I’m not one to sing my own praises, so I’ll just say I entered four pieces in fiber categories in the Fine Arts department…and won four ribbons – three blue, and one second place. Yea!
I received second place for my sculpture, which I was considering my “main” entry and the one I put the most thought and planning into. I suspect it wasn’t “fiber-y” enough for the fiber categories…but I had that reservation going in. I received third place in this category last year, so I’m calling this an upward trend and plotting my course with an eye on first for next year! Besides, second place leaves me room to grow…but should it be bigger, or better, or more fiber-like? Who knows? I’ve got a whole year to think on that.
Art Quilt Group
We did get the group rescheduled to this past Monday. Some familiar faces returned, and others were missing. It’s an interesting group; you never know just who is going to be there, and you don’t know who’s going to bring what for show-n-tell. AQF Elaine had issued the challenge “Pet Peeve” two months ago, and she brought hers – a chainsaw – well, not a real chainsaw, of course! She brought a depiction in fabric; it’s an art quilt group, after all. It was a dynamic and graphic illustration (not graphic as in gory, but graphic as in dramatic graphic art) of two hands, a chainsaw, and a fallen log on a black background with metallic thread. This is the part where a picture could tell a thousand words! I really need to start asking group members if they mind if I take pictures for posting….
AQF Marilyn brought a piece she is doing for friends who live in the northwest United States
As for my pet peeve, well that’s when people throw cigarettes out car windows! So annoying, and it stirs my road rage…except there’s nothing to do about it. You just hope the scowl and glare as you pass sends the message, but I doubt it.
I procrastinated with this challenge because I wasn’t enjoying the prospect of working on something that annoyed me, so eventually (Saturday) I just jumped in with both feet. [By the way, if you’re waiting for this picture, stop waiting. I didn’t take one, and I gave the piece to Elaine, so I don’t have it to snap.]
After the Violent Flowers piece, I’m really enjoying what I’m calling “fast art”, that is, making pieces by improvisation and without so much planning. The pet peeve did take several hours to make, but it came together quickly. For more on the “fast art” process, see below for the project I did just before I started the pet peeve. There are pictures, even!
To get past my annoyance at the subject, I focused on the pet peeve in terms of color, composition, and technique. The technique is the same as I used for the Violent Flowers and the piece below (minus the new plastic thing). I was happy with the final result, and it was a good practice/learning experience.
Fast Art
This approach was inspired, in part, by an Art Quilt Group member’s use of oil pastels on fabric that she had shown at a previous show-n-tell and Elaine’s watercolor pencil demo that lead me to buy water-soluble crayons. The process for this work varied slightly in that I machine appliquéd strips of fabric onto the background fabric first and then came back with the water-soluble crayons and drew in the circles.
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| Base Fabric with Strips |
I pulled out my collection of fabric snippets (yes, I save all those little threads and clippings for just such an occasion, and a member of the Art Quilt Group is prepared to do an intervention regarding my hoarding!). I chose, trimmed, and arranged the snippets to reinforce the outer edges of the circles. It wasn’t all planned out, but knowing what was coming next and that I wanted the background to be in bright, warm colors, I covered all the snippets with a raspberry-colored netting.
The piece is not large, and I placed the whole thing on top of interfacing to give a little more stability for what was next – running amuck all over the place with my “free motion/thread sketching” technique to secure the snippets in place. Mostly I tried to have my stitches reinforce the circular motifs.
Next came yarn couching to emphasize the circles and give a bit of a spiral feel.
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| Water-soluble Crayons for Marking |
Then came borders, sandwich-making (backing fabric, batting, sewing, turning inside out…you know), then quilting. Yep, the quilting was more of the running around thing with no focus on stitch length or consistency. It was pointed out at group Monday that judges look at that sort of thing, or the lack of overall quilting, to which I say, “So?” My aim has never been to win awards, nor to be the best at any particular technique. I’m in it for the creating and participating. Sure, I can practice and learn those other things, but an art quilt is more than technique. In my opinion, if you’re focusing on the minutia of stitches, you’re either missing the big picture, or you’re a judge who has had to take it down to that level of detail to decide between two (or more) equally good pieces.
