Blog Hop

It has been a long summer with lots of settling in, house repairs, and getting to know new people and a whole new area. My blog has suffered. I am celebrating the approach of fall with a renewed resolution to blog more consistently and I began by accepting an invitation to a Blog Hop from a new friend and fellow member of the Abstract Artists Group of New England, Ethel Hills. This hop requires that I answer four questions today and then nominate three more artists who will continue the process next Saturday by answering the questions on their blogs and nominating another three artists. And so the questions. . . .

1. What am I working on/writing?

Currently I am spending much of my time on two series. I have always been intrigued by texture in art and when I began to dye my own fabrics I increasingly chose techniques that produce texture by manipulating the color values of the dyes or by printing on the dyed fabric. And then I added a tactile element—texture produced by a combination of scrunching and hand stitching, and I have been spending some time seeing where this technique leads me.

I am also experimenting with raw-edge applique sewn to the background with visible stitches using a heavy thread like perle cotton.  Although the edges may fray, I like the way the fabric lies flat against the background without the stiffness caused by a turned-under edge or a layer of fusing.

2. How does my work/writing differ from others in this genre?

As I was writing the answer to the first question I realized that my two series were breaking with quilting tradition that emphasizes avoiding wrinkles and frayed edges when joining fabric. I am actively embracing both at the moment because I want to let the fabric be fabric and see what happens. I find myself drawn to the wabi-sabi point of view—one that delights in the beauty of the imperfect, the simple, the natural, the ordinary.  I am definitely not alone in this preference but it does seem to set me apart from a great number of textile artists.  And my work probably differs from others, no matter what technique or series I am pursuing, because I am combining my own hand-dyed and/or printed fabric with my unique and ever-changing vision of the world.

3. Why do I do what I do?

I grew up wandering the back hills of Kentucky and the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River in Iowa, spent a good chunk of my adulthood in the northcentral mountains of Pennsylvania and now find myself in a city in New England with a five-acre pond outside my studio window and the ocean ten minutes away. And the colors, textures, shapes, and movement of the trees, water, animals, and skies that I have known in all these areas influence my work and its recurring themes of interconnectedness and change.

A number of years ago I came across a quotation from Harold Thurman Whitman:  ”Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go and do that because the world needs people who have come alive.” When I make art, I come alive.

4. How does my writing/working process work?

I sometimes begin by putting an intriguing piece of fabric on a corner of my design wall and leaving it there for a week or a month or more until I come up with a vision of what to do with it.  At that point I may do a rough sketch or I may begin to build a composition with bits of trial fabric that will ultimately be replaced with more carefully cut shapes.

But I also sometimes begin with a sketch that may be totally abstract but more often is inspired by a natural shape or pattern, a plant or an animal, or by a word (not a surprise, given my English literature background) that I keep in my head as I work. The sketch becomes a guide rather than a template as I make minor and major adjustments as the piece takes shape.

Sometimes I will dye fabric for a specific project but more often I will choose already dyed fabrics, auditioning various hues and shades, always aware that the thread I use will add more color, texture, and even line.

Thank you, Ethel, for inviting me to participate in this project and for giving my an excuse to think about what I am doing and why I am doing it and for giving me a way to learn more about some very talented artists. You may read her post here.

Ethel Hills

I’m an abstract landscape painter living and working in Hampton, NH. My studio is in an old factory building a couple of miles from the ocean. I came to art late in life, learning to draw so that I could make the simple line drawings necessary for traditional rug hooking. In that moment when I decided to learn how to draw, my life shifted. I fell in love with drawing and then painting and haven’t looked back since.

And now let me introduce you to two people worth knowing. I will announce the third artist later.

Frauke Schramm

Frauke Schramm has been my friend for a number of years and I am still amazed at what she can create with needle and thread. Her work has been in exhibits all over Europe.

I’m Frauke Schramm (also known as quilthexle). I live close to Stuttgart, Germany. By day, I work as a teamleader (customer services) in a book-distributing company. By night, I’m a textile artist (and sometimes, I try to get some sleep !). 

When I was a kid, I used to collect the scraps of my mother's sewing projects (she sewed most of our clothes herself). I did not know why I did this - but I loved cuddling them. During my studies I was an avid knitter, but that came to an end while I wrote my Masters Thesis. After I finished my education (I'm a trained bookseller and I hold an M.A. in Political and Educational Sciences), I joined  corporate world. And I realized - I need something to balance all this brainwork. So, I took a patchwork class - a LoneStar class, to be precise ;-)) That quilt ended in the bin, but my husband rescued it (it's still in my house). Anyway, I was hooked. For quite a while, I was happy just to play with fabrics and learning traditional techniques. Artsy elements slowly turned up in my quilts. Around 2009 art quilting took over, at least mostly. I enjoy working with my own hand-dyed fabrics as well as with purchased fabric; recently, I stepped away from the "cotton only" rule, and the variety of all the material now available to me really excites me.

My central theme right now are opposites / contrasts - I love exploring them, and I have only scratched the surface so far !

              Frauke Schramm's blog:  http://www.quilthexle.blogspot.com/

Janis Doucette

Janis Doucette is a friend and fellow member of We Are Six, a group of art quilters living near Boston. She loves to play with surface design and I love to see what she comes up with. She currently has a piece in the Whistler Gallery in Lowell, MA.

I’m lucky – at this point in my life, I get to work on whatever my heart desires! Most often, that means I'm working on some form of textile art. Often, I’m printmaking or taking photographs, which are frequently incorporated into fabric, literally or figuratively.  I may also add paint to, or dye my own fabric. I may add beads or various odd tidbits to a piece. Today, we have an alluring array of commercial fabrics available and I also use them without restraint.

Every day is an ongoing experiment in life where I continue to observe, learn and grow.

                      Janis Doucette's blog:   http://turtlemoonimpressions.wordpress.com/

Look for their posts next Saturday!