Complex Cloth Workshop

Earlier this month I was privlaged to attend the Complex Cloth workshop in San Antonio hosted by Jane Dunneworld at her studio. I was really a last minute decision as I came home from the cruise with a couple of dollars in my pocket and my husband was scheduled for a business trip the same week. By the time I made all the arrangements I had less than a week to get everything together. Luckily, I had most of the supplies already, so no problem there.

I anticipated the first part of the week would be devoted to dye, color theory, etc. Since I have my Certificate of Excellence in Dyeing, I figured I would sail through these days and the last days would be the most exciting.

Just goes to show you how anticipation can be so wrong. Of course, Jane did start with dyeing, but we quickly moved on from there. She emphasized making our own tools to create designs on the cloth. We were soon carving soap erasers. Here are some of my shapesThen the real fun began! Using discharge techniques, overdyeing, silkscreens, and other techniques we decorated our samples. For me, this was the part where food and other necessities of life became secondary. Where I look at the clock, and then glance at it a few minutes later only to find that several hours have gone by! Here are some of the samples that I came up with in the class:

This is a close up of one corner of a sample. It has been dyed twice, bleached out with a stamp, stamped with blue paint and hand painted some of the trails made by the stamp.

Some more of my samples. These are not quite done - but this is the last day so I will have to finish them at home.

I should have known what a wonderful, moving experience this week was to be as I walked into Jane's studio:

Beautiful artcloth everywhere!!!! Who couldn't be inspired ? True, they were getting ready for a show / studio walk, but it was quite magical to see this as my first exposure to what lay ahead. Most of this work was produced by other area (lucky) artists who have worked with Jane over the years. And the studio space was wonderful. There were 9 of us in the class and we each got our own table with several tables left over for other needs. There were even 2 tables for lunch!

It really was quite a treat to have all that space!!! She even had a library corner with chairs for the lecture / critique time. The over stuffed chairs were upholstered with hand decorated velveteen!

All in all it was a wonderful week. Jane is an excellent teacher, very encouraging but also is able to lead you to think for yourself. The most suprising thing that came out of the week was the level of mindful thinking that came out of it. Everyone was there for a purpose, mostly because they were searching for a piece of their artistic self (like me) and was very supportive of the others.

Mermaid Cruise

Went on a cruise January 12-19 with a group of women brought together by Rebecca Floeter a.k.a. "The Mermaid Queen" on Ebay. She has been selling clothes to what she calls 'mermaids' for years. In her words : "I am dedicated to the Mermaid Archetype who holds the pathos and mythos of the Goddess Aphrodite and the Magdalene Archetype. The Mermaid holds the power of transformation for love, death, life and inspiration. I believe we dress who we are from the inside out...so please join me in celebrating your mermaid diva-ness!". If you are in the plus sized category and enjoy funky and beautiful clothing look her up (Ebay name: beccaben).

Anyway, there were 74 women all of whom were interested in artwear clothing, Ebay and transforming their lives. Included in the cruise were classes on Ebay selling, Selling as an Artist, Feng Shui, Life Mapping and also a shaman by the name of Wendy Luckey (http://wendyluckey.com/cms/home) who offered both group and private readings. I participated in both of these and I can tell you that they were powerfully transforming! Oh yeah, and it worked with a couple of enlightened men, too! Probably one of the most interesting weeks of my life.

One of the highlights of the cruise (at least for me) was an artist trunk show. Along for the ride were Steel Pony (http://www.steelpony.com/), HVC Byrd, Amy Brill and about 6 other people who created their own artwear or jewelry. The ship gave us the uppermost bar for this venue - the one overlooking the ocean. Very surrealistic and gorgeous - I really love the ocean. When we came up we just staked out a spot and put our stuff out. Only lasted 2 hours - but it was a good 2 hours. First time I ever went on a vacation and came home with lighter suitcases!

Really got to know many of these women quite well and I feel lucky to have found this opportunity. Everyone went for a slightly different reason and many of us are keeping in contact. Rebecca is planning another cruise next April - this one goes to Belize! I have always wanted to go there. And there are Mayan ruins on this cruise. That is something I have always wanted to see, so I am planning on going on this one too!

Snow Dyeing

Can't believe how long it has been ! But, I am going to give this a try again if for no other reason than to document the experiments I have been doing lately.

Last weeks experiment is snow dyeing. I have been reading about it on my lists lately, and since I am not a natural snow lover, thought it might be nice to have some good use for the stuff. I also needed something for my Designworks group with the theme 'nature'.

So, I presoaked a yard of cotton fabric and let it dry. Then I left for a week. So, when I came back I soaked it in soda ash again and layed it out in the snow. I squirted dye all over using 3 colors, a mocha brown, butterscotch and a green. I piled some snow on top and squirted indigo on top. Looked pretty colorful sitting in the snow.

I left it for 2 hours in about 35 degree weather. It looked like most of the blue had absorbed into the cloth.

Then I brought it inside and nuked it for 4 minutes. I was hoping that would help the dye set, but in my heart I knew better. After washing, I lost much of the color. In the end it is an interesting piece, but I would rather not snow (we are in the middle of a big storm right now - all the weather people are SO giddy).

Pretty, but not interesting enough. I will be cutting this up to give everyone a piece. So I stamped and stenciled some leaves, dragonflies and some funny little prehistoric looking bird.

Hard to believe that all these pictures are the same fabric. In the end I still think I could have achieved simular results without standing in the snow, but it was interesting.