Melanie: Three Dresses
What is more feminine than a dress. I look upon them with nostalgia because I seldom have occasion to wear them these days. My piece is three dresses moving/dancing in the breeze on the line. It is a Gelli plate print with organza overlay and Shiva paintstick enhancement. .
I am a huge admirer of this young woman. She has such amazing courage and strength. This piece is a photo of Malala that I manipulated - posterized - then printed on fabric, I added a dimensional butterfly to represent re-birth and one of Malala's quotes as her heart. The quote was formed into a heart shape and printed on organza. The background is quilted but I chose to leave her image unquilted to allow it to come forward. The edge is serged.
I was inspired when I found a picture on line of a young Aboriginal girl. I really enjoyed creating her using hand dyed fabric for her face, black fleece for her hair, gold tulle for highlights and ice-dyed fabric for her lips and for the background. I also like the close-up, cropped perspective of the picture.
I recently completed a mixed media course at the Rhode Island School of Design. Color palette was a big part of the class. In the Color Study piece below, I used lessons learned from that course as well as the value of good cropping.
Hope: Rejoice!
My piece was inspired by a photo of my niece who was celebrating at a wedding with sparklers at night. It was a joyful occasion and my niece and the photo captured the joy so well. In the piece, the sparklers are represented by beads. The moon is a type of organza I had - very silvery.
Marcia: Sorority Days
When I think of women, I think of my college sorority sisters. In my piece, I used the colors and symbols of my UCONN sorority, Pi Beta Phi. Even though I have a huge fabric stash, I had to search the shops for just the right color of blue and wine red that are the sorority colors. Our pin was an arrow. In addition to attaching the actual pin, I re-created it in gold fabric, The loose threads represent the many roads we have all taken since graduation.
In addition to the group themed project, I made another one called First Night. I used some blue and gold fabric I had and added blue and gold embellishments of ribbon, braiding, buttons etc. I also hand embroidered several of the motifs with gold threads.
Shelia Rae: Momma Sees You
This piece was inspired by what I see in my neighborhood. It is not always a pretty sight. The piece includes eyeglass pieces I found on the street. I decoupaged pictures in the frames. Lucy's is where I work. I used a belt buckle for the storefront. The Goya bottle caps and religious images are a nod the the prevalent Catholic, Hispanic culture. There are even a couple of hookers and drug dealers. As always, lots of handwork, beads and other embellishment.
"Giving Thought to the Flight" Is a piece in appreciation to this group of textile artists who have appreciated, encouraged and inspired me. It is a old crewel pillow top that I had made into something previously. With the groups inspiration, I have remade the piece to be more contemporary and with better workmanship. I sprayed the crewel embroidery with pink, then sparkly paint.
Since it has been two months since our last meeting, I have a few additional pieces to show.
Winter Just Keeps Dragon On includes - what else - dragons! The backing is also dragon fabric. The background is a pieced remnant given to me. I painted the plastic trees sliver and added lots of other embellishment.
Illusion is an interpretation of a drawing by my son,
Star Route Texas is how we described the address of homes that were in the remote sticks. This is how I think of trying to get to my aunt's house in rural Texas. There is a lot of dense hand quilting in this one.
I love the old forts in the Texas area. They were my inspiration for Cliff Palace. The fabric for the fort really looks like adobe. I added black tulle behind the building to make the building come to the foreground. I found some shell buttons that made perfect rocks and little plastic trees that I painted and added.
M-O-O-N spells Moon - is a line from a Stephen King movie and was the inspiration for this piece. The upper left corner has found holograms of rocket ships from the 50's.
