I just got back from a week-long workshop with Jane Dunnewold at the Pacific Northwest Art School in Coupeville, Washington. Jane, whether she knows it or not, has been my mentor since I discovered her first book in 2001, Complex Cloth. She is an innovator in the field of surface design and is ever researching new techniques and continually updating her methods as materials change and improve. I have all of her books including her newest, Art Cloth, and refer to them often. Suffice it to say, I’m a big fan.

I took a workshop about four years ago from Jane on printing with thickened dye. I learned a lot and applied it immediately to my work and my teaching, where it has become a big part of my practice. This workshop though, on layering techniques with dyes and paint, didn’t seem like it would have as much new  material for me. I decided to go for it anyway because I’ve been wanting to take a class for a while now to have time to get away and work with different focus. I also knew from my previous workshop with Jane that there would be plenty of lessons beyond technique. Jane’s critical eye for composition,  her way of relating material to students through relationships, her depth and breadth of knowledge, and her warmth and humor are all part of the workshop experience.

Swatches after two dye baths

The concept of this class was to create art cloth through creating multiple layers of dye and paint. We worked on small, swatch-sized pieces of fabric to be able to try many combinations. We manipulated fabric and dyed as many as three layers on a single piece of cloth. We created tools including stamps and stencils. We worked with various temporary resists on fabric and on silk screens. We worked with paint on the dyed fabrics using the tools and resists. Students made beautiful, complex pieces (and I made a few complete dogs which you will not see here.)

Jane has replaced the use of discharge in her personal work because of health and safety concerns. She uses paints to mimic what she used to do with discharge. She did demonstrate using chlorine bleach as a discharge agent, stressing safety and telling several cautionary tales, because she said she’d rather people learned to use it safely than try it on their own without guidance. I’m not ready to give up discharge, but I took her stories seriously.  Although I use safe practices in my work, it was good  to reinforce the respect that should be given to the dangers that can lurk in misusing these chemicals.

It was important to keep up our strength during class.

A few times during the class I found myself thinking, “Well, that’s not the way I do it!” I had to laugh at myself and tell myself that I wasn’t there to do things my way, but to try something new. If I wanted to do it my way, I could stay home and work! The class was a great opportunity to try new things, to get out of my head, and to do some open ended exploration.

Along with the techniques, the big focuses of the class were on color theory and composition. Jane stresses creating a “color constant” for yourself matching the media you use to the color wheel. You can then teach yourself how to mix color using the pure  color dyes and paints so that you are in control, rather than using the proprietary mixed colors sold by the dye and paint companies. I have to admit I love my mixed dyes. I test them fully and find them a great short cut for working with tertiary colors, but I understood her point. I’d like to spend some time in the studio this Fall working with blending tertiaries from pure colors. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.

For me, the most valuable part of the class was the time spent in critique sessions, analyzing color and design choices. Jane is amazing to watch in action, stressing that there are many answers to each question. It is up to the individual to identify the options, and then pick one based on objective rather than subjective analysis. In critique we can apply the same choices, analyzing objectively rather than responding to our “likes” or “dislikes.” Jane spent a morning identifying language and concepts to analyze these choices. It’s discussed in her new book and is definitely worth reading.

I was really pleased with the workshop. I came away with some nice samples, some new tool ideas, and some deep thinking to do about color. It was a great group of women and I enjoyed meeting new people and had a great time hanging out with my roomies. I definitely drank a lot of wine! But like any workshop, it will take many months to assimilate what I learned into my own work. That’s part of why I don’t take many classes. As much as I love Jane Dunnewold and her work, it’s not my work.

The rest of this long, long blog post is photos and descriptions of some of the swatches I did in the workshop. I documented each layer so that I could go back and trace what I did.

golden yellow with purple overdye

paint in complementary color stamped in overall pattern

Here are three swatches I did in the class, explained layer by layer.

On Monday I started by loosely gathering a piece of rayon and dyeing it with golden yellow.

Tuesday, I used rubber bands to make circles on it and overdyed it with a purple made with Mixing Red and Mixing Blue.

On Wednesday I created an all over pattern by stamping over the entire piece with a complementary color.

paint applied through flour resist screen

On Thursday I used a silk screen I had created by scratching a pattern through flour resist on the screen to print orange stripes across the grid made by the registered stamps.

And on Friday I added a large scale element to add a focal point using the purple of the background.

large scale image added in background color

dyed mixing red and boysenberry

overdyed with rust

I started this second swatch by twisting the fabric and then dyeing it in the Mixing Red.

Tuesday, I twisted it again and overdyed it in Boysenberry, a red violet pure color I haven’t used before.

I thought that was pretty bright and not my color scheme so I put rubber band circles on it and overdyed it a third time in rust, a color mixed with Boysenberry and Golden Yellow.

On Thursday morning I covered it with a flour paste resist. Once that dried I crackeled it and painted over it with thinned black acrylic paint. I’m pretty happy with it now.

For the third sample I started on Monday with a piece of mercerized cotton broadcloth which I loosely pleated and dyed turquoise.

