No Art Today,

So, yesterday I arrived at my new studio - still fabulous- but the home of a little nightmare for me.  When we got there and headed downstairs, I.V., the most amazing friend/helper/assistant ever, found water, lots of water, all over the floor.  As we began toweling up the floors, the leak came from a newly installed water pipe for our washout sink, I found the paper bag that was holding about 75 of my daily art pieces; each one sopping wet and pressed against each other.  

Well after a few moments of feeling very, very sorry for myself and a few tears, the two of us toweled them off and laid them out to dry and assess the damage.  I'm happy to say that for the most part, even though they were pressed up next to each other for what may have been hours, most of the dyes held.  However every piece that had a lot of white in it is no longer white; 17 of them are quite damaged.

What's really weird is how I felt so violated; violated by a little leak and a lot of water.  Worse yet, I just didn't want to make a piece last night nor this morning.  I'm still feeling more than a little ambivalent. So even though I felt really terrible about not making them while traveling earlier this month, I've decided that for the next few days at least, I'm going to concentrate on the studio and getting my business and personal life back in order so that I can then re-concentrate on this fabulous thing I'm trying to do - make art every day.  But for now the art I'm making is the creation of what I believe will be the culmination of my life's work - the best damned learning space possible.

I'll show you some photos tomorrow,

Till then,

Heather

Art Every Day, Monday, April 22, 2013

Good Morning,

I feel like it's time to start that countdown to the opening of my new gallery, so here we go;10 days till we open!

Here is today's new piece and it's a weird one.  I wanted to play with neutrals and with stamped fabric.  So, I grabbed the background fabric which had a bit of a lot of neutrals from white to tan to light and dark grey.  I set it on top of black batting and quilted the top grey, middle grey and bottom tan very heavily.  I didn't stitch in the white or the top tan at all so they pop forward a bit.  

Then I topped the stitched background with the stamped fabric pieces and quilted them lightly along the edges and in the black lines between the stamped "blocks". I've tried it in every direction and this seems to be the best, though I don't think it's really quite balanced.  I think the shapes and lines are interesting and I really like the addition of the round swirly bits of trim.

Anyway, it's done and now I'm off to finish painting furniture at the gallery and get it cleaned up so that I can start putting things away and move in the rest of our stuff!  Onward, with great effort and excitement!

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Sunday, April 21

Good Evening,

I actually made this earlier today but got so busy with other things that I just realized that I hadn't put it up on the blog yet.  I just got back from hearing Renee Marie, a chanteuse, sing at Dazzle.  I really enjoyed her performance and she reminded me about what it is to follow your own voice, sing your own songs, make your own stories and dance your own dance.  I'm so happy that my new digs are just around the corner from Dazzle.  It's one of my favorite places and I love hearing live music as often as possible.

Here is today's installation.  I made it with the intent of confusing the viewer with false depth, pushing the eye forward and backward awkwardly with color and quilting density. As usual everything is layered and here is the physical order of things; farthest behind is the orange batting, topped with the blue on the right hand side, topped with the long, vertical strip of orange then the blue on the left hand side.  Then the two long yellow orange strips that intersect on the lower left hand side came next. Next I sat down the large orange square on the upper left and the small orange square on the lower right.  I topped the large orange square with the yellow orange strip and topped it with the blue strip.

Because of the warm (orange)/cool (blue) opposition, all of the blue should be trying to recede and all of the orange should be trying to come forward.  But, I quilted it with different things in mind.  I added the circles in a lighter blue thread to the blue on the right hand side in an attempt to pull it forward in front of the other blue sections.  The heavy quilting should be pushing it back but the contrast in thread color, even though it is slight, is making that area catch the viewers eye which in turn pulls it forward. I did the same thing with both of the orange squares, quilting them with slightly darker threads so that the quilting in them would catch the eye also and the blue on the left hand side is quilted really heavily with a tiny stipple but you don't even see it because the thread matches so well,

My point here is; QUILTING MATTERS.  In fact, in most cases it will trump color.  Sometimes I feel like a mad scientist out there trying to prove my hypothesis.  What fun!

Till tomorrow,

Heather

P.S.

Today I bought a refrigerator, washer & dryer and vintage windows all for my new studio - things are progressing........

Art Every Day, Saturday, April 20, 2013,

Good Morning,

Here is today's new piece.  I seem to be drawn to circles at the moment, I think it is because of the sense of fullness, completeness and inclusion that they represent.  I'm so excited about this new direction I'm moving my business in and all of the fabulous women that are jumping in to be a part of it.  Yesterday at the new studio I had a couple of private students, two friends were working on getting together the hanging system, another friend dropped in with her husband who is putting in new electric and plumbing for our dye studio and the whole space was alive with all of their positive energy.  It was amazing.

