered  a lot of the history of what is seen in this exhibit.

I don't know whether our antennas go up but it often feels like if I am discovering something in one area I am suddenly experiencing it in several others.  I am very much enjoying my download at the moment of wonderful Aboriginal art as an audible, visual and written experience.

Here are links to various things about the exhibit both at the Asia Society and at the Kluge-Ruhe.

PS. I found the catalog through Used Books as well.  

https://madayin.kluge-ruhe.org/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/10/arts/design/aboriginal-art-australia-review.html

https://asiasociety.org/new-york/exhibitions/madayin-eight-decades-aboriginal-australian-bark-painting-yirrkala

Quilt National 2025 Barbara Shcneider

 I was happy to learn that my piece Forest Floor: Tree Bark Fragments, var. 10 was accepted into Quilt National 2025. It is always an honor and ALWAYS unexpected.  I thought I might write a bit about the process of the development of the 3 pieces I entered this year and the trials and tribulations of doing dimensional work for something like this.

Tree Bark Fragments, var. 9

Forest Floor, Tree Bark fragments, var. 10 (the QN piece)

Forest Floor, Tree Bark Fragments. var. 11

I created 3 pieces for submission all starting with pieces of tree bark or branches that I have picked up on my walks through woods.  My first challenge is to figure out how to enlarge them as images  and maintaining what is intriguing about them, and then  how they might translate as large, sculptural or dimensional pieces.  The three I chose were of plane (or sycamore) bark, the second, birch bark and the third a piece of warped and twisted tree branch.  I take photos of them, enlarge and manipulate in Photoshop and then print through Spoonflower.  Often I have to divide images to make the requirement for printing work and then reassemble.

When I get the printed fabric, it often "translates" in a way that I did not expect.  It gets fuzzy, or the colors are wrong, or the size is too much or too litlte or any number of things.  But when it is right I can start to figure out how best to move it along.

In the case of the Quilt National piece, it involved 7 different plane tree fragments, each related but different, each about 12 inches wide and 3.5 to 4 feet long.  I try a number of approaches, testing backings, stitching, distressing.  On this piece I ended up backing with a colored felt and stitching with 2 threads at a time through needle in a free motion way to build texture and densities.  The stitching on the felt backing adds dimensions when the pieces are stiffened and shaped.  

The next step is to shape them and start to arrange them as one assemblage.

Next challenge - photographing them so that the shapes are emphasized with light and shadow.

Next challenge after that is getting all the photos ready to upload and doing all the submission work.

Then you wait and don't build your hopes up. :-)

When I got the acceptance notice that the var. 10 was accepted, I then had to work out a hanging diagram (as it was not going to work with a hanging rod pocket) and  figure out how to prep it to ship in a sturdy but economical way.  In the end I took photos of each step of the prep for shipping and wrote a document to Quilt National about how to unwrap, display and re-wrap for shipping.

I often forget in the enthusiasm at the start of a piece all the many, and often, not so much fun, steps that are required to actually get a piece to the finish line!

I hope some of you will get to go to Quilt National next summer and be inspired by the variety of the work that is there.  I hope to get there in 2025 and see my work with fresh eyes.

And maybe do some nice flat work for awhile :-)

 

 

Houston International Quilt Festival - Special Exhibition

  

Ten Years of Flinging Paint  - Sherri Lipman McCauley

Intentionally ambiguous might be a way of identifying McCauley’s body of work. This exhibition, Ten Years of Flinging Paint, will include artwork from 2014 to the present. The union of paints and dyes with fabric is her forte. Using paints, dyes, fabrics and threads, the goal is to heighten the recognition of art quilts as fine art.

See this exhibition at the Houston International Quilt Festival at the George R. Brown Convention Center, October 30-November 3, 2024. Catch Sherri’s demonstrations at Open Studios in the Embellish/Paint area on Thursday and Friday at 2pm.

Marbling Fun with Friends - by Regina Marzlin

 I belong to a textile art group in our province of Nova Scotia, Canada. We call ourselves “Textile Artists Collective of Nova Scotia” and we have been meeting once a month (with the exclusion of the summer months) for about 12 years now. It is a great group of a dozen friends and fellow fiber artists that has been a wonderful source of inspiration and feedback for me. I have to drive a 260 km /160 miles roundtrip to get to our central meeting location but it is worth it.

