Debuting Some of the New Collaborative Work

 Karen Rips , my friend & fellow fiber artist, and I have been collaborating on work we're entitling,  A View Within for the last few year. The body imaging we've chosen to represent are shown in representational and abstracted formats.

I  free motion embroidery the original body images using combinations of several threads, stitched through 1 needle, on hand-dyed silk, then heavily stitch the background with monofilament thread.

Karen abstracts the images, using many processes, including discharge, over painting, dyeing, shibori,  and/or printing along with distressing & shrinking the fabrics.  She heavily machine and hand stitches, using various kinds of threads.

Recently, we've been writing proposals for venues throughout the country.

We thought it might be interesting to also share with you some of our work, in case you haven't seen our blog, A View Within. So we'll be sharing with you every once in awhile our work.

This is part of our series, In Utero. It features the above MRI and sonograms watching the development of 2 children. Here are some more pieces of that series:

A New Apprentice

I just couldn't pass sharing this. A fellow fiber artist, Betty Amador, sent this to me, knowing I'm a cat lady.

Great News

In the last few months Karen Rips and I have been seeking venues to show our collaborative venture, A View Within. 

We have received a show in at the Vision Gallery, Chandler, Arizona. And to my surprise, they were interested in my floral work as well. 

This was taken from their exhibition website page. We're very excited to have our work seen as a whole collection and thrilled to be featured in this wonderful venue. We'll have more information soon.

New Work Debut

This piece entitled, 1 of 3 Female A, is part of a new series exploring the use of line to tell a story. This piece has a companion piece, 1 of 3 Female B, speaking to our nations' weight problems, where 1/3 of the population are obese. You can see this piece at the upcoming NorCal SAQA Regional exhibit at the Roseville Blue Line Gallery. 

This piece is overdyed decorator fabric stitched with polyester threads and measures 27" x 60".

Here's the show postcard:

The show opens June 7th through July 13th. The reception is Saturday, June 15th, 

reception 6-7 (members only) 7-9 (for public)

More Wonderful Textiles

One of my favorite works in the Milestones: Textiles of Transition is by Mary Mazziotti. Called,  Death Gets Married, it depicts death as a man and various wonderful scenes where he searches for a bride, finds, marries, loses her, then begins looking again. Here's two of the images from the series:

Another series I liked was by artist Linda Friedman Schmidt, of hooked discarded clothing. They are called, The Scream Within, Push and Prisoner of Childhood.

And finally,  another moving piece, Accretion, by Beverly Rayner was a full room installation. A cloak made of cards, mementos, photos and newspaper clippings following a family. Oddily enough, Beverly found all of these items chronicling lives in scrapbooks she purchased at a garage sale:

I hope you get a chance to visit the show at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles before it closes, July 21. And check out their future shows, which are to be exciting, as well. (I can't wait to see Fiberart International 2013 in the fall and Quilt National with my friend & collaborator in our ongoing project, A View Within,  Karen Rips, in the spring!)

More About Milestones: Textiles of Transition

Sunday I attended the Opening reception of Milestones: Textiles of Transition, which runs through July 21st. It was grueling drive (4 hours each way from my home in Tahoe) but it was well worth it.

Above you see the entrance with, Forever Yours, a wonderful piece by Susan Else.

This shows my piece on the left and some wedding ring quilts from the museum's collection as well as a private collection.

Arriving a little early, I was able to photograph a few works before our artist walk & talk began. In the foreground, you see Collateral Damage, by artist Victoria May. On the wall you see The Last Year, by Deidre Scherer, that portrays the final year of an elderly woman. Below is one of the pieces, April 1968.

And here's a photo of me in front of my piece, taken by my friend Linda.

You can read some of the press coverage here:

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/arts/2013-06-01/museum-gotta-see-um/1769420.html

http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textile-news/usa/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=119547

More photos to follow.