Well, on to the piece.  I love, love, love what the quilting can do to color and to a piece.  This began with a piece of very iridescent pineapple silk dyed in a deep orange.  I quilted the center portion of it in very close vertical lines and the outside edges in very close horizontal lines all in the hope of pushing it way back.  Then the arc, which was left over from cutting a circle many months back, was simply top stitched along the edges so that it would stay on top of the orange background.  The sheer, red violet strip along the top was just edge stitched too and the circle was stitched down with the large swirl.  Even though the circle is stitched heavier than the arc, it remains the forward most because it is so light in comparison to everything else.

Well off to play with my private students again, get a little painting done in the studio and watch my helping friends work their magic in the new space.  I can't wait to see what Miss I.V. is cooking up with the decor in the bathroom!

Till tomorrow,
Heather

 

Art Every Day, Friday, April 19, 2013

Good Morning,

I had so much fun with yesterday's twisted fabric spirals that I just had to do another one today.  I also had a small group of toned, blue violet fabrics that i had been dying to use.  So, I layered up a background and did some simple quilting then I cut up the swirl fabric making sure to get some strips that had ruffles on them and stitched up the large swirl.  The ruffled fabric strips made the swirl even more textural than the plain strips and I love the way it looks in the tail.

I like this piece.  Its simple and has interesting depth and it really shows off the fabrics.

Now, off to work, playing with a private student today and working on the sample for one of my new classes, Hippie Couture.

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, April 18, 2013

Good Morning,

I am so excited to getting back to making art every day.  The week I took off while traveling and moving did not feel very good!

I've also re-committed myself to get the work done first thing in the morning - it really makes a difference in how I feel all day long.

Here is today's new piece.  It began with a background of yellow green linen which I quilted heavily with an all over pattern of triangles.  Next, I ripped a bunch of 1" wide strips from three different blue greens (I really like the yellow green/blue green color combo!).  I made the swirls by twisting a strip of fabric and rolling up the first inch or so into a tight swirl then stitching it in place then I continued twisting the fabric strip and winding it around the original small swirl, stitching it in place as I went. I love, love, love how textural the swirls end up and how great the ends look spread out.  I finished the piece off with a border of twisted fabrics.  The piece has such wonderful physical and visual depth and though it's quite simple and straight forward it is enjoyable to look at.

Now I'm off to finish painting my new studio/gallery,

Till tomorrow,

Heather 

 

Art Every Day, Tuesday, April 17, 2013

Good Morning,

I'm back! What a trip, lots of great students and many, many miles on the road. Got home late Sunday night and spent Monday and Tuesday packing up the studio in Golden and moving it to my new place in downtown Denver.  Sat down to make this piece this morning and realized that not only did I not have a single pair of scissors in the house (packed them all for my trip and they are now at the new studio), but remembered that my machine is acting up too.

So, for what it's worth, here's my return to every day art.  It began with a lovely toned red orange linen which I quilted with a curvy, double crosshatch.  then I grabbed some hand dyed ribbon and threw it on top and loved the way it looked all crinkled and drapey so I used the fabric squares with iron on adhesive on the back to hold down the ribbon then stitched the squares down with a square swirl.  

I like the simplicity and the three dimensionality as well as the movement and color.  It was nice to get back in front of the machine!

Now I'm off to paint the new studio!

Till tomorrow,

Heather 

 

Art Every Day,  Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Good Evening,

No, today I do not have a new piece! I'm in Cincinnati and had to leave early because of an incoming storm and I left all of my personal art supplies at home.  But, here is a really bad picture of a piece that I just finished.  It's for the inspiration board that I did for the Denver Art Museum.  I'm not sure what happened to the picture.  It was good until I changed it's size.

Anyhoo, I'll try to come up with something for tomorrow.....

Till then,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Good Evening,

Well, we made it Cincinnati, staying in skivvy hotel just outside the city.  Our nice hotel did not have a room for tonight, didn't think about that when we left early.

Anyway, here is today's piece - made yesterday.  It's just a whole mess of bright color and fabulous textures.  I really love the fabric in the background, it's one of our dyed embroidered cottons.  I added even more texture to the piece with the swirly quilting around the flower and the straight line quilting in the upper yellow section.  I love how the circular bone beads repeat the circular shape in the background fabric and this delicious color way.

Till tomorrow,

Heather

P.S.

Here's another sneak peak at my latest project.