Our group has been exhibiting a couple of times over the last few years. In 2023 we had a show concurrent to the Quilt Canada convention in Halifax that was quite successful. Now we are preparing for a show in a gallery in Lunenburg on the South Shore of Nova Scotia in November.

At our monthly meetings, we strive to often do a hands-on activity, a small workshop or demo, to introduce our members to new techniques and to have fun playing with new materials.

 At our last meeting, one member had prepared a demo on marbling on fabric. She provided the materials and we could then try it out for ourselves.

The technique for marbling fabric is not different from marbling paper, an ancient technique to print colorful and elegant papers. These papers were often used in bookbinding.

We set up trays with thickened water. The thickening agent can be Carrageenan (a non-toxic thickener made from seaweed), or methyl cellulose (aka wallpaper glue). The fabric was mordanted with alum so the paint would adhere to it better. There are multiple options for marbling paint, like inks and liquid fabric paints. We used a commercial line, DecoArt Water Marbling Acrylic Paint, which had a good range of colors and comes in handy little drop bottles, which are easy to use.

The paint gets dropped onto the surface of the thickened water and starts to expand and contract and swirl around. We continued filling the surface with paint until it was to our liking. Then the piece of fabric is placed on top and immediately soaks up the paint that floated on the surface. The process was not very controllable as our water mixture was a bit too liquid, so we could not really make pretty patterns with combs or sticks as they disappeared almost as soon as we made them. Nevertheless, we had some neat results and enjoyed trying a fast and easy way to get color onto the white cloth.

Here I am working on dropping the paint onto the surface, and the resulting cloth is below.

Here is another fun print:

Some of the paint had dropped to the bottom of the pan and we used this leftover paint for some “mop-up” prints that can also be quite interesting. 

After drying, the paint needs to be heat set so the fabric is ready to use.

I can definitely recommend this quick and fun activity if you would like to try it!

Photo credit: Fiona Oxford

Every Inch Makes New Art

For years I made silk satin organza panels that were inspired by the natural world of my home in coastal South Carolina. These panels were finished with a narrow machine zig-zag stitch and then trimmed of excess fabric. The result were many narrow bands of fabric about 1” in width.  I accumulated these strips  thinking-someday I will make art using these exclusively. So they sat, until recently I became inspired by the 2024 Art Cloth Network call for entry for the juried show ReVision. 

 

I sorted the fabric strips by compatible colors and then started “weaving” them into new works of art. 

 

    

 

I found that the new pieces were informed by my previous works that depicted the natural world. Here are 2 pieces that depict sea grass and water using the weaving technique.

     

As I worked, I used my design board to pin pieces in place and then sewn onto heavy interfacing.  I used many pins and auditioned strips until I was happy with the results.  

Sun Weaving

 

 

 

 

We Are Currently Accepting Applications for Membership

Art Cloth Network is currently accepting applications for membership.  If you are looking for camaraderie, a chance to promote your unique work, and the medium of art cloth, check out the link here.

We are a diverse group of artists who work collaboratively to promote and exhibit our art.  Applications are due SEPTEMBER 30.  

Os Textile Residency in Iceland by Barbara Matthews

 Os Textile Residency in Iceland by Barbara Matthews

Rolling hills covered in purple lupine provided my first impression of Iceland from the bus. Purple. Literally. Everywhere! Next was the horses, smaller than normal, but at every turn. Where were the sheep? It was not until later that I found them nestled 2 and 3 at a time among the folds of the terrain.

Icelandic horses can do five gaits.

I spent the month of July at the Os Textile Residency in Blonduos, Iceland, about 4 hours north of Reykjavik.

The population of Iceland numbers a little over 350,000, half living in Reykjavik. The sparseness throughout the rest of the country gives a colloquial feel and simpler life. Although reserved, the people are friendly and easy-going. Given the violent Viking history, this is somewhat surprising.

