Collages and textile art

When people ask me what kind of artist I am I usually answer "textile artist". While its true that my pieces can be technically be defined as quilts I have come to find that labeling them as quilts and me as a quilter is limiting and somewhat misleading. People always think blankets when you say "quilt" and then to : "my grandma makes quilts...". Then I have to explain that my pieces are not functional--they are meant to hang on the wall...yadda, yadda, yadda. So its really much simpler to say textile artist and be done with it. Sometimes I elaborate and say that I make fabric collages. Collage pretty much describes most of what I do these days (but I do slip in some traditional quilt making assembly techniques when appropriate.)

Whenever I trim a top or nearly finished piece and the trimmings feature pretty fabrics and embroidery I keep the bits and later use them as the raw materials for an abstract collage. When I do this, I love to let the batting and raw edges show--its kind of a quilt deconstruction and reconstruction to more of a fine arts format.

Here's one of my favorite little abstract collages.


This guy is only about 5"x 6". I love the bright colors and loose placement of the strips. It feels very spontaneous and alive! I took this picture right after I completed it--now I actually have it framed in a shadow box format with a lime green brushed aluminum frame.


Here's a close up so you can see the stitches and batting and all the cool stuff. I love small works--how they draw you in and encourage you to peer closely at their details. I have this one mounted in my home at my eye level in a hallway that I pass through multiple times a day.

Unusual materials

Most often I use commercially produced cotton fabric for my pieces. I generally do not wash the material first. I like the sizing in the fabric--it produces a crisp finish when ironed (although it does build up on my iron which is annoying.) Sometimes, though, I use other fabrics for different effects. Here is one of my favorite excursions from the cotton fold:

Here is an entirely non-cotton piece. The black background is a heavy black linen--quite substantial. All of the colored fabric is felt. Some of it is wool felt which I happened to run into at JoAnn's one day. The rest is polyacrylic. So much fun to work with!

In this close-up you can see that I embroidered the felt prior to sewing it down. I wanted a real indigenous look to the piece so I used various embroidery stitches for the applique. I also used some off-white felt cut with pinking shears as a border around some of the pieces.
That's all for today. Hopefully I'll have something new to post about soon--

I've been through the desert...

Hello all. Its been a dry, gritty desert for my creativity since the beginning of August. As some of you may know, my marriage of 20 years has unravelled and dissolved. My husband (ex any day now) has moved out to another state while I remain here in Florida with my three kids. I am endeavoring to sell our too big house and obtain additional employment. Unfortunately, I have been unable to manage to get into my studio and create--no time or no serenity or both. It makes me sad because when I do sell this house I will lose my lovely, lovely studio. But I just am not in a place to create or even putter away on some of my works in progress. I just feel like I must get some of these major issues at least partially settled before my mind can rest.

But there is still some creativity going on in the kitchen so I'll post a couple of my recent favorites. I guess I can only think about nourishing myself and my kids right now during this scary time. I hope that changes for me soon.


Here is a rendition of one of our house favorites: salmon salad. Whenever we have broiled salmon leftovers, I make some salad with a small pasta like this couscous (I've used orzo and wild rice together too--yummy!) Chop some fresh herbs, purple onion, maybe some tomato or cucumber and add oil and vinegar or commercial vinaigrette type dressing (I usually use Paul Newman's sun dried tomato vinaigrette.) Serve with lettuce, tomato and avocado. Low in calories and omega-3's too!


This is one of my brilliant sandwiches. In another life somewhere, I own a gourmet sandwich shop. Here's one that is divine after being heated and pressed in the panini press. Start with some whole grain bread--I've used sunflower bread here. Add a smear of spread--creole mustard is a good one. A slice of prosciutto and a slice of mesquite smoked turkey come next.



Cut up some avocado--this gets really yummy when heated. Spice things up a bit with a sprinkle of Tony's cajun seasoning on the avocado and then top with purple onion slices. A slice of reduced fat lacy swiss cheese is last. This will melt and hold all of the other ingredients together after a couple of minutes in the panini press. I initially bought this cheese because it was lower in fat but I found that has additional advantages: no messy runny oil running out after it melts. Heaven!