 

Art Every Day, Monday, April 8, 2013

Good Evening, 

It's mighty late and I'm sitting in a hotel room in Hayes Kansas.  We were planning on leaving tomorrow morning, but due to the storm, we decided it was best to leave early and try to out run it through Kansas.  Hopefully we won't see too much of the rain tomorrow, tonight's wind was enough.  My arms hurt from trying to keep my little car on the road.

Here is today's new piece.  I like it, especially the visual trick it is playing along the left hand side.  Placing the strip of yellow green that is the same as the background fabric on top of the blue green batting plays tricks with your eye making it hard to tell which fabric is on what layer.  The three squares on the right hand side nicely balances the left hand side and they too are made of dye painted batting.  The embellishments on them are little felt balls with bits of rayon ribbon running through them.  I quilted the squares with a top stitch outline then added a simple triple petal in the bottom corner of each, making the sizes larger for each larger square.  I added some small circles along the long sides of the yellow green strip on the batting and stippled the hell out of the background.

All in all, I think it's nicely balanced, an inviting color way, and what fun to use dye painted batting as the focal and counter points!

Till tomorrow,

Heather

P.S.  Here's a little sneak peak at a piece I just finished.  This is a portion of it before it was colored.

 

Art Every Day, Sunday, April 7, 2013

Good Evening,

Here is today's new piece.  I'm sort of ambivalent about it.  Many years ago I tried doing a type of mosaics using wool and I've always loved the look but not the amount of work required, so here, I tried to achieve a mosaic like look but without doing an actual mosaic with all the little spaces in between the colored bits.  

I'm pleased with the swirl but not very happy with the background or with the batting choice.  One of my color students taught me something this weekend about thread color.  She used a medium valued tone of one color to stitch down areas that were a variety of colors as well as black and white.  I was surprised at how well the toned thread meshed with her quilt.  So, that's what i did with the mosaic like swirl, I quilted it with a mid valued tone of red orange and I like how it looks.  However, I do not like the background quilting.  My machine has been acting up and the thread breaks constantly when I stitch a straight line longer than an inch or so, so I chose a stitch design that wouldn't break the thread constantly and viola.... too much activity in the negative space.  Blue green is one of the colors that I don't have a lot of threadwise, so the thread was a little darker and was going to show up no matter what, but I think a more linear, simpler design would have been better.  As for the red violet batting - well, that's all I had cut and was in too much of a hurry to go cut more.  Wish it was orange.

Tomorrow's another day,

Till then,

Heather  

 

Art Every Day, Saturday, April 6, 2013

Good Afternoon,

For all it's worth, here is today's new piece. Though I do believe that practicing creativity every day is a good idea, I think that doing it when you're in a negative space will always show.   

I really didn't have the desire to make a piece this afternoon (I've got to get back into making these babies in the early morning before the world gets in the way!) so I just grabbed a group of hand painted fabrics and threw the whole thing together then spent the next 30 minutes fighting with metallic thread - I stand by my opinion that none of it works well when free motioning.  So I just sort of gave up and quilted the foregrounds of each of the black pieces very minimally.  I switched to a cotton thread, breathed a sigh of relief and stitched the hell out of the negative space and called it a day.

Wish I could offer you more, but that's all I've got.

Till tomorrow,

Heather

Art Every Day, Friday, April 5, 2013

Good Afternoon,

Isn't it amazing what a little perspective can do? In our lives, in our art, perspective can help us differentiate between the things that are most important and those things that are supercilious as well as show us the support system we have built.  No matter how well we have built the rest of our art/life, without a support system it can all fall apart. 

With this piece I really wanted to work on depth perception while breaking all of the rules, so I began with a bright yellow dye painted batting as my base.  I topped it with a lovely warm, mottled red orange/orange which I in turn topped with a cool green/blue green.  On top of that I added the bold, highly contrasting stamped square in a square, squares and on top of those I added a dyed, crocheted flower and on top of those I placed a thick bone bead. So, including the backing fabric, there are areas of this piece that have seven layers.   

My hope was to see how/if the colors could behave as expected when layered in the opposite direction; warm up to cool rather than cool up to warm and whether or not the layered background could support the bold, weighty foreground of the black/white squares and dimensional embellishments.  I think the piece is a big ol' success and I love it's bold geometry and color. 

I decided to quilt it all in yellow. I quilted the red orange/orange portion of the background in a swirly, flowery design.  Whereas the green portion has straight line triangles and the yellow batting has wavy lines circling the perimeter.  I think the boldness of the quilting in the red orange/orange helps it hold up the foreground better than it would have if I had quilted it with the same design in a matching thread color.  The three color background needed it's own, subtle strength to do the job of holding up and presenting the bold combo of the on point black and white squares and all that they contain. 