I didn’t get much texture from the manipulation so on Tuesday I folded it diagonally and overdyed it Rust.

That wasn’t very interesting either so on Wednesday I flag folded it and put rubber bands around the corners, then overdyed it with Mixing Blue.

Well, that was getting somewhere! I then used an chrystallographic design of scattered elements and printed with complements using stamps in a bright value of the complement, stencils in a darker value, and finished it by printing my flour paste silk screen in a medium value. You can’t go wrong with orange stripes!

I was in Michigan this Summer and saw the most amazing sunset. The color and intensity was like nothing we get here in the Northwest. Talk about complementary colors. I kept waiting for the pods to arrive and the aliens to take us away!

Pulling from the "stash".

The sculptural forms for the Grass Series are coming along. I am currently working on three, trying to get them done for a call for entries at the end of Summer. I’m working with both open and closed forms, fine-tuning the shapes and joins.

I’ve also started pulling related fabrics from my stash. Letting it all simmer on the back of the stove while I’m visiting family in the Detroit area.

I’m very happy with the way the fabrics I’ve been printing for the Grass Series have been turning out. I’ve been printing on cottons, but also on a linen/silk double-weave that I love for it’s wonderful texture, a cotton velveteen, rayon challis, and a bamboo/silk twill.

Linen/Silk Double-weave

Cotton velveteen

I’ve been working on a new series based on grasses. On my early Summer walks I would see the long, graceful grass blades topped with heavy seed heads. So many different species escaping the mower in parking strips and at the edge of vacant lots, so much variety in individuals blades usually seen merely as “grass”.

To start the series, I used grass blades as design elements in a few breakdown printing screens. The imagery is subtle in the printed fabrics, but is there if you look carefully. More, you get the feeling of movement. I also printed a large screen I had prepared last Fall using the broader leaves of irises. It was a bit of a challenge printing such a large screen by myself. Luckily the process is forgiving and I’m not trying to do anything with tight registration!

I feel fortunate to be able to combine my love of festivals, like the Oregon Country Fair and Burning Man, with my more formal studio work. For the last three years my family has been a part of Ambience crew at OCF, creating a “living room” call Yew Are Here where fair goers can relax for a while. I bring painted silk banners and lanterns, rugs, pillows, and a few games and create a welcoming and beautiful little chill spot. At night we light the lanterns and it becomes a magical oasis all night long.

Tian Qing, Eden, and Vida transform into fairies.

Here are some photos from the Foster/White show. The gallery did a great job hanging  and lighting it. I find in making and showing art there are many steps to letting go of your work, much like in raising children. I find I hold the pieces so close during the making, the first step is letting go is getting the work photographed. It allows you to see the images for the first time through someone else’s eyes. Another step removed is to see it displayed, and then the final letting go is having the work go to a collector. I love it when purchasers send me a photo of how they display the work. It’s a chance to see it go full circle.

My work shown through part of Paul Vexler's sculpture.

Seedpod Seven detail

My work is inspired by nature and the touch of human hands upon it. The fabrics are maps implying ancient messages. The forms are documents of the passage of time.

Seedpods hold the germ of life, receptacles of potential, able to burst forth with new growth or slowly drying up into reminders of what could have been. I began working with this particular form at the end of 2009. This Spring I traveled to Hawaii, and on my walks found seedpods in the shape that I had begun drawing months earlier. I was amazed by the variation of the simple form, the warts and bumps and undulations. This inspired me to focus on the one shape for this series, finding richness in a narrow groove.

Both the Artifact and the Vessel Series interpret natural forms and textures through the lens of culture. These pieces reference the vessel form as both useful and sacred object, an imagined series of Rosetta Stones discovered by an archaeologist’s assistant.

Three practices come together to form my work: The sketchbook, surface design on fabric, and stitch. Drawings become paper sculpture become patterns. Fabric is dyed, over-dyed, discharged, resisted, printed. Panels are free-motion embroidered on a sewing machine and hand-stitched into their final shapes. I am invested in process: Exploring, teaching, documenting, and writing.

I hadn’t realized that the show was not only national, but international, with 37 artists from places as diverse as New York, Maine, Korea, Australia and Japan. There is also a good showing of local sculptors including Steve Jensen, Michael Johnson, and Julia Haack.  The City of Bellevue did a beautiful job displaying and installing the work and printing a nice catalog and walking map. I was thrilled when I got an email showing the printed materials and found my piece was one of three featured along with Jae Hyo Lee and Christopher Pfeifle.

I didn’t get a chance to go to the park to see the installations there but am planning on doing so soon. The exhibit runs through October 17th and is well worth a trip to Bellevue.

I was invited to show two pieces, Leaf Vessel and Can I Help You?,  in the Rio Patchwork Design Show in Brazil this year. The organizers of the show have a strong desire to introduce their local quilters to art quilts. Through their research they found CQA and invited a number of members to participate in the show. They did a beautiful job with the display of the artwork and the show will travel to two other cities in Brazil.

I was amazed to find out that I won the audience choice award for Leaf Vessel which means I’ll be traveling down to Rio next June to present at the 2011 show! How about that?