Beach or Petroglyph/graph

Petrograph - Drawing, writing or inscription on stone, as a painting on a cave wall.

Petroglyph ‎-A rock carving, especially one made in prehistoric times.

The challenge for this month was Beach or Petroglyph/Petrograph.

Pat: The idea of ancient symbols and drawings in rocks made me think of archeology. I recently moved into a new house and have been doing a lot of clean-up in the yard. While working on the rock walls, I found many artifacts that told stories about the life of the people who once lived here. I took pictures and created an art quilt from them. Look closely and you will find bits of barbed wire, an old horseshoe, gears etc. I also covered a box with the pictures.

Marcia: I used the beach theme. I layered different types of fabric to create layers of sky, water and sand. The piece is embellished with "sea refuse trapped in seaweed" made of yarn, seaglass, muscle shell, crab claw. 

I also made an applique Achimenes admirabilis for my upcoming gesnariad plant meeting.

Cathey: I went with the Petrograph theme. I started with white fabric and used a Gelli plate. I made 3 layers using red, gold, orange and green paint. The edge is finished with a satin stitch.

Hope: I also used the Petroglyph theme. My piece is hanging in our DOT Gallery exhibit for Sept & Oct. I uses earth oxides to create the cave texture and stencils to create the images. It is the piece on the end of the wall in this picture.

Melanie: I went with the beach theme and created a rare blue lobster from some shibori dyed fabric I made. The lobster is on a white linen background quilted in close lines. 

Shelia Rae: For the challenge, I made a Petrograph. I used rock motif fabric for the background but used paint to darken it. I also ironed some creases into it to make the cave walls look like striated rock. I used a metal deer piece and my hand as masks and sprayed around them to create the deer and hand patterns. I then used red ink to bring out more color. The hand represents the signature" of the artist.

I also made a water piece. The round center is made from a piece of vintage patterened silk which I heavily hand quilted. The embellishments include muscle shells enhanced with blue paint, buttons, sea creatures and charms. 

This piece is made using a mask my son made - circa 1995. It includes African fabrics and motifs. The mask is surrounded by square-head nails that I painted blue. I hand-colored in the dots in the African fabric with yellow and red. 

This last piece also has an African theme. The turtle was re-purposed from an earlier piece. The embellishments include buttons, Angelina fibers, an African bracelet and hand-made beads.

DOT Gallery Show 2015

Come see our work in the Corporate Offices Art Gallery at the Department of Transportation in Newington, CT

Artist Inspired

This month our task was to create something influenced by an artist we like.

Joan: Kath Frajbis
I really like the work of printmaker Kath Frajbis.
From her artist's statement: "My work is primarily concerned with the relationships between landscape and the human being.I am most interested in mankind’s effect on the landscape and the passage of time."
I also love landscape and like this artist's use of line, shape and color. I was intrigued by her technique of embossing parts of the paper in the print process without using color. This creates an interesting, subtle texture.
In my piece I represented this texture in the "pathway" using the machine without thread. I enjoyed using some of my hand-marbled fabric.

This is my project from last month. The theme was "tattoo" and this is my take on a frog tattoo design. The background is my own hand-dyed and discharged fabric. The image was transferred using TAP.

Hope: Gabrielle Sichel
Gabrielle Sichel does some beautifu work with color. Inspired by her work, I painted some fabric and organza and used them together to create the color in the background. I then added some shapes I have lately been using and playing with in my art.

I also made a collaged piece this month. I painted the background and used some of my hand-dyed fabric, batik and other ephemera to add interest.

Cathey: Frida Kahlo

I chose Frida Kahlo. She was a brave lady and an artist I admire. She made many self portraits and is often pictured with roses in her hair. For her portrait, I used flowers from *Michaels* batik, commercial cotton, hand-dyed fabric and cheesecloth. 

A couple of weeks ago I took a marbling class and marbled my shirt! I think it turned out great!

Melanie: Dale Chihuly

I love the glass work of Dale Chihuly. Some of it looks marbled so he seemed the perfect inspiration to use some of my hand-marbled fabric. This piece is marbled on silk. The white stitched lines at the bottom represent the white strands of glass Dale uses in some of his work. 

Shelia Rae: Animation

This piece is an ode to animators. It takes specific inspiration from "Ferngully." In the theme song of that movie there is a lyric, "If I gotta eat somebody it might as well be you." The piece is embellished with frogs, lizards, flowers and other images from the movie.

Madonna

I was given a piece of linen printed with an image of the madonna and child. I removed the stitching that someone had started and hand embroidered the image using a variety of stitches and beads. To make the background more interesting and textural, I stamped it using a stamp I created from a piece of wood. 

Clint Eastwood

This piece was inspired by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino when he says "Get off my lawn!"

There is a figure representing Clint and the crosses represent trespassers. 

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Tattoo

Our inspiration word this month was "tattoo."

Shelia Rae: I had an idea to take a photo of my tattoo, print it on silk and embellish it but I could not get my printer to cooperate. I still want to do the project so will keep trying. Meanwhile, I did two other pieces:
One of a Kind. I found an old (VERY OLD) t-shirt that belonged to my brother. He was a biker and died several years ago but this t-shirt brought back so many memories of him. The cross fabric background and the angel are spiritual signs that he is gone from this earth. He was truly "one of a kind."