The sheep number at least twice that of people, but it seems the vastness of open land could accommodate many, many more. The sheep provide both wool and delicious lamb (including lamb hot dogs!).

The Os Textile Residency, housed in a large historic 3 story building, served as secondary education and housing for women students in the earlier years. The school formed nearly 100 years ago to fill a gap in secondary education for women. Students lived on-sight and were taught all subjects including aspects of textile construction.

Across the river from the Residency (three story red roof).

The residency living quarters in the main building consist of single rooms, shared bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, and laundry room. The facility can house about 12 people, 9 participated along with 5 more who lived in two adjoining cottages. A large studio with sink, tables, sewing machines, and small looms gave handy access at the facility along with six 8 treadle looms in another room. Each work room contains drop-dead views of the river and sea. Other buildings house dye lab, bio lab, spinning, and technical equipment—think electric carder and digital weaving, embroidery and knitting.

Shared studio space.

Weaving room.

My goal in attending the residency was to simply explore the materials and process. I wanted to release myself from the responsibility of producing completed art. The felting loom was my raison d'etre at the residency. This large but simple machine houses hundreds of barbed needles in four rows along a four-foot-wide table. Roving is fed through the machine multiple times to pre felt the wool thus cutting or eliminating the wet felting phase. I produced 12-20 pre-felted pieces, some samples, some larger ready for the next step.

Roving laid out and ready to be pre-felted through the loom.

Some of the pre-felt pieces I made.

I did not expect to be influenced by the extent of creativity among fellow artists, everyone was exploring as was I. The camaraderie, helpfulness, level of creativity, and variety of interests were energizing. Artists included theatre professionals, natural dyers, weavers, plus more. Everyone had multiple talents.

The day began with chats around coffee, then onto our separate ways to work coming together for a shared evening meal, often retreating to knit, write, or relax. The days were sprinkled with walks along the river and visits to the famed, local spa (swimming pool and hot tubs).

July and August are the most habitable months in Iceland, still rain, wind and temps in the 50s prevailed and highlighted the seaside beauty of the area on sunny days. In July, the sun set at about midnight and rose around 3:30AM adding to the otherworldliness of the country.

Finally, that which must be said--the phenomenal geologic formations from years of volcanic activity that characterize Iceland should not be missed. Features include extraordinary waterfalls, green covered mountains, varied rock formations, and geothermal areas. All adds to the specialness that makes Iceland easy to fall in love with.

Lively Conversation

2024 is my year for exploring and learning. My explorations center around finding beauty in the everyday. While driving, I noticed the playful, gestural lines of tar used to repair my street. Something about their expressive, hand-made form caught my eye and one day I pulled over and began photographing the street. I brought my street compositions into my digital studio and played with  transforming the grey and black of the street to bright color, which brought out the texture and gesture. The photos were printed on 100% cotton fabric, enhancing the tactile experience.

To keep the fun going, I added my own colorful lines on top of the fabric/photo using Golden's tar gel medium, colored with acrylic ink--something I didn't even know existed--creating a lively conversation between the original tar lines and my own gestural lines. It's a coincidence that I'm using "tar gel" to enhance my photo of "tar lines." The grittiness of the street and the texture of the fabric contrasts nicely with the smooth, shiny tar gel lines.

It’s like having a visual chat with the municipal road worker who fixed my street. The transforms a mundane street repair into a vibrant artwork, shows that there’s artistry in the most unexpected places. It’s an invitation to see the beauty and creativity in our everyday surroundings.

Do you have a suggestion of a title for this work? I'm settled on "Lively Conversation" right now. Any other ideas?

 

Tips for applying quilt facing

 by Russ Little

It's that time of year when there seems to be an abundance of quilt exhibition jury deadlines. For me that means that I need to finish the edges on my back log of "finished" art quilts--quilts that are languishing at the all-but-facing stage. I've been taking a critical look at the way that I've been doing facing, making some changes, and discovering a few things along the way. 

One of the biggest challenges has always been getting good, square corners and managing the seam bulk in those corners. I've shared a few tips in the video below. Who knew that we all need a hammer next to the pressing table?!