letting go

here is a little drawing of ME. i am at a bit of a crossroads with school and career and not sure which way to go. i recently lost my job at the art center. the opus school of textile arts, where i was a BA (hons) student, closed a few months ago. i can't even give a link to that anymore, as they have virtually disappeared, after taking our course money. another program has opened in its place, named after the creative and inspiring late julia caprara but i have been hesitant to join, as i am not sure that distance learning was to my advantage. so i applied to and was ACCEPTED to an MFA program at the great and wonderful maine college of art, except now i am trying to figure out how to pay for it. anyway, i have been meditating everyday and writing my gratitude list and letting go. xo to all!

portland and baltimore in stitch

for my level 1 opus personal specialism i was working in the theme of cities and combined my two favorite cities - portland maine and baltimore maryland. this piece has wrapped wire, stitched bicycle tubes and a background of maps and a painted cereal box!

more stitched cities

still working on some samples for my opus module, combining the features of two cities: baltimore and portland. i traced the outline of the cityscapes from various photos i took of each city. then i cut up the tracing paper into small square, rearranged the squares into a new arrangement. i took the design from that arrangement and stitched it onto the piece of an old felted sweater.

stitching cities

working on my current opus module, focusing on the appearance of line in a cityscape. i took images of the two cities where i spend most of my time: baltimore, maryland and portland, maine. i combined the images in several mediums: photocopies of photographs, wire and stitch. more exploration on cities to come!

experimenting with textiles

for my personal specialism module, i have to experiment with unusual materials using layering and cutting and twisting and lots of other things.

here are some photos of work samples using paint rags, plastic bags, melted wax, cut up bicycle tubes, wire, fabric strips, pieces of felted sweater, glue, tissue paper, magazine pages, paint, etc. i machine stitched many of the samples, which was experimental for me, as i am much more comfortable hand stitching.

happy bday to BH.

slop sink

another language assignment for my opus BA course in embroidery in cultural context. here i photocopied a painting i had done of a slop sink.
then i stitched words onto the photocopied paper.

typography and stitch

my cultural stitch assignment on language is evolving more into an experiment on typography. here i have stitched onto a magazine page from vogue - kind of a play on the more conventional typeface of a table of contents. and then, of course, i had to take a pix of the back side of the stitching. looks like it fits in pretty well with the adidas advertisement.

stitched painting palette

more on my recycling theme! i love the look of paints mixed on a palette. i mixed paints for a painting on a paper disposable palette. let them dry. added strips of newspaper and covered with a gel medium to give it a little strength. after that dried, i stitched on top of it. i kind of like the look!

stitched bicycle tubes

playing around with some cut up strips of bicycle tubes. this idea of stitching together recycled materials really has me thinking!

by the way, the bicycle tubes are courtesy of bike the big apple tours.

4th of july recycled 'quilt'

working on more ideas of recycled work for my opus cultural stitched textiles module. my husband, granddaughter and i took a long road trip over 4th of july holiday. i saved all of the packaging from food we ate along the way and cut it up into 'quilt' squares.

mola samples

for my opus module on cultural stitched textiles, i have been exploring the mola. HA! i see how much more practice i need on my hand applique stitching!

more recycled sweaters

my good friend in portland maine rescued an orange sweater from a yard sale and here is a doll i made for her from that sweater and a few others. since the doll, named 'funny,' will be living in maine, she needed a vest to keep her warm. here is a picture of her with the vest and without...and the beautiful portland head lighthouse in the background.

recycled patchwork

more stuff stitched with the theme of recycling. i made a pair of shorts and a quilt top from old scraps of other quilts and some cut up clothing. i think we used to call this stuff 'patchwork' or scrap quilts, but now it's considered recycled:)

recycled sweaters

for my opus BA coursework on cultural stitched textiles, i have been thinking of the culture of recycling. here is a doll/creature i made out of recycled sweaters from the thrift store. i washed and dried the sweaters several times to felt them. i'll be posting more recycled work soon!

more stitching samplers

busy busy busy. here is some opus homework. love to everyone!

running stitch samplers

making samplers for an opus module entitiled 'embroidery methodologies.' my focus is on the versitility of the very simple running stitch in all its forms. this is so much fun! more to come.