T Shirt Round Robin Challenge

Occasionally I get involved with group round robins. A subject is decided upon and we pass each item to the next person after adding a technique. I have done dolls, purses, cloth, clothing and now T Shirts. This one is from the Yahoo online group, Complex Cloth. In this challenge we each bought 100% cotton T shirts and did the first layer of design. This more or less sets some perimeters for the colors that we like to wear. I am across the board in colors I wear, but if push comes to shove I tend toward the purples and blues. Here is the t shirt I sent. I fan folded the shirt on the diagonal, rolled it like a cinnamon bun and painted blue dye on top and purple dye on the bottom. Since 6 more people have to work on it, I wanted to leave plenty of room for others to add their own touch. It will be exciting to see what it looks like when
it comes back.

The tshirt I received came with it's first layer already done. A nice and sunny piece to work on for a spring with very strange weather (we go from 80 degree sunny summer one day to 50 degree cold and wet the next and back again). But I felt I could add some red to jazz it up a bit. So, I did the same folding as above, but instead of using 2 different colors I only used a red. Again, there will be 5 more people working on this piece after me, so I wanted to leave room for options so it will be quite interesting to see where it goes...

Fiberart For a Cause Sale

If you want some wonderful fiber art and help a great cause at the same time take a look at the Fiberart for a Cause Collage Mania web site. While I did not donate a collage this year there are several I have my eye on. So, pour a cup of tea, sit back and take a look at all the wonderful fiber collages that were donated. Don't forget to have a pen & piece of paper by your side to jot down your favorites!

All 384 fiber collages donated by 161 generous artists are now available for
your viewing here:

http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/CM2009Collages1.html

Collage Mania, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, opens May 5
with a minimum donation of $80 for each artwork and continues May 6 and 7
when the donation minimum drops to $40.

Please read over the directions on how to participate in Collage Mania. NOW
is the time to send me a note if you need special accommodations in any way.
Once Collage Mania starts it will be wild and crazy as all artwork is
available on a first-come/first-serve basis.

All donations for artwork are made directly to the ACS through Fiberart For
A Cause. Patrons receive an immediate electronic receipt from the ACS.

Our goal for this final Fiberart For A Cause fundraiser is at least $20,000.
We have already donated over $170,000.

A Taste of Shibori

I am presenting a workshop this weekend on Shibori. Only one day from 10-3 so that is why it is just a taste - I think of it like eating lunch with the free tastings at Costco- they are generous and tasty but not quite a full meal. But, that's all we have time for.

I have been doing various forms of shibori since 1998. Using the book Shibori, The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing by Yoshiki Wada, Mary Kellogg Rice & Jane Barton (which is THE definitive book) I made samples of every technique and kept excellent records. So, I have been having fun going through them. Amazing the information I took away the last time and what I utilized. There was SO much information in that book I think I absorbed and used only a fraction. That fraction has served me well, but it is nice to visit 'my old friends'.

I especially forgot how much I enjoy stitching designs. Ironically, loom shibori was created by Catherine Ellis because she didn't enjoy the stitching process and wanted to recreate the idea on her loom. But, I find it meditative - and a lot easier to carry around! The designs that can be created are endless and beautiful. One of the major kimono pieces I created used strips of 4" wide silk matka - each of which had a different stitched design. My inspiration for this came from an exhibition in Rochester, MI on Japanese Indigo dyeing. One of the kimono's they had was a salesman's sample. Each strip had a different design that the shibori house could recreate- all in different techniques. Now that I am writing this I remember how much I enjoyed carting the strips around and having something to pull out of my purse when those odd moments of idleness occurred. Maybe it's time for another.......

Three Creative Links I Like

Thought I might share a few links that have been passed my way recently.

1. Bruno's Art Sculpture Garden
http://sz0023.ev.mail.comcast.net/service/home/~/BrunosArt%26SculptureGarden.pps?auth=co&loc=en_US&id=1283&part=2

This was one of my must sees when I go on that trip to Australia - you know the trip I want to go on but can't swing quite yet but someday... Well, another lesson on why you should make sure you do things when you can - on February 7 there was a devastating wild fire there and yes, this garden was affected. Bruno and his family are safe and report that they are rebuilding the garden. He created a garden path with wonderful wood sculptures at every turn. Some will make you laugh, others are poignant and some will make you tear up ever so slightly.
Meanwhile, click on the link above, toggle it to the full screen and enjoy. When I need a quick break from my everyday I find this link to be quite refreshing.

