ms. emerick's art classroom

a friend is going to teach art in barcelona spain this coming fall. she asked me to make her a sign for the classroom door. a nice, relaxing project to work on after school was finished!

contrived work?

i am exploring the idea of contrived work...when is my work contrived and when is it me? here is a piece i just submitted to a show called GATHERING. i was very excited about the work as i was planning and working on it, but the final product is kind of 'so-so.' i am not too wild about it. i guess that 'so-so' work is ok if i am just making a sample for a course, but wondering what happens to my work when it is planned vs when i am doing it just for fun and experimentation? my work that is done just-for-fun seems so much more me and more spontaneous... what do you think? is there a difference between your spontaneous work and your planned work?

PARADE SCHOOL

been doing lots of good stuff: stitching and painting and all. two weeks ago i went to parade school. what a great experience! we made all of these parade structures in four days and week culminated in a PARADE! great community event. i kind of learned how to stilt walk, altho most of the other students were faster learners. i made a big purple prom queen, and an apartment building. three people carried the queen and i was inside of the apt building, carrying it with tall pole.

embroidery and printmaking on pants

what to do with 40 pieces of printed fabric? use one to patch a hole in the knee of my pants! this is just like i used to do with old bell bottom jeans back in the day:)

for some of you asking about my OPUS work, i have taken an unofficial break for a few months due to moving a few times and starting a new job. but i am getting ready to catch up with my cultural stitch module. be on the lookout for some mola samples coming soon!

sandra dee dreams of the gee's bend quilts

a few years ago, our fiber group had an exchange challenge. we traded bags of unknown stuff from our studio floors and had to make a textile image out of what we had. the person who i traded with had alot of materials with a 1950's kind of feel. we did the challenge at the time the Gee's Bend quilts were starting to come into public view and there was an exhibit of the quilts in Washingon DC at the Corcoran. with all of that in mind, here is what i came up with.

found objects art

one of my favorite pastimes used to be collecting broken pieces of costume jewelry and interesting pieces of junk from the street. i fashioned many of these items into beautiful faces on the front of purses. here are two of them.

what to do with an old sweater

i have so many nice wool sweaters that are out of date or need some oomph. my solution is to embellish them and give them a new life.