That's the food that feeds my soul--I hope you like it too. Let me know if anyone needs more detailed recipes. Maybe next post I'll show the white chocolate and nut scones that I've been perfecting....

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.

Wish you were here (in Arizona, that is)

Today I completed the Arizona postcard and sent it off on its merry way to Tohono Chul Park. Good luck, little postcard! Sissy, I hope you like it!

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.

The Baldwin Park Art Stroll

Last night I participated in the Baldwin Park Art Stroll despite the ominous weather. There were storms all around us and lots of thunder and at 5:00 pm it looked pretty iffy. But my assigned location was under a generous building overhang so I decided it was worth the risk. My artist friend Cheryl Jones Evans also attended and was gracious in sharing her display panels. We mixed our pieces all together on them and I brought along a table to display my note cards and christmas cards. And, of course, my famous postcard rack!! Here are some pix:

My table and card set-up. That's Cheryl in the black blouse. I couldn't have just that ugly table bare to the world so I covered it with my "Midwest Roadmap" piece. Bright! Those are my smaller pieces and name sign on the panels on the right. I sold the black one on the lower left at the very end of the night when we were packing up.


Here is the front or street side of our "H" panel configuration. We thought one of my brightest bigger pieces would be a good eye-catcher.


My table from the front and there's my awesome postcard rack on the left. It sure caught a lot of people's attention. I ended up selling three postcards.


The back side of our "H" had 2 of my pieces. A lot of folks stopped and read my litany of annoyances that I had written all over the "What really bugs me" quilt.



On the other side of the "H", Cheryl displayed some of her hand crafted journals. She sold 3 of these.

So, all in all, I think the show was a success. Cheryl and I both had some sales and we had a good time gabbing with each other and with friends and family that came by to support us. Thanks Leslee and Julie for coming out! And thanks to the folks who purchased some of our art! Double thanks to friends who came by AND purchased art! In this economy, discretionary spending has dropped off the map, so every sale is a precious commodity indeed. Thanks also to the organizers of this event! Brad Biggs--you did a great job. Hope I can participate again!

Branding

I was in the final preparation phase today for the Art Stroll tomorrow. I talked to my friend, Cheryl Jones Evans http://www.cherylevans.net/and we seemed to be all set with my table, her display boards etc. etc. As I was chatting with her, it dawned on me that I needed a sign for my display with my name! Duh. Of course, the sign would have to be a quilted hanging--what else. So here is what I put together.


Here's the whole thing. I used several colors of permanent markers to write out the "Celestial Textiles" and the "Elizabeth-Harris.com". I was shooting for several things: #1. my name (!)-- I wanted that to be seen and recognized first and foremost. #2. The fact that my name is actually spelled out as a URL lets people know they can go to there and see more of my works. #3. The title "Celestial Textiles", if googled, will lead to my 2 celestial textiles sites: this blog and my etsy store. So the sign is a sign for the show, some branding of celestial textiles, and references to my websites all in one!


A detail shows the quilting, drawing and gold bias strip for trimming.

And yet another blue strip...

Today I completed another blue strip. That makes 6 down and 4 to go. I really can't wait to sew all of these strips together and make that damn background already. Cut out some more of the seaweed leaflets also. But I am still in a quandary about what animal form to include with the seaweed in my underwater scene. Realistic fish (or other sea life) is not grabbing me as a concept and mermaids are too cutsey-poo. Some other fantastical undersea creature?? I will have to quickly cogitate upon this and come up with a plan.

I also did some work on The Blade Garden. I need to finish that off as I am considering submitting that in some sort of venue.

Its all about plants

I don't have any new work to post today but I thought I'd collect all of my botanical themed pieces and present them here. My alter ego is a botanist and I actually had a double major as an undergraduate in art and biology. I went on to pursue botany for a higher degree but, of course, the art came along for the ride.

This still life features a bunch of realistic flowers, fruits and veggies. I just love the tulips--they got me started on this piece. i thought they looked like the very traditional old fashioned dutch varieties that caused so much avarice and turmoil.


Here is an entirely fanciful flower--straight from a dream image that I had one night. I had a smirk on my face the whole time I was putting this one together. Very satisfying. This piece is from my "Inner Landscape" series which are all metaphorical. A unifying theme is the black frame.





