Patterns of Nature.......

Sometimes you find perfect photos right at your feet. I looked down on my walk with the camera, and what do I see but this amazing, almost abstract composition. No moving anything, no interference on my part.......just red and black and white and grey. What a fun image if I knew how to Photoshop........but I am a Luddite, remember? ;-)

These are not maple keys---in fact, I don't know the tree they were on, but I saw little wishbones, papery-thin, fragile, delicately swaying in the breeze. Thus, one big human hand inserted into the frame to hold the dainties still. I should have brought a few back to incorporate into art.......alas, nothing with me to carry them in.

In the "Truly Amazing" catagory, an old fallen tree, so covered with vines that the bark is almost obscured. A click on the photo will reveal wild grapes in abundance hanging about. Leaves and moss have settled between the vines, forming a textural delight. Again, I have walked past this daily........for years. It's nice for that artists eye to have returned!

A leathery Sycamore leaf, the cropped portion almost as large as my hand. The veining and detail is just beyond me. So beautiful, so precise. To paint or draw this accurately would drive a person mad.......there is so much, so very much, to see.

I am reminded of the quote "God is in the details".

How true.

I hope you find them.......

Pax.

Fiber Art, Texture, Leaves

Today I wanted to do a bit of looking at texture in fiber art. I have always loved being able to reproduce with a certain amount of ability realistic items in my fiber pieces. I use a lot of techniques and supplies. Some I may have posted before, but as a cohesive post, my outlook on the art in general may be a bit clearer.

My first photo is a sketch of pears, done with oil pastel and then stitched, fluid acrylic added for background (which the oil pastel resists), some quilting, then more acrylic paint. At the end, I have a small still life sketch, an exercise in materials.

The lily is a combination of realistic work and background abstraction. The leaves and flower are the centers of attention; I love dimension in leaves...these being two layers of cotton fabric sandwiched in felt, stitched and then a heat tool used to burn out most of the felt. The flower is on watercolor paper sent through the printer. The curve of the leaves adds a sense of the lily coming off the background, into the here and now.

These next two shots are of dimensional leaves and a flower, stitched with batting and a lining fabric, trimmed carefully, turned right side out and then stitched again to add realistic details such as leaf veins and the separation of the flower petals. Beads are added for stamens on the flowers, and set in a crystallized glue for water droplets on the leaves. They are to represent a loose form of a lily pad, set atop a quilt with silk pieced fish. Having the leaves loose above and not pieced into the surface provides another layer of visual depth.

I was experimenting with a fabric collage background when I did this small work. The butterfly and leaf skeletons are dimensional. The rest of the piece is quilted and has bobbin thread work to provide the proper texture for the fiddle head ferns. Layers of tulle build shadow and depth. The leaf skeletons hang over the edge of the background, adding a little motion to the whole...moving the view from the butterfly, to the ferns, and off the picture plane.

The next two photos are from a piece I did during the Summer Olympics held in Athens Greece. The victor's laurel wreath of tradition is pieced into the background, the freestanding leaves are a repetition of the pieced motif.

These were made from a textured silk fused to a cotton background and are quite sturdy.

The last piece is a landscape done from pieces of diverse cotton fabrics, with both print and stitch used to achieve a realistic view. It is a small piece and still holds much detail; worth a click to enlarge and see how it was put together.

I often have to educate people who have not had the opportunity to see fiber art on the difference between it and it's first cousin, traditional quilting. It is *ART*, just made with fabric rather than paint. Or it is art ON fabric, as the case of the pears, but using traditional quilting methods for texture. There are endless possibilities with these methods. I try to explore as many as possible and see what works best for whatever project it is I have at hand.

In today's fiber art world, there are so many options it is becoming hard to keep up with all of them! For those of us choosing fiber as a medium of expression--even for part of our work--we live in a time when it is exciting but also when we can get lost in too many things to try. Keeping balance and focus as to what our final outcome/goal is probably has become even more difficult.

I think there is a Chinese proverb, to paraphrase: "May you live in interesting times."

We certainly do! May your art show it!

I bid you....

Pax.

Valerie May: Artist, Friend

"Art feeds my spirit, nourishes my soul."

Valerie May

All photos in this post were provided by and are the exclusive

property and copyright of Valerie May, 2009.

"Falcons Facing West"

"Oriental Yin-Yang Collage"

"Light One Inverted"

"Greek Collage"

I thought I would simply start today's post with an artist's quote and ART. Pure, beautiful, unadulterated ART. The type that makes you stop in your tracks to look, pulls at your heart (and checkbook!), things you want to either make or make your own.

That is the type of work Valerie produces. After a long drought of not dealing with art she joined the Community Artists Co-Op--in fact, she was at our very first meeting--and has not looked back or stopped since. (please click on all the photos to view in a larger format--there is so much detail to enjoy that can't be seen in the smaller size pics.)

Val has an art degree but has a very Zen approach to what she does. While she can produce *exact copies* (extremely realistic paintings) her view is , "Been there, done that, why go back?" One of her favorite quotes is from Picasso:

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

And indeed it does as is evidenced by what she consistently produces.

I envy her ability to work with abstract in an apparently easy, nonplussed manner. She says she can teach me. I am thinking that she might have met her match on that one...."Little Miss Anal-About-Details" doing an abstract??? Oh, but I want to!

I could rave extensively about what I find appealing in each piece but I'm not going to. I want you, my gentle readers, to look deep into them and see what speaks to YOU. And please leave posts here directly to Val, because she does not have a blog yet, and she will be able to read and answer any questions you may have.

And now one more little tidbit I have to admit that I had been keeping secret.

At our LAA Show, Val sold a painting called "Quilt In Oil". The buyer chose to remain anonymous. Well, Kiddo, it is hanging in my kitchen. I had looked and looked at the piece loving it more each time I saw it and knew, at the right time, it would come home with me.

So I proudly own an original, and couldn't be happier!

I hope you all enjoy this small sampling of Val's talent and her delightful use of color and composition. She is truly one of a kind!

Now go do something creative and use your day well!!! OR ELSE!!! ;)

(I'll chase you with my cane....HA!!! Okay, you can get off the floor and quit laughing now.....)

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!!!

Yes, Idiot Stick is going to town to fight the masses and see what is left of Holiday decor at a very discounted price.

This is PROOF that your gentle author is completely and utterly mad. (those who know me already were aware of this fact, but I share it with you early on in the blogging stage.....so you can run if you wish!) One of my friends had given me a sticker I have on my studio door that says;

"Scream and run away now. It will save you time later."

Somehow I think that quote applies to my venture today! (thanks Vicki! it's a gem!)

So if I survive and if there are any rants worthy of the time to sit and type, I will add to this later in the day. My traffic rants don't count........those are constant!

I did want to add one thing art related that is really cool. I subscribe to the Robert Genn Twice Weekly Newsletter and today he had a superior article about painting abstracts, which I am clueless to doing. But it is one of those niggling things that I want to do but cannot quite figure out where to start. I feel doing it, learning it could be beneficial from two aspects;

1. I learn a completely new technique, which always is beneficial to creative growth.

2. I can't help but feel that there is a buried link between abstract and quilting/fiber art, so there would be a definite benefit there.

You can go to the page through the "Clickback" section or you can go directly to the photos of painting the abstract here and it also includes the background of the *artist* doing a good portion of the work! A very interesting story, even for you nonpainting folks!

And now I'm off....any way you look at it.....