Lots Wife

Lots Wife comes home after touring the country for four years. I was invited by Ruth Harris to participate in a traveling exhibit that she named Women of Biblical Proportions. I was instructed to choose a woman in the Bible and construct a quilt that was exactly 22" square. I chose Lots Wife because that was one story in the Bible that had made a lasting impression on me as a child. I think there were 50 quilts in the exhibit that toured the US from 2003 thru 2007. It's nice to have it home but I decided to gift it to a good friend, Cherri Willis, that is a manager at a local religious radio station, KMSI 88.1FM. Cherri will hang it in her office so it is going to a good home.

Another Professional Photo

Here is another professional photo by Photo Factory, this is "In Kandinsky Time". It's a felted piece that has been sewn to a painted canvas. The canvas is deep with wrap around edges so it doesn't need framing.

Professional Photos

This is the professional photo that I had taken by Photo Factory of "Another Place In Time". They do excellent work and are very reasonably priced. This one is framed with a black wooden frame as pictured.

I really enjoyed making this felted piece.

Party Animals - Gone Fishing

Here is a second oil painting that is almost finished. I've named this one Party Animals - Gone Fishing. Once again, this is a still life. The ceramic fish and the funky ceramic vase were purchased at the City Arts Center pottery sale. They teach pottery lessons and have this sale once a year as a fund raiser. Some of the pottery is made by students and some by the teachers (I believe), anyway they had some great pottery pieces at rock bottom prices.

Party Animals

I'm a fiber artist by heart but I also love to paint so I've taken up oil painting once again. Carla Houston, a good friend of mine, has been coming over to paint with me and also offers her expertise. She has been a big help and it's so much more fun to have a painting buddy. We have been setting up still life's like the one pictured here. The funny little wooden carved animals in the painting are called Party Animals that I bought at a World Neighbors Festival. The set contains 6 animals that are setting on chairs around a table in the shape of Africa. We only used three of the Party Animals in this still life setting and added a ball of silk yarn and merino roving.....we had to throw in fiber! I have four paintings started so I'll upload the others when they are finished. The one pictured is almost finished.

More on Taos

Now I'm not a weaver or a spinner and I'm not familiar with woolly animals but I think these cute little creatures are Lama's, right? I took this photo at the Taos Wool Festival along with another of two Alpaca's but it was too dark to upload. I wish I had taken photos of the cute angora bunny rabbits that were in cages at several different tents but I was too busy shopping.

Shirley and I stopped along the highway between Taos and Santa Fe at a little fruit stand and bought some items to bring home. I took a photo of the adobe house that was next to the fruit stand. We don't see things like this in Oklahoma, it was so charming but it was right next to a busy highway. Nice to look at but I wouldn't want to live there.

Taos Wool Festival

I actually got to take a four day vacation and attend the Taos Wool Festival the first weekend in October. This is an annual outdoor event in Kit Carson park in Taos, NM. My friend Shirley and I left around 6:30am on a Friday morning and arrived in Santa Fe around 2:30pm where we had a bite to eat, visited the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and 3 or 4 galleries in the plaza area before heading up to Taos. It's a beautiful drive through the mountains between Santa Fe and Taos. Saturday was a gorgeous day and we spent all morning walking through the tents at the Wool Festival fondling all kinds of wool products and spending money! I bought a beautiful felted purse, a wool batt, a couple of bumps, various wool rovings, curls and Lincoln Locks to name a few items. Shirley and I had a great time and both came home very inspired by all the art we had seen in the numerous galleries. We are looking forward to a return trip next year only we need a whole week! I'll post some pictures from the trip tomorrow.

More Experimenting

This is a photo my current Embellisher experiment. The solid red fabric in the background is pre-felted fabric from FiberFusion. The oriental fabric on the left was placed face down on the red felting fabric and then needled punched with the Embellisher. This created all the texture that you see on the piece in the fore ground. The felting needles pushed the front side of the fabric into the pre-felt fabric and created loops of threads. Since I was felting from the back side of the cotton fabric and the single thin layer of pre-felt fabric was on the front side you can slightly see the pattern of the fabric through the pre-felt. I love all the texture it created and can't wait to use this technique in my next creation!

End of Temporal Works

My exhibit at the Metcalfe Museum in Durham, Oklahoma ended August 31th. "Time Worn" (9" x 14") is the only piece that sold. It was purchased by Lynn Deal, the art director, and even though it is one of my favorite pieces I know it has a good home now.

The FAD Group is planning to have a group exhibit in the fall of 2009 at the Metcalfe Museum. That should give the group enough time to have new pieces to exhibit!

Another Place In Time

"Another Place In Time" is my latest felted piece that has been sewn to a painted canvas and framed. The frame isn't pictured but it's a plain contempory black frame. I painted black stitch marks on the canvas to correspond with the stitching on the felted piece. It has been wet felted, needle felted, and machine needled felted then hand embroidered and beaded. It's made from a merino wool batt, merino felting fabric, and wool roving.

I really like this piece. I don't make decorative items so most of my wall hangings don't match my decor but I actually think this will look nice in my living area (if we ever get finished with the remodel!).

I'm sorry, I still haven't figured out how to arrange photos in Blogger. Maybe one of these days I will learn how.