Extinct

We took a few months off but now we are back! Our prompt this time is "extinct."

Pat: Nola was a Northern White Rhinoceros. She lived at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park but died in November 2015. That brings the world population of Northern white rhino to 3. Those 3 were unable to breed and are now too old. Extinction of this species is happening now.
To create this piece I used thread painting on black fabric enhanced with some white highlights. I wanted her to look ghostly - consistent with the extinct theme. There is narrow piping in the binding.

Cathey: Nola. By coincidence, I also chose Nola! For my process, I used TAP to transfer the image and hand calligraphy for the text. The background is ice dyed fabric over-dyed with orange.

Hope - Tree Frog. These colorful frogs are so beautiful but habitat loss leads to extinction and these creatures are at risk. This piece is raw-edge applique.

On a recent trip to Sierra Leone, I acquired some fabric that was died with cola nuts. It looked like feathers to me and made a great bird!

Shelia Rae- My piece is about nuclear extinction. The glasses on the side are used by the military for special training for a nuclear event. Fire, black tulle, nuclear particle embellishments and atomic symbols work together to represent this type of extinction.

Marcia - The "Showy Lady Slipper" is a specific type of lady slipper difficult to cultivate and now almost vanished from much of its historical range due to habitat loss. I traced the outline of the lady slipper from a botanical picture and used colored pencils to give soft color.

Melanie - Ammonite. Ammonites are an extinct group of marine mollusk animals. The last species died out during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. I love the shape of these fossils and am always amazed that nature produces such complex beauty. The piece was created using Tsukineko ink. I didn't plan to use a border but this Stonehenge fabric seemed perfect to set off the design. 

Joan - My extinct piece is the rotary dial telephone. It is not quite finished but a picture will be added when it is.

Birds

Our prompt for November was bird(s)

Marcia - I made - what else?!? - a chicken! This one is a light brown Dutch. I used yarns and ribbons on burlap to make it 3-D. I also did a lot of hand stitching in the background in "chicken scratch" pattern.

Hope - I really wanted to do a toucan but just could not get it right. Then I thought of the gambel quail. It has tiny wings and can not actually fly. I made up the little saying at the bottom in their honor. The words were hand stamped with alphabet stamps. The birds are made from various fabrics.

Joan - This is a photo I took of a tree in our town. I printed it on fabric and added a crow. I love the interesting trunk of this tree and the photo perspective looking up into the sky.

Cathey - I started with white fabric and used a Gelli plate to print the background in multiple layers. I then created a stencil and used it to silk screen print the crow and tree. The piece is not yet quilted. The group noticed that the background had an interesting translucent quality when it was backlit. The bottom photo is the same piece in front of a light source.  

Melanie - Music is Life. This piece is a take on the "tree of life." It is a tree made with music symbols and for the challenge, it has a songbird. 

Pat - I decided to experiment with quilting white free-form feathers on a black background. I plan to mount these black and white pieces on canvas. 

Shelia Rae - Old Birds. The center of this piece is crewel work that I was given. It is re-made from another piece. The green flowers are silk flowers deconstructed with button centers. The background is an old piece of vintage patchwork. I used a pencil eraser as a stamp to stamp many green dots on the background vintage block and a glue gun to apply other embellishment. 

In addition to the piece for the month, I made this piece called "Folding Space." It is another re-make from an older piece. I used a lot of hot-fix crystals, some blue sequins for the geisha's eyes and some pleating to add dimension.

The third piece I made is called PTSD comes from the visions and voices when I have a PTSD related nightmare. I started with whit fabric and used a variety of surface design techniques to creat the fabric, The text is stamped with alphabet stamps. The figure at the bottom is mean, trying to turn away from the pain and chaos and put it all behind me. 

Fall

Our prompt for October was "Fall"

Pat: I used a stencil and Shiva Paintsticks on black fabric. I then used colored threads in various stitching patterns to add color and interest.

Shelia Rae: From Russia with Love. This is a piece I re-did. The center is from an old Russian-origin textile.

Grandmother's Colors

My grandmother loved pinks & oranges. She called them sunset colors. This is part of an old quilt that I spray-painted then stenciled with stars & horses for Texas. The center is a "found" CD and the rays are created by embroidery and beading pulled tightly to create tucks. 

Old Made New

This is an older piece I was not happy with so I re-made it with lots of hand-work and embellishment. 

Cathey: Book of  Leaves

I created the pages of this book from canvas with layers of gelli plate printing. I also laminated on rice paper "ghost" gelli prints. The leaf prints are dyed or painted, the letters are from the scrapbooking section of the art store and the binding is beaded. 

Hope: Maple in Fall

I sunprinted a branch of leaves then enhanced them with colored pencils and painted the background. There is a lot of detail in the branch and seeds along with the leaves.

Ferns and Rocks. This is a sunprinted piece. I loved the one Joan made the other month and really wanted to try making one. I love how it turned out. 

Joan: Autumn in Pomfret
This is a photo I took in Pomfret. I printed the photo on fabric and enhanced it with stitch and added a bit of sari silk for the red grasses.

Rocks & Footprints on the Beach, Although not a fall scene, this is a photo I took on vacation in the Outer Banks. I also collected many small, flat rocks and added a pile of them to this piece using glue.

Superior Rocks. This is a photo on fabric from one I took of rocks in Lake Superior. This is the actual color of the rocks!

Melanie: Everything has its Season. I laminated a paper print to tulle then removed the paper from the back. I raw-edge appliqued it to some hand-dyed fabric and added leaves of various fabrics.

Earth and Sky. This is an abstract piece from 3 gelli prints and hand-dyed fabric.

Marcia: Falling in Fall. This piece is made from various ribbons. I think they look like rain or trees in a forest. I then appliqued leaf shapes over them. 

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