Friday, February 05, 2010

Textile Art Juried Into Museum Exhibition

This is the finished piece that I submitted to the museum, Life Force. It measures 50" x 40". It was chosen as one of the pieces to be exhibited at the Morris Graves Museum for the Spring Show of the Redwood Arts Association. It is not the same piece as Red and Yellow, but one that I had completed earlier. My time ran out, and I was not able to finish the piece I had originally intended to enter. The upside is that I now have all the time I need to really do justice to my new work.

This is a closeup of the detail of the painting and the stitching. I overpainted all of the gutta with Lumiere paint and then inked around the edges.


This is the overlay. The most difficult part was hand basting this stitched grid to the silk. Even with the silk taped down to the table and using rulers, it was still very challenging. After I dissolved the Solvy, most of my lines were somewhat skewed. You can see the color gradation in the thread in this photo. The wavy red lines on the Solvy indicate where the thread color shifts from light to dark. There were seven different gradations in the thread color.




Here is the silk that I began with which I painted with Tinfix silk paint. I painted this piece outdoors at the Mendocino Art Center, in Mendocino, CA, in a workshop with Suzanne Punch. I had to stretch the silk between two saw horses outside. As the wind came roaring up the hill from the ocean, my silk began flapping in the breeze. My gutta was whisked from my brush onto the fabric capturing the movement and energy of that powerful force. Suzanne Punch is an incredible artist with a unique teaching style. I love her large abstract painted silk pieces, and I credit her with helping me to develop an appreciation for abstract art.