Weavings of Jen Mullen

Whimsical and fun, this is how I want my students to know weaving, and this is what Jen Mullen of Bayou Quilts explores on a daily basis.

Look youngsters at how she sets up her foundation, wandering here and there and then filling in later.  This is how I learned to weave in my Crafts Class at Sunny Hills High in Fullerton, Ca. in 1973 with  my instructor Rose Ann Johnson.  

Jen is also exploring the possiblities of burlap as warp below.

What a great idea!

And Jen calls this Nature Crafting, going outside to see what nature has to offer.  Love how she has thought to bring her weaving into these very simple natural objects.

For more on Jen and her art, please see my Featured Artist of the Month across the top of my Home Page.

Twig Sculptures - Student Work

 

Earlier in the year I had posted about a new assignment I was going to try using fresh vines and branches.

I tested it out on my hubby and he did a fantastic job building the foundation then free-form weaving the structure. 

With a bit of recycled paper pulp poured over top below.

Advanced 3rd year 3-D students Rita, Kevin and Nida really liked the twig part and enjoyed going round the school looking for windfall and I'm sure doing a bit of pruning from a few of our bushes, but asked if they could try something other then paper pulp to embellish sculpture with.  Over the years, I've learned to listen and be flexible as a teacher, so I was open to their suggestion.

In this piece, senior Nida Fatima found some textural weaving yarn that she wrapped around and thru her form.

Senior Kevin Tang decided to go ahead and use the paper pulp idea, mixing up his pulp a bit chunkier then my husbands.

And senior Rita Labib really wanted to showcase her free form weaving structure and not cover it up so instead she chose to dangle hardware from it, for a really cool look.

It was creative play watching the kids build these and see the various forms they came up with.  Not sure though if I will repeat the assignment.  I'm going to ask the kids for their feed-back.