This is my very first flower piece. Its roughly based on a very botanical scheme of a generic flower that clearly demonstrates all of the parts. I draw this sort of diagram for my students all the time. Fittingly, it hangs in my office in the Biology Department at UCF. Its official name is "Wallflower renaissance" but I think of it as my inside-out flower. As in: live your life from the inside out rather than the outside in.


This passionflower is not totally anatomically correct but I felt moved to add in some extra parts for aesthetic balance. I'm guessing that if you're not a botanist, you likely can't tell what is incorrect. I love the appearance and symbolism of passionflowers--I've used them as design elements in another piece too.


These beauties are pretty correct and are based on some night blooming Brugmansias, or Angel's Trumpets, blooming in my yard here in Florida. I posted about them before but in the interest of thoroughness, I've got them up here again.

Postcard strike

Just couldn't face more frickin' postcards today. So I made another blue strip. Tedious but it has to be done. That makes 5 strips down and 5 to go. sigh.

Upcycled T-shirts

Been pretty busy with my day job so I haven't had time to get in the studio as much as I'd like to. But I am trying to get ready for a little sidewalk Art Stroll next week in Baldwin Park. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=99819432058&ref=ts So I'm bustling away making postcards to fill up my cool new postcard rack (I showed it here a few posts back) which I will be using in the show. But, DAMN, that rack holds a lot of cards. I have been making cards like there's no tomorrow and its still not full. Close, though. Today I completed sixteen T-shirt post cards. Since I'm a pack-rat from way back, I naturally saved some of my kids' cutest t-shirts from when they were just little guys. Couldn't bear to toss them or pass them on to good-will. Thought I might someday make a quilt out of them but that idea has since palled. Hmmm, but post cards! Now there's an idea! I did have to iron on some stabilizing interfacing to the back of the t-shirts and then I just trimmed out the images and did some simple contour quilting around them. A matching or contrasting color for the blanket-stitch that goes around the edge completed these fast and easy postcards. Check them out!


Here's the whole batch all piled up. Can you tell we have 2 boys and a girl who all like critters of all sorts, especially bugs? They still do, too even though they're not so little any more.


My favorite is this froggy one. I love the whimsical aspect of the drawings. I got 2 cards out of this particular shirt.


There are also a lot of realistic image shirts in my stash, including these spiders. I sure hope someone else like spiders as much as we do and buys one or more of these!


It occurred to me that I've never shown the back of one of my post cards. As you can see, I use some vintage style letter stamps to write "POST CARD" and delimit the address side from the message side. The plain white fabric takes writing from a sharpie or other permanent pen no problem.

Oh, the horror

Its been rough going for me lately so I'm seeking a creative outlet to help me process it all. I'm currently brainstorming on a piece that centers around Humpty Dumpty and what REALLY happened to him. It looks like the finished piece will actually consist of 3 separate components, one that has a poem on it (there's my written word I mentioned in the last post!). The 2 image components will depict Humpty far away and very close up. For it to be effective, I decided I needed a really strong expression of horror on Humpty's face. So I did a little googling to come up with something that hits home for me. It was actually not too easy to come up with these; there are a lot of unsavory horror movie images (yuck) out there if you search on "horror", "look of horror" and the like. But these images fit the bill so I will continue sketching out layout and templates with them in front of me.

Of course, Edvard Munch's "The Scream" is the grandaddy of all looks of horror. Must consider this one. Of course, a lot of the feelings of horror and despair derive from the painting style and background. But, of course, its still successful and a source to keep in mind.












This is an interesting one. The mouth really fascinated me. The eyes and forehead seem a little "fakey" to me but overall, pretty intense. I can hear a high-pitched shriek when I look at this woman, can't you?












This one is my favorite. This is Peter Stackpole's photo of TV actress Nancy Berg taken in 1953. You don't even see her whole face but what evocative eyes! Notice that they are wide open and how the eyebrows and forehead wrinkle contribute to the total feel of this image. Wow. very psychicly powerful. I hope I can capture this!

The written word and textile art

Its been an ongoing theme for me lately to use words in my textile art in some way. I am intrigued by the juxtaposition of a visual image and an associated or contrasting written word(s). Here are some of my works that have included writing in some way. Obviously I am still exploring the possibilities.

