Virginia A. Spiegel

Cliff Study

Iris Karp of Attached Inc! recently sent me some of her new Mistyfuse Ultraviolet with which to play. So with my cliffs in mind, play I did.

The above piece started with this interesting chunk of “fabric” (polyester felt, hand-dyed silk, stitched and burned) from a previous experiment as a base.

Here is some fabric I painted earlier that seems to me to very evocative of the cliffs:

On top of the felt base, I layered Mistyfuse Ultraviolet and long, skinny “trees” cut from the painted fabric. I fused using a teflon sheet. Stitched. Added another layer of Mistyfuse Ultraviolet and scraps of hand-painted silk organza. Fused again.

A little heat gun action and here’s the end result:

Interesting for a first try. Time to cut that up and move on.

I made another sandwich of the funky felt base, Mistyfuse Ultraviolet and a handful of good stuff (thread ends, fabric snippets) from my “compost pile” bucket. Fused. Added another layer of Mistyfuse Ultraviolet, some skinny trees and a layer of blue tulle. Fused. Stitched. Burned. I liked this a lot and was so excited that I forgot to take a photo.

I cut it into strips, then put down a layer of Mistyfuse Ultraviolet on a piece of the yellow painted fabric and layered the strips very tightly on top. Fused. I thought the piece was going to be vertical at first, as shown here:

I chose some skinny strips from the first piece that I had cut up and sewed them to the top which I had turned horizontally. See the finished piece above and here’s a detail showing the many layers of interest:

I think it’s important to do studies that are not finished artwork in any sense of the word in order to see what materials and processes might work for a new series. And, as in the Andy Goldsworthy Challenge, it’s good to work fast and without a lot of thinking sometimes.

I hope you enjoyed this special theme week. Since this blog is now replacing my Art, Nature, Creativity, Life e-newsletter, I wanted to do something special to mark that occasion. I’m always up for a challenge, so if please let me know if you have a request for another special theme week.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 5:43 am and is filed under Technique Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.