.....and, I think it's really pretty too.

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Thursday, April 4, 2013

Good Afternoon,

Here is today's new piece.  I wanted to play with dimension and the juxtaposition of tight with messy.  I began with a piece of orange dyed vintage layered on top of yellow dye painted batting.  I tucked some red violet under the opening in the vintage cut work then added a rectangle of the same fabric on the lower left.  Next came a rectangle of yellow dyed fabric with dimensional embroidered flowers (one of my favorite styles of our hand dyes).  It was placed on top of some dyed silk chiffon and cheese cloth.

I stitched everything down with either some top stitching or tiny stippling then I clumped up a bunch of the threads that get pulled off of our fabrics during the dye process, these were mostly bright yellow and deep red violet with a little dull orange mixed in, then I stitched those down.  Finally, I stitched around the yellow batting with a straight stitch.

I hung it on the wall to take a photo and was struck by how off balance it was.  I do all of this daily work with it flat on the cutting table then flat on the machine, rarely taking the time to look at them on the design wall so I should not have been so surprised that the balance was so off.  I had thought that by stitching around the large embroidered leaf in the upper center of the orange vintage fabric in the contrasting red violet color of thread would have been enough to take care of the heavy bottom of the quilt, but the bottom turned out to be much heavier than planned. 

So, I grabbed some more of the red violet fabric, the dyed fabric threads and some cheese cloth and braided them all together and threw them along the top of the piece and viola! Balance.  Not perfect, but definitely livable.

Till tomorrow,

Heather 

Art Every Day, Wednesday, April 3, 2013,

Good Evening,

I'm feeling better, not totally back, but better.  Thanks to those of you who wrote back with get well wishes.

Here is today's new piece, it took just 40 minutes to do and it makes me very happy.  I got to use one of my stamped designs, a deep joyous yellow and one of my most favorite to do quilting designs.  I love it when things look the way I think they should. 

Here we have this very linear flower with long, thin gently curving lines which I quilted in white in the white spaces.  Then we have the short tight curve of the "flourishes" stitched in the yellow background in a slightly duller version of the color so that it shows up just a bit more than I usually have stitches show in the background.  Though they are both line, the line type is very different so, they play off of each other very well.  The yellow, though very bold, can't hold up to the high, high contrast of the equal amounts of black and white in the flower so the flower is able to come forward and take center stage.  The strip of black and white along the bottom adds just a bit more interest there and helps to balance out that big ol' flower.

The charcoal gray batting that surrounds it all acts as negative space to the yellow which is really occupying the mid plane.  Leaving almost an inch of the batting all around the yellow is just enough to get it to act as a strong enough frame to hold up the yellow as the yellow is holding up the flower.  Each and every thing that is present here is doing an important job - no shirkers!

Till tomorrow,
Heather

 

Art Every Day, Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Good Evening,

Today's piece is quick and simple.  I have a nasty stomach flu and I apologize to anyone and everyone that  I have come in contact with over the past several days. I spent most of last night praying to the porcelain gods and all of today aching and wishing for a quick death.  So, this piece is quite simple.  Layers of fabrics, simple quilting and for some reason the word "yes".  

I'm off to bed,

Till tomorrow, and lets hope it's a better one,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, April 1st, 2013

Good Evening,

Here is today's piece.  After helping my daughter move all day, working all weekend, dealing with a hubby with a nasty flu, I think the bug has bit me too - yuk, my tummy is all rumbly and my whole body hurts.  But, I got this baby done.

I started with a stamped, Thistle leaf design, layered it with black and put them both on white then on black batting.  I stitched around the Thistle rectangle and black rectangle with red then sectioned out the white background with red too.  Then I chose simple yet contrasting designs to stitch in each section.  I really like the simplicity of the color way mixed with the complexity of all of the different styles of line. The whisper of red is just enough to break up the black/white contrast.  It was fun, but now I think I'll go have a lie down.

Till tomorrow,
Heather

P.S. - Hey Anne B, each piece is 9" x 11".  They all have at least three layers, but usually more; the bottom layer is backing fabric next is a layer of either black or dye painted batting then a base surface is added and anything that is a design element goes on top of that.  Mostly I'm making them to learn commitment and the importance of practicing art making.  I'm also finding that they make for good teaching conversation here on the blog and in loads of other situations.  My hope is to show them in various different venues once I've completed all 365 of them (just another 274 to go) and to write a book about the whole experience.