Here is my first written word quilt--9 blocks (one shown), each with its own fortune cookie fortune. I sealed in the fortune with a layer of vinyl that I then quilted right down onto the plain white block.

Here's my latest effort. I used a Sharpie pen to write in the white space around each bug. I wrote in a spiral so that really added to the design element.

Here I added some text to each of the 16 blocks of this quilt. I did this by first adhering the white fabric to freezer paper by ironing and then inserting it into a typewriter and typing on it.

Frida Kahlo often included some text in her paintings. Here is one where she painted a little fluttering penant at the bottom. I've been inspired by that and done this a couple of times in fabric form by writing on some lightweight fabric and then cutting it into a strip and tacking it down.

I'm considering some new allegorical pieces--about 4 of them, I think. They are very much in the embryonic phase right now so I won't mention any of the subject matter just yet. But I am planning on pairing them with an associated poem/prose. I know I want to try something different. Not sure how I want to do this--any ideas anyone?

Chop, chop

Sometimes an idea just doesn't come together. Not a problem if I'm still in the planning stage but it seems pretty daunting if I've already done a bunch of sewing and assembled my top. Maybe I've even gotten to the embellishment sewing or (gasp!) quilting stage. Now what? Here's what I do and it usually works for me: I chop it up and resew it! Often in some sort of "crazy quilt" configuration or just however it seems to fit. I open myself up to the design possibilities and listen to the piece. Then I embellish, quilt or add elements. Some of my favorite pieces have undergone this process. Here are a few:


Only the floral centers of the blocks are crazy quilted here. The technique adds lots of textural interest. Then I just added strips and borders in matching or contrasting fabrics.


Ohh, I labored over this one. It started out as an exercise in working with a monochromatic color scheme. It was ok, but not great. Then I chopped it, sewed all the resulting pieces together and added the sun. Perfect!


This little beauty resulted from a leftover paper foundation pieced strip that just didn't work on the original piece. So that strip was removed and reassembled into what you see here. Its a jewel of a piece with glittery accents in seed beads, lurex embroidery thread and a bit of Angelina Fibers.
Love serendipity!

More goofy ad copy

A little work on my postcards today but nothing much new to show. Recently, however, I have heard and recorded some new senseless ad copy. Do they never, ever proof these slogans? That is, run them by someone with half a brain?? Evidently not. Here they are.

The first was for one of those diet food plans where you purchase all of your food from the company and heat it and eat it. Describing the meals as: "Each one better than the next!" oops. Really? Hmmm, this doesn't bode well for the long haul, eh? Must be pretty horrible after a few days, I think.

The second one ran on my local radio station and was advertising one of those cheap hair cutting places and compared it to pricier salons. This one also has some issues for the long haul. "Get a great haircut for half the price of a great haircut." Ummm, does that mean that eventually it will cost 1 cent? Or maybe they will even owe you?

sigh

Postcards, postcards, as far as the eye can see...

Things have been hectic and crazy around my house (husband out of town, husband back in town, husband breaks ankle, husband taken to emergency room, husband incapacitated for 2 weeks, daily summer teaching begins) and so there has been absolutely no large chunks of time for me to escape to my studio. :( But that doesn't mean I haven't been in there as much as I can. Since I only have small units of time, I've only been working on small projects. I decided I need to have a good stock of postcards for my Etsy online store www.celestialtextiles.etsy.com and in person if I'm ever able to participate in a sidewalk show. So here are a few of the goodies I've completed.


I love this one! I had some leftover trimmed ocean blue pieces that were enough for a 4 x 6 card so I slapped a fish on it.


Here's the last little piece of my Tribal Kats series. I have since unearthed some more cat fabric so you'll see those eventually, too.


I just made the one of these checkerboard fish cards. Its reminiscent of the fish quilt I sent to the Fish Follies show in 2006 titled "Fishy Frolic". You can see that one on my main art website at: http://www.elizabeth-harris.com/Pages/G_Non-Series.html scroll down about half way.


I had a bunch of these strips left over from the Fishy Frolic quilt so I made several striped versions with a different kind of fish on each one. Fishy-tastic!