Arizona writ large

Its still all about Arizona for me so here are the pictures of the larger Arizona morning piece that I'm working on.


I'm using all of the same fabrics as in the postcard. Here's the start of my sky (remember: that orange-purple at the top is actually not so dark.)


A few more layers are laid out and the upper ones are sewn down. I did have some rough sketches for the composition which I followed only loosely.


This light blue is my lowest and brightest level of the sky. Its a pretty good early dawn color, I think.


Time for the horizon to make an appearance. A few mountains in the distance to give the essence of the skyline as seen from Tucson.


The precise number, size, shape and placement of the saguaros is a lot more important so I have sketched them out here on some tracing paper. I could absolutely not get by in my studio without tracing paper--I use it for just about every collage piece. I then cut the shapes out and used the tracing paper saguaros as tracing templates.


And here are the fabric saguaros in the same positions. When placement is critical, I adhere the new shapes with a craft glue stick as well as pins. I am then assured that there will be no slippage as I sew them down or manipulate the entire piece.

Of course, I had to listen to some cowboy music while I was working! My choice: "A Great Big Western Howdy!" by the Riders in the Sky. Between their music and what I was creating and seeing in my mind's eye, I was completely transported for an hour or two to, well, Arizona.

Arizona as an inspiration

In case you haven't noticed, postcards are really speaking to me these days. So, no big surprise, I came across a fiber postcard exhibit and I just had to enter. For this exhibit at the Tohuno Chul Park in Arizona, artists were asked to design a fiber postcard that represents some aspect of, well, Arizona. See the details in their call to artists here: http://www.tohonochulpark.org/PDF/Exhibits/Entry%20form--Wish%20You%20Were%20Here--PDF.pdf

The interesting twist: we are to mail our postcards directly there! Then they display all of the cards that they receive. The entry fee and SASE for the postcard's return are sent separately. So all of that was intriguing and I was considering it. But then I looked closer at the entry form and saw that the park is located in Tucson where my sister lives. So then I HAD to enter so that she could go and and see my card in person. Sissy--this card is for you!

A little googling on the internet yielded some beautiful saguaro images. I was particularly struck with sunset and sunrise pictures. I decided to make two pieces: a postcard to enter the exhibit and a larger pieces (mmm-maybe placemat size) with more detail. I'll post the progress I made today on the postcard and save the larger piece for a later post. Here's the progress I made today. One of the fabrics that I chose to use is a lovely batik in orange to purple that just does not photograph well. Its not really as dark as it looks. I'll try to shoot some more pictures tomorrow under different lighting conditions.


I decided on a scene of two or three saguaros at sunrise. The intense colors of the sky contrast with the saguaros and the earth which are both still black. Here are my first few layers of sky streaked with colored clouds.


These are all of my sky layers. I'll have more on the larger piece but this is enough for a 4 x 6 postcard.


And now I've added the fundament. Looks pretty simple so far. Hopefully it will all come together.



I've trimmed the top to size and added two saguaros. I really like it!


Here's a close-up of the saguaro. As usual, I have added all my fabrics with "raw edge applique". I used a courser fabric for the saguaros and some of the thread edges have poked out beyond the satin stitch line I used to anchor them down with. Usually, I try to avoid that at all costs but in this application, I love it--it really calls to mind the halo of spines that a saguaro sports. Gotta love serendipity.


I got a a bit of a start on the quilting. There are lots of loose threads that I have to thread to the back. That will be my job this evening. That has to be my least favorite job, but is necessary for a quality job.

Fabric Collage

When people ask me what kind of artist I am, I usually answer "textile artist" rather than "quilter". Its what I put on my business cards, too. The term "quilting" just conjures up too many images of grandma's log cabin bed quilt and thats just not my main focus these days. And when I do make something in a more traditional theme, I still try to shake it up in some way with radical colors, additional techniques or materials. Textile artist covers it much better since most of what I do can more accurately be described as a fabric collage. I just don't use glue to adhere my separate pieces (well, actually, I do sometimes use a gluestick for temporary positioning), I use thread to sew down the pieces. The thread also becomes part of the design, so that's an added bonus. Here are some examples of my fabric collages.


A pretty simple design relying on the punch of bright colors on a black background (I do that a lot). All of the rays were adhered with iron-on adhesive and then the edges were stitched down (raw edge applique.)



Here's my textile stab at the trompe-l'oeil style of painting popular in the late 1800's. This "fool-the-eye" style was often used in a still life composition that included dead game piled up along with the more traditional fruit and flowers of a still life. I call this piece "21st Century American Still Life". American because of the turkey--can't get more American than that. After I finished the "painting" part, I decided it really needed a frame too. I like how it turned out--rather unexpected. I'm waiting for the right venue to exhibit this one.


And here's what makes it 21st century. Hah!



Here's a large passionflower I began in a workshop I took a couple of years ago from the outstanding quilt artist and fabric designer, Jane Sassaman http://www.janesassaman.com/homepage.html. She's all about large scale florals both in her quilts and fabrics so I was definitely spinning off of her energy when I designed this one.