Virginia A. Spiegel

Susan Schrott

Susan Schrott is one of those wonder women who makes you wonder if maybe she has figured out a way to add a couple of hours to each day.  She is an artist as well as a full-time licensed clinical social worker, certified eating disorder specialist, certified yoga teacher, and Lifeforce Yoga® practitioner for mood disorders.

As soon as I mentioned Fiberart For A Cause’s 2012 fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, Susan started hand-painting and hand- printing fabrics with stamps from India and stamps she created herself.  The Foto/Fiber 2012 Bonuses are supposed to be a little fiber surprise that arrives in your mailbox, but here are a few samples of what Susan has been busy painting and stamping.

Susan is also donating this art quilt to be given away in a drawing among the 90 patrons of Foto/Fiber 2012.

Susan Schrott: Compassionate Woman With Beaded Bodice. Approximately 10″ x 10″ Art Quilt.  Hand-drawn original image on cotton using prisma pencils and textile markers. Hand-dyed fabrics by the artist. Pieced, free motion machine quilted with variegated thread. Hand-beaded and embellished with Swarovski Crystals.

All 90 patrons of Foto/Fiber 2012 are eligible to win this artwork. Each Patron will be entered one time.

Detail of Compassionate Woman With Beaded Bodice

See all the fiber artwork to be given away to Patrons of Foto/Fiber 2012 here.

Susan’s artwork is on the cover and included in the new publication, Jewish Threads, and was recently published in The Studio Quilt No. 6:  State of the Art. She recently showed her artwork in a one-woman exhibition, Susan Schrott A Celebration of Women In Textiles!, at the Flat Iron Gallery (NY).

Welcome to Cate Coulacos Prato, Editor of Quilting Daily and Cloth Paper Scissors Today. Cate is joining us this year for Foto/Fiber 2012 and will be donating three Fiber BONUSES.

From Cate:  I’m so happy and honored to contribute three fiber bonuses to Foto/Fiber 2012. Two of my fiber passions are collecting vintage fabric and notions and gelatin monoprinting. I decided to make some of my monoprinted fabric into artist trading cards with hand stitching and pearly buttons to give as bonuses, plus a nice sampling of fibers, monoprinted fabric, and other little bits for the recipient’s embellishing pleasure. The photo attached gives the flavor of what will be included in each packet; all the packets will be different.

Everyone who shares the news about Foto/Fiber 2012 on their blog, list, FB, etc. will be entered to win on of three great prizes which includes a copy of Cate’s book, Inside the Creative Studio: Inspiration and Ideas for Your Art and Craft Space.

Turn your vision of a dream studio space into a reality with Inside the Creative Studio. The professional artists and crafters of Studios magazine give you the tools to create your own one-of-a-kind artistic environment in this best-of compilation. Learn how to find space in your home, whittle down your stash, maximize your storage and organization possibilities, and manage your stash of supplies and equipment to keep your work space functional and fun to work in. Experts will also show you how to repurpose furniture, integrate recyclables, and showcase vintage items to establish a space with purpose and personality. You will spend less time struggling with your studio, or lack thereof, and more time actually creating in your unique space.

There are two additional PR prizes donated by Fiber On A Whim.  All the information you need (logos, samples posts, etc.) are here on the Foto/Fiber 2012 PR page. Thank you for helping us make this fundraiser for the American Cancer Society a success.

Foto/Fiber 2012 opens in just a week. Now you can go ahead and start making your wish lists!  All of the beautiful and inspiring Foto/Fiber photos (a very limited edition of three each of 30) by Karen Stiehl Osborn, Cynthia Wenslow and myself are now available for your preview here.

When you are thinking about Foto/Fiber, think ahead to upcoming gift-giving events (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays).  No one will know if you keep your Fiber BONUS for yourself and gift the photo.  Each photo will have a sticker on the back of its clear envelope indicating its purchase supported the American Cancer Society.

We did choose a lot of nature photos, but you will also find photos of an old truck, a beautiful handmade pot, a coffee mug and spoon, and other objects we found interesting and textural.

Journey by Virginia A. Spiegel

There is also a link on the photo pages to the DIRECTIONS for Foto/Fiber 2012.  Three things of note about the directions:

1.  I’m really not a bossy boots (OK, maybe a little), but fundraising for the last seven years has taught me that organization is the key to a fun fundraiser.  Please read through the directions NOW and shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions or if you want to make sure your e-mail doesn’t go in my junk mail file on February 15 or 16.

Morning Flight by Karen Stiehl Osborn

2.  Notice that the direction page includes, about one million times, directions for WHEN Foto/Fiber is open. Not today!  Wednesday, February 15 at 10 a.m. Central is when the gate opens. There is only one place to donate on February 15 and 16 and only one button to click to donate directly to the American Cancer Society. All donations are made by credit card directly to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause/Forest Lake Relay For Life. It’s easy-peasy really, but don’t be shy about asking questions now.

