AN ARTFUL NEW FIND FROM FRANCE

After browsing Pinterest a couple of weeks ago I came across the Fiber Art of 

Berenice Mollet of Roujan France.

She had covered a lovely stone with a piece of eco-dyed and embroidered fabric.

It was love at first site!

So of course I searched the whirled until I found her and her shop,

and of course bought a few of her pieces to show the gals I'm currently teaching.

From left to right are an elongated notebook,

a rust printed trivet (she included as a bonus),

a medium sized notebook,

then underneath those a zippered pouch.

As you can see above her slow stitching is impeccable,

her designs delightful,

 and her sewing construction of her pieces so perfectly crafted.

What was really difficult was to choose an embroidered covered rock.

It was between an eco-dyed one that had a smaller baby stone attached,

but then I saw this indigo covered one above/below and felt very pulled to it as well.

So I thought about where I'd be displaying it and realized I wanted it in my indigo styled room

at my son's home that he and his wife are allowing me to decorate.

What I also loved about Berenice's blog site

 is she posts a lot of tutorials. 

She takes pix of how she builds her pieces during the classes she teaches throughout France.  

She is very generous with her creative processes.

I hope you get a chance to take a peek thru her site and shop.

A TRAGEDY

ECO-DYED TAPESTRY WEAVING

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

cotton warp & weft, rusty hardware findings & handmade tapestry loom

Poor senior Helen Park,

she wove this super cool tapestry below,

secured her rusty findings,

loved the whole process,

and even eco-dyed it with all kinds of plant windfall.

Then somebody thought the bundle sitting outside my classroom door amongst the potted plants

(where we always put these bundles to dry up before we open them)

was trash and threw it away.

Or perhaps made off with it.

We didn't know and couldn't locate it anywhere.

Both Helen and I (maybe mostly me) were distraught,

we (I) tore thru all the potted plants,

looked thru the trash cans,

did everything we (I) could think of to find her sweet bundle,

and finally gave up.

It was gone.

But at least I was able to get a pix of it before she put her windfall on top

so you can see how cool it was on both the front an back side.

What are those silly expressions?

"That's how the cookie crumbles"

"Que sera, sera",

"What will be will be",

"It wasn't meant to be",

and so on and so on.

I just know I felt really badly and was so disappointed we didn't get to see the final dyed result,

while Helen on the other hand 

seemed to take it in stride.

Once again,

so sorry Helen.

INSPIRATION STRIKES

This was not an assignment but an idea that came to junior Shreya Sheth

after she finished the Eco & Rust Dyed Tapestry project. 

She enjoyed setting up a tapestry loom and weaving so very much that she 

took it upon herself to try another idea.

Here is her second tapestry woven with cotton yarns, twine & rags.

She grabbed some rusty things and clamps for resist,

and dipped the tapestry into the Indigo bucket.

And here is her very cool result.

Later in August I will post how she used this in her final piece.

Clever girl.

And she'll be back next year to try even more ideas.

YES!!!

WHAT'S ON YOUR LOOM?

Recently I posted these delicious little tapestries that my 2nd year 3-D kids made,

Tapestry Weaving with Rust & Eco Bundling

and I just came across some pix that show how they looked before the kids bundled them.

Sadly I don't have them in the same order,

and the reason they are a bit yellowed is because they had soaked overnight in soy milk

I really like all the rusty objects the students found to couch onto the finished tapestries.

And it's so interesting to see the marks these left behind on the finished banners.

This will definitely be a project that I will repeat next school year.

WHAT'S IN YOUR BUNDLE?

TAPESTRY WEAVING W/ RUST & ECO-BUNDLING

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

natural fibers, rusty objects & windfall

Whoo Hoo,

a new assignment that was a hit!

A couple of weeks ago I posted about being inspired by the work of Alice Fox & India Flint.

So I asked my kiddos to put the two ideas together onto a tapestry woven base of all natural fibers.

And wella!!!

It worked and they loved all the processes and the results.

This was their second time to weave.

The first was in their Beginning year where they wove a 3-dimensional bird's nest.

This time I had them warp up a frame loom which they loved.

In fact,

junior Shreya Sheth liked it so much that she made two weavings.

When I brought them home for a gentle washing to full & soften up a bit,

my husband caught sight of them and was instantly smitten.

He wants one so he can use it for a guitar strap.  :)

Maybe when I retire  ha ha

And here they are now on display at the District Art Show.

Wish the picture was a bit better quality but the light is so bad where they are on display.

The Artists:

senior Liana Chie, juniors Jacqueline Yu & Shreya Sheth, seniors Antoniette Jabat, Hazel Cruz, William Kim, Kristine Luong, & Amber Wu

NEW ASSIGNMENT INSPIRED BY ALICE FOX & INDIA FLINT

Two of my favorite artists, 

UK based artist Alice Fox and Australian/Latvian based artist India Flint,

have inspired me to try a new assignment with my Intermediate 3-D students.

Alice Fox

from Tide Marks

India Flint

on Pinterest

I want to get the kids to experience weaving on a tapestry loom,

(their previous experience in Beg. 3-D was weaving thru wire dimensionaly)

and do a bit of experimenting with found rusty objects like Alice does,

and windfall like India does.

Alice's tapestry looms with weaving in progress.

So today we are warping our looms.

We are using handmade frame looms 

that I built 30 some years ago when I started teaching at Whitney.

I'm planning on having them weave up thin bands to experiment on like Alice is doing above.

I look forward to sharing the results later this month.

Here are a few shots from Alice's blog  and book Tide Marks to inspire my young ones.

A Look at the Work of U.K. Artist Alice Fox

I have been very negligent on keeping up with my 

Featured Artists of the Month Page on my blog.

So I'm hoping to get back to it.

I'd like to start with International Fiber Artist

ALICE FOX

I found Alice Fox thru other fiber artist's blogs that I visit.

I really like her work with water and rust, 

stitchery and eco-dye,

so I wanted to share her and her work with my fiber arts students here at Whitney.

For more on Alice please visit Featured Artists of the Month on my HOME page.

Dyeing with Rust

For over a year now I've made it my mission to collect anything rusty so that I could share rust dyeing with my 3-d students.  This was our first attempt and I think the fabrics came out wonderfully.

Rusty nails, bottle caps, railroad ties, you name it, anything I can find on my walks and at garage sales.  Got these results with Rit Dyes, safe to use with young ones.

Rebecca Tjahja and Kaili Hamada (above)

Vinisha Kothari and Jasmine Lim (below)

Rebecca Tjahja

Cassidy Chansirik and Annie Lin

Experimenting...

with Eco Printing , rusty objects and Rit dyed string

Like the inside above, but not so much the outside below.