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| Snipets Covered with Netting |
Back to the piece at hand…the new thing I tried this time was melted plastic! Um-hmm, you read it right. Sometimes hoarding has other outcomes. I had been saving these empty, plastic, stick deodorant containers, and they accumulated as they were used up. That’s really the reason I have so many things hanging around – I see some potential in them. I may not know right off what it is, but I recognize it. It’s not like I’m keeping all the old food containers, empty cans, and trash; I recycle that as much as possible and throw away the rest. It’s that the plastic of these containers is a pretty metallic blue. On that note, here’s a tangent. I know this entry has already gotten long, and if you want to get to the outcome of this piece, skip down.
The Tangent – a Disclaimer
When it comes to this hoarding stuff, it may sound as if I’m making fun of the fact that some people suffer from this illness. I’m not. My kidding is about myself, and it’s really to bring a bit of levity to the fact that I (like many other Americans, I’m sure) have too much stuff, so much so that it’s a “fabric explosion” all over my living room, compounded by a yarn avalanche, and that I don’t have it organized. That and I’m terrible about dragging things out for the immediate project and neglectful about putting them away when I’m done…and I’m not big on housekeeping/putting things away after a project…or organizing…well, you get the picture.
In reality, I’m grateful that there is such a show as “Hoarders, Buried Alive.” It’s an all too real reminder that everything is not as shown on TV, and I don’t mean that people are hoarders. I mean that there seems to be this concept that we’re supposed to be living in HGTV houses! It’s like they’ve been saying about supermodels all these years and how this makes young girls (who are of normal body sizes) feel that they are inadequate, ugly, or don’t measure up. So it is when you see these staged house or rooms that have just been “made over” and have that Spartan, everything put away or neatly in its place look. That’s just not what I’m seeing in real life. Is that what your house looks like? If so, good for you! You’ve reached that appearance we’re all supposed to aspire to. If you’re not living in a magazine, that’s okay too, and you are in the majority as far as I know.
Other benefits from watching the occasional hoarders episode have been that it has shed light on a condition I previously did not know existed or hadn’t taken time to think about; it helped me understand (to a degree) the reasoning for such behavior as a coping mechanism for some individuals following a tragic life event; and it allowed me to have compassion for those suffering in such situations.
I’m not bashing the home decorating/makeover shows; I watch them all the time, and I’ve seen some wonderfully inspiring ideas. I say watch ‘em, be inspired, try one of those new paint colors, remodel, move the furniture, be trendy if you want, but most of all, be comfortable in your own home and don’t feel bad if it doesn’t look like you’re the world’s greatest interior designer. Just balance it out (and I’m talking to me, too) not to find yourself in this American more-more-more trap.
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| Borders, Couched Yarn, Quilted |
…there I was with these 12, okay maybe 16, empty deodorant containers. I wondered if the metallic blue was just a coating or if the plastic was that way through and through. I had thought at one point about cutting the plastic into small bits, drilling holes in them, and using those pieces for embellishments. As it turned out, I used my scroll saw to cut what was essentially an oval tube into approximately one-inch rings. I stood those on aluminum foil on a baking sheet and put them into the oven at 375 or 400 degrees. It was only a matter of five minutes or so before they started to melt and collapse. Voila, embellishments! And the metallic is throughout the plastic, not just surface.
Art Quilt Group members asked about fumes, and there were none that I noticed, but if you’re attempting such a thing at your home, I’d suggest assuring good ventilation, etc., just in case. Mine is a gas stove, and the ventilation is apparently good enough, plus I didn’t bake the pieces to the point of turning to liquid, just to melting.
When they came out, they seemed to have lost some of the sheen of plastic, and the metallic wasn’t as bright as when it went it, but I held the tray in front of a fan to give them a quick cool for a couple minutes, then I tossed the pieces into a sink of cold water. The sheen and brightness came right back. A tiny drill bit allowed me to make holes and secure the rings to the quilted background and add beads to the rings for further embellishment.
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| Melted Plastic |
Alas, I didn’t snap a picture of the final product before I left it at the shop for display. Photo coming to the gallery soon!
Happiness to you!
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