It's a Wrap Project by Barbara Schneider

 I have been working for the past few months on a project for the Explorations in Fiber Arts group that I belong to in the Chicago area. We are a group of about 25 textile artists that have been more or less together for the past 20 plus years. People come and go but each year we establish a project theme and work toward an exhibit.  The exhibit is shown each year in early November at the Fine Art of Fiber which is located at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Then we often have 2-3 other venues that we display at throughout the following year.

This year we have an additional  opportunity to show in the gallery windows of Columbia College of Art, located on Michigan Avenue just a few blocks south of the Art Institute of Chicago.  It is a terrific location with tall windows and work can be seen from on the sidewalk as well as in the lobby area.

This opportunity came about after I visited with one of the professors at the College about donating some of my Asian textiles to their textile collection. As a result our group was able to go see many textile examples from their extensive collection of garments, accessories, hats, shoes, all kinds of things.

We decided to work on a garment based format for this year's project.  We titled it “It’s a Wrap: Protect, Embrace, Envelop”.  This theme gives us a lot of latitude for interpretation.

My take on the project was to create a very long, enveloping "shawl"  that would suggest being wrapped in falling leaves while walking in the forest.  Like most of my projects it seemed to take on a life of it's own. I ended up making about 400-500 leaves, individually cut, painted and shaped. Then I started attaching them one to the next to create a open, lacy structure that could support itself and yet have some flow and gather on the floor like a pile of leaves.  The more leaves I made and attached, the more leaves I needed to make and attach.  The final piece is about 16 feet long. I then created a shoulder shaped piece out of foam that could mount on the display rod. It gives it a bit of rounded shape to suggest shoulders on a body.  

The good news is I can put all the pieces into a large zippered bag for transport and it is light and easy to move around.  Below are  photos of the  piece is progress.  The first showing of the exhibit is not until November but I am glad to it more or less put together . I look forward to seeing how all of our group respond to the theme and then to the showings in various venues.