Waiting by Virginia A. Spiegel

3.  Our goal is $7000 to add to the $215,000 we have already donated directly to the American Cancer Society.  We have several drawings for fiber artwork that I hope will encourage you to donate a bit more than the requested minimum if you are able, but also some drawings that are open to all patrons.  Be sure to check out the artwork and the requirements to participate for each of the Fiber Art DRAWINGS before making your donation plans.

See you next Wednesday, February 15, and thank you for your support of this fundraiser for the American Cancer Society.

 Léonie Hartley-Hoover has taken a thematic approach for her Fiber BONUSES for Foto/Fiber 2012.  The BONUS detail below is from Ocean View and includes beautiful batiks and hand-dyed fabric, hand-dyed thread, one medium and one large quality ocean-themed lampwork bead ($30 value) and more.  Read more about this BONUS on Léonie’s blog.

Léonie’s second Fiber BONUS is Raz-Ma-Taz.  It includes batiks and hand dyes, wool roving, silk sari ribblon, overdyed cotton flow, and a lampwork bead (valued at $30) by German artist Karen Hruza. More details here.

Léonie has also created an artwork specifically for the drawings to be held among the 90 Patrons of Foto/Fiber 2012.  Love You to the Moon and Back is 9 inches x 9 inches and shown below. It is a hand-beaded art quilt on silk base. The focal face bead is by  Kristie Brigham, Lancaster, PA.  The haiku in lower right corner:
Remembering you… The fireflies of this marsh Seem like sparks That rise From my body’s longing. Izumi Shikibu

See more details from this artwork here.

All patrons of Foto/Fiber 2012 are eligible to win this artwork. You will be entered once for each Photo/Bonus for which you donate.

Foto/Fiber 2012 opens on February 15.  Information about the photos, the fiber, and all the drawings is here.

 Gail Myrhorodsky

Gail Myrhorodsky creates unique hand-painted art cloth in wonderfully saturated colors as well as fiber art using her own fabric. Creating art fabric is a very time consuming process as the fabric is first washed and prepped for dyeing and then individually painted.  After dye or paint has set, all fabrics are rinsed thoroughly (some over 10 times) to remove excess dyes. Then all the fabric is washed in very hot water and Synthropol, and rinsed several more times. Many of the bright and darkly intense pieces undergo a hot wash with Retayne as well, which helps prevent bleeding. Then they are dried in a hot dryer and steam pressed. Gail’s silk and cotton fabrics are available for purchase through her GailForces studio as well as at quilt events.

1.  How do you find/make time to be in your studio?

After work, dinner and clean-up, it’s time for my art. No questions asked. Even if it’s only for an hour, I make the time to do something I love.

2.  Describe your studio in five words.
Way too small for stash!

3.  If you could pick only one thing from your studio to represent your art practice, what would it be?
Organization – or lack of it thereof. My studio is actually the upstairs apartment of our 2-family home. The fabric room (bedroom) is overflowing with my hand-dyed fabrics. The kitchen has the storage of all the paints, stamps, stencils, bleaching agents and all theother tools for surface design except dyeing.  The dining room is my work space – several “my height” cutting/work tables, my sewing machine, serger and embellisher, iron and design wall. When any of these rooms starts to overflow, it’s time to re-organize.  One cannot create if one cannot find the supplies!

Gail is donating three fiber-licious BONUSES to Foto/Fiber 2012.
All three start with a fat quarter of hand-dyed cotton and then Gail is choosing coordinating items from among this list:
Coordinating dyed cotton, yarns, dyed threads and dyed cheesecloth andcotton batt, personally made clay embellishment, beads, dyed vintage doily, dyed silk and wool fibers, yarns, dyed threads, a super inchie, fun foam sculpted, embellishment, glue on petal jewels, sample of Misty Fuse, fat quarter hand-dyed and stamped, stenciled and painted,, metallic netting (gold & black), Angelina, beads, and more.

4. What is the best/worst space you have ever had as a studio?
My worst was a bookcase-separated corner of a living room. The best is my current setup – an apartment with plenty of storage shelves and cabinets.

5.  What would make a “dream studio” for you?
I would love a studio on the first floor with lots of windows and about 3 times the floor space. I could also use some extra space to store and use my spinning wheel.

6.  What would you advise someone setting up a studio for the first time?
I would advise to plan carefully for the work space for the type of work you enjoy doing. Have plenty of storage and as much “spread out” floor space as you can manage.

7.  Any unique features/studio pets you would like to share?
It’s not unique, but one of the smartest things I did was raise the main work table to my height so I don’t have to lean over all the time.I’m 5’8″, which isn’t all that tall anymore, but raising the table has saved me lots of pain.  I’m a pretty functional/practical kind of person, so Ialways think of the usefulness of my work tools before aesthetics.