2. Elizabeth Gilbert on Creativity
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

I have been a fan of Elizabeth Gilbert since I read "Eat, Pray, Love". I enjoyed reading the book so much I requested as a holiday gift the audio of the book so that I could listen to the words read by author herself. I have since read another book and continue to follow her. This is a 20 minute lecture she gave talking about nurturing the creative spark we all have. Well worth a listen, but I will warn you that there are many intriguing links to other talks on similar subjects that can keep you going.....

3. You Are Worth the Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EaUb4zk0Ow

The shortest of the 3, this is a 7 minute YouTube video that reminds us that no matter what is going on in our lives we are worth taking time to honor our creative muses.

Hope you enjoy these links!

More Loom Shibori....Or the sister is off the loom

Putting a special warp on the loom is always an exciting experience. I like to make at least 2 items per warp and showed the first half of this warp in an earlier post:

Handwoven Loom Controlled Shibori

This week I finished weaving the last 5 yards which I lovingly call 'her sister'. Right now, she is destined to become another shorter kimono. This time I went a bit color crazy with the middle section and most every color is well represented. I enjoy going from the somewhat quiet and contemplative project to one that is more vibrant. To make it even more exciting and I decided to vary the spacing between pull cords : I would throw 6, 9 or 12 shots in between merely depending on my mood. I suspect that after pulling, painting and discharging the shibori 'flames' will look pretty much the same to most people. But, it made for more interesting weaving and reminded me how much I enjoy weaving painted warp with black weft. Perhaps I will follow up by painting the entire warp, not just the middle.

Why Are You Here? A Favor Requested

No, I don't mean that in a larger, spiritual sense. I mean it literally. I have taken a personal vow to keep up with my blog by writing at least once a week. I see the blog as a way to communicate about my artistic process and everything that goes with that. But, I am having trouble figuring out WHAT to write about. So far, I have written about my shows, workshops and exhibits I attended, a tutorial & new work. I enjoyed writing about all of these. I am curious though about what YOU are looking for when you click on my blog. Would you like more tutorials? Or how about seeing experiments? Or perhaps you feel there is a good mix and I should just keep it up and post more often.

If you could leave a comment for me I would appreciate it!

Thanks, Debbi

Handwoven Loom Controlled Shibori

Sometimes a customer likes my work, but wants something different. I welcome these challenges - although at times they seem daunting. A customer saw my new silk kimono's and really liked them, but as a petite she needed a different size. She also wanted it to be long and mainly black. Here is the one she tried on :

This one was done entirely with Procion dyes, but the only way to really get a good black on silk is with Acid dyes. So, that is why I decided to use Lanset dyes for the middle warp painted section. I wrote about this last week:
http://artweardesign.blogspot.com/2009/04/warp-painting-with-lanaset-dyes-in-10.html
From there I warped the loom as normal. I had 10" of hand dyed black, 10" warp painted, and 14" of hand dyed black (the extra 4" was to create a band to go on the front center). I used a monks belt threading. After every 12 shots of plain weave in a hand dyed black silk weft I raised either shafts 1-2 or 3-4 and put in a 'junk' weft.

After weaving 5 yards I cut it off the loom and pulled the junk weft tightly and tied it off. The warp (a silk noil from Treenway silks) compressed from 34" on the loom to 4" pulled tightly. In the original kimono, I used thickened dye to 'paint' the top of the compressed fabric - each side got a different color. Because I used dye both colors showed on the fabric. But, using the black any dye I used would be totally lost. Therefore, I decided to use paint and discharge techniques. I lightly painted one side with red fabric paint. The other side I used discharge paste which I steamed. This proved a wee bit trickier than I thought. Naturally, the sample was perfect-but I don't have a professional steamer and the fabric took up most of my steam pot. The paste was quite stubborn in removing the dye. After the first try- with minor success- I repainted the discharge paste on half of the cloth and steamed that. Then I did the other half. This proved to work a bit better. If I were to do more of this, though I definitely would need a bigger steamer.



I never put just one project on the loom - so there is another 5 yards waiting to be woven off. It is also black, warp painted and black. I haven't decided what I want to do with the shibori bits yet, though. I just got some shimmer paints from Pro Chem that I am itching to try, so some of them might just sneak into the next piece.



This technique was created by Catherine Ellis and she graciously shared her ideas with us in a book: Woven Shibori. If you are interested in this technique, I highly suggest adding this book to your collection. I, personally, am looking forward to exploring other ideas on my new (to me) 8 harness loom!

Kimono as Art Exhibit - Canton, Ohio - Eye Candy for Fiber Artists!

I can't think of a better birthday present than the one my husband gave me this year - a trip to Canton, Ohio (a 4 hr. drive each way) to see the Kimono as Art - The Landscapes of Itchiku Kubota Exhibit. All I can say is if you even think you might like it - GO! It will only be there until April 26 and who know when or where it will be again?