The second piece is Storm on the Prairie. I am from Texas where the storms are as big as everything else. The background fabric is perfect for the cloudy, greenish sky when a storm is approaching. The toy propeller seemed to fit. When I was a kid, my mother told me to pin clothespins to the curtain bottoms to keep things from blowing away. I think it was a strategy to keep us occupied and calm. There are 4 clothespins at the bottom of this piece in remembrance of my mom. It is difficult to see even in the close-up but there are thousands of French knots on this piece adding lots of texture. My fingers are still sore!

Marica: Rosie the Tattooed Lady. My son-in-law's brother owns a tattoo shop. On an outside nearby wall, is a large mural of a tattoo design. The design is a bearded, tattooed lady. I though it was perfect for this challenge so I took a picture and printed it on fabric, I used roses for the border fabric. Roses are a popular motif in these old fashioned tattoo designs. 

Melanie: Guitar Tattoo. In addition to the skin tattoos we know, there are musical tattoos. They are usually associated with the military. I could not think of how to represent one of those but still ended up with a musical tattoo of sorts. I used an image of a tattoo, thread sketched it, then filled in color with a black water soluable crayon and a gold Shiva paintstick. 

Cathey: I am intrigued by henna tattoos so created one using thread sketching for the tattoo. I need to finish it. 

Joan: When we decided on this challenge, I immediately thought about the fake four leaf clover tattoo I had for Paddy Murphy's wake at URI in my college days. I convinced all my friends that it was real. My project was going to be based on that but I could not find my old picture. Then I decided to do a turtle tattoo but did not get that done either. Maybe next month........

Pat: Well I looked at lots of tattoos on Pinterest. Very interesting, Would love to get one but am afraid of needles. Did not get to the actual creation of a piece this month. 

Things Remembered

Our challenge this month was to be inspired by something/someone from our past.

Cathey: Wish You Were Here
I am remembering my Dad who died a year ago. I found these old family photos. One was an old black & white, the other was a more recent color photo. The two did not look quite right together so I gave both of them an old time/ethereal feel by printing them on ExtravOrganza in black & white and mounting them on muslin.

Hope: Family Lore
As a kid, I grew up with a fantastic tale about my great, great, great grandfather. As the story goes, he was involved in trying to recover gold stolen from mines near Zululand, Africa. My piece is inspired by the great adventure. As far as I know, the gold is still there!

For this second piece, I created used metallic paints on black to create background fabric. The figure, birds and moon are from coppery Angelina film. The figure is inspired by my niece dancing with sparklers at a wedding. 

Lastly, I used a photo of a puffin - I love puffins - as a model and created this painting on fabric. In the photo he was not in such a pretty setting so I "enhanced" his surroundings. 

Melanie: Please Let Me Play Piano

As a kid, I wanted to learn to play piano. We did not have a piano so I had to practice at my grandparent's house but I was allowed to take lessons and still love music. This is a small piece made from gelli plate printed fabric. The collaged partial keyboard is the reference to my childhood love of the piano. 

Marcia: I Am Irish!

Since I am Irish and this challenge was issued at our March meeting, St. Patrick's day was on my mind. I created this "Irish Flag" with the flag colors, sequins, Celtic knots and other Irish memorabilia. The piece is hand quilted with echo quilting around the Celtic knots. 

In this second piece, I wanted to use some of my interesting fabric, threads, yarns etc. I ended up with an "X" motif so I guess it is called "X" Marks the Spot. Again. the piece is hand quilted, this time with x's.

Shelia Rae: Wooden Boat

This piece is a reference to a close, long time friend. When my first son was born, she made him a quilt with this pieced ship. After years of being loved, I did not want to lose it entirely so I took the ship, over-dyed it and made this new piece to give it new life. It is kind of inspired by the Neil Young song, Cinnamon Girl. Embellishments include buttons, beads, artifacts and hand stitching. She and I are still "sailing on" in friendship.

I also made 3 other new pieces since our last meeting.

I am from Texas. The Stars Are Big & Bright (deep in the heat of Texas) was made with several star motifs, re-purposed items and lots of hand quilting and embellishment. 

Thunder Heart was inspired by a 1992 western film. A star from a piece of old patchwork is in the sky. At the bottom is prairie grass, tepees and buffalo.

Australian is made with Australian motif fabric. When I first looked at the fabric I interpreted the patterns and figures with a "Western" mind. I then researched the patterns and found very different meanings in the patterns. Interesting...... I beaded the circular dotted patterns in the fabric and as usual, added lots of other embellishment and hand work. 

Pat: I did not complete a piece for tonight but plan to make one from this fabric. My family had many beach cottages at Horseneck Beach in MA. One by one over time they were destroyed by hurricanes. The last one went in Hurricane Bob. A couple of days after that storm, I went with other family members to see what was left. A corner of this piece of fabric was sticking up out of the sand. I remembered as a child, hiding under one of the old, metal spring beds. This one-time summer bed cover was laid between the old springs and the mattress (I guess to protect the mattress). It is now quite forlorn but has a great history, It was made from old feedsacks and appliqued with butterflies. The rust stains from the bedsprings are now part of its history. I plan to use it in a quilt to preserve those memories. 

I also finished this "Key" piece from a while back.