SOME HISTORY:

In 1937, as a young artist, Itchiku saw a piece of 350 year old fabric in a museum that fascinated him so much he studied it for hours trying to figure out how it was done. It was shibori but it was different -more magnificent than the anything he had ever seen. The technique was called Tsujigahana, but the directions had been lost in time. As with most of us, life got in the way of artistic exploration. He married and was creating kimonos for a living. Then the war. Even as a POW in Siberia he was couldn't shake his memory. When he returned to Tokyo in 1951 he was raising his family and his kimono business began flourishing. But that little scrap of fabric still eluded him.

Then in 1977 - when he was 60 years old - he finally achieved what he considered to be an equivalent piece of fabric. He named his interpretation "Itchiku Tsujigahana" and spent the rest of his life working on his artistic vision of creating kimono's depicting the changing landscape in the four seasons. He fully expected to live to be 120 to realize his full vision (he had plans after the landscapes of creating the universe), but left us in 2003 at the age of 86. The kimono's he left behind are magical.

THE EXHIBIT

Starting with a good example of the work that goes into shibori as well as some fabric to touch the exhibit had a nice 15 minute or so movie depicting Itchiku and his exhibit that was in the Smithsonian over a decade ago.

Then on to the kimono's:

Itchiku wanted the viewer to have a personal experience with his work and the exhibit was generous as the viewer is not hampered by glass between you and the kimono. While, naturally, there is no touching you can bend over and look- getting to within a foot of the fabric to really see it up close! The first half of the exhibit had about 10 different kimono's to enjoy.

But, it was the next part that was so delicious words fail to describe how delightful. You enter the long rectangular room. In a 'U' shape on three sides are 8' tall kimonos arranged cuff to cuff in such a way that they depict one continuous scene - starting with the mountains in the fall and ending with winter. He wanted to do all 4 seasons, but with each kimono taking up to a year to produce time took it's toll. Standing in the middle was a spiritual experience - the majesty of the project and the mastery of the execution was enough to take your breath away. Even people who had no clue how much work went into each kimono were taken aback. You can get some feel for this in this YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd6pixh7m2s&feature=PlayList&p=AF72090841EADF51&index=0

So, if you are even thinking this might be a good exhibit to attend , I can pretty well assure you that it will not disappoint.

For a different look at this exhibit here is another blog I found:

http://creativityjourney.blogspot.com/2009/04/kimono-as-art-landscapes-of-itchiku.html

The link to the museum exhibit complete with pictures to whet your appetite and all that stuff you need to know to go (hours, location etc.):

http://kimonoexhibit.com/exhibit.htm

Now, all I need to do is to take a trip to Japan and see the exhibit the way it was truly meant to be seen - at the museum that Itchiku built in the woods for his kimono's!

Warp Painting with Lanaset Dyes in 10 Easy Steps!

First I want to say: OBSERVE ALL SAFETY PRECAUTIONS - ie. no eating or drinking, use a mask to make the dyes, wear old clothes and rubber gloves.....

1. Wind your warp as usual. Mark every inch or so of the warp (depending on the design you are trying to achieve). I like to use tyvek squares marked with numbers tied to one end of the warp

2. Wash your warp using a drop of synthrapol - make sure you have protected the warp with plenty of ties

3. Make your soak bucket. I add 105 g citric acid to 4L (1 gallon) of water. I prefer citric acid to vinegar because of the smell (citric acid has none)

4. Put your warp in the soak bucket for at least 1/2 hour.

5. Mix your dyes - I like to use 5g/250ml water- that is I mix 5 grams of dye in 250 milliliters of water.

6. Lay out some plastic wrap on your table. Have your soak bucket at one end. Pull your warp out and lay it on the plastic wrap in order.

7. NOW THE FUN PART! Using a paint brush ( I like the foam ones) - paint your warp . I like to let serendipity take over at this point. The most important thing to do is make sure the underside warp is painted also - you may have to flip it over and check. You may also have to mop up any excess dye - I like to use cloth that I can process later to create something beautiful instead of paper towels.

8. As you continue to paint lay more plastic wrap on top of your warp - either a new layer or fold the sides in on top - the important thing is to keep the warp moist at this point. Roll it up as you go and pull out new warp to paint until you are done.

9. I let the entire bundle rest for about 1/2 hr or so - it can rest longer, but that is the minimum.

10.Then I place it in a steam basket and put into a pot of water- making sure it never touches the water and steam for 30 minutes. I let it rest again until it reaches room temp (this is the tough time to wait and see) and ***NOW FOR THE MAGIC *** unwrap - it's like a birthday present every time!