Virginia A. Spiegel

Great Expectations Creativity Center – My painting studio. 

Ok, I’ll be honest.  I really didn’t think transforming 200 yards of white fabric would be that much work. Fun, but not too hard to do considering I had the whole month of February. But, really, what WAS I thinking?

Step 1:  Fabric Prep 
I had 200 yards of 60″ wide Kona PFD bleach white cotton fabric shipped directly to Texas.  It came on two rolls:  one 164 yards and one 36 yards.  So I tackled the big roll first.  Just de-rolling it was interesting.  I finally put it on the plastic-covered floor, braced it against a table leg and pulled until my arms were tired.  Then I tore that length off and repeated (ad infinitum).  Then I took each length and tore it down the center to make 30″ wide pieces as that width fit perfectly on my painting table.  This process made so much lint that I took the whole operation outside.  And who wouldn’t want to do it outside with this view?

I covered the little table with plastic, made a pile and measure off an arm’s length, snipped and ripped.  I ended up with approximately 400 one-yard pieces of fabric, all about 30″ wide.  Here is a SMALL portion ready to be painted:

Step 2:  Trained Monkey Phase
I like to put down a base coat of paint before adding additional surface work. Usually I use a brayer about 90% of the time for this layer (fast!) and sponge brushes for the rest.  But either the fabric or paint had technical issues (I’m thinking the paint formulation changed a bit or the paint was exposed to too much cold during shipping) and so brayer painting didn’t work.  Off to the only local shopping venue (a big box we will not name) where I perused the paint department and bought a painting sponge-type thing with a handle. Problem solved.  Here’s a selection of Layer 1 fabric laid out on plastic to dry:

I actually kept quite a few fabrics from this first layer of paint phase as I have so few “solids” to work with usually:

Three multi-colored fabrics, but still Layer 1.

Mostly Layer 1 fabrics with a few notable exceptions.

Unusual for me – very light fabrics.  

Once Layer 1 was done, I repaired to my very spiffy ironing area to heat set the paint.   Pam, the ranch manager, had Hollis and JR move a padded ironing table outside  so I could iron whenever I wanted with lots of fresh air to combat any fumes from heating the paint.  Technically, ironing isn’t required before adding another layer, but I like to see what I have and think about what each piece might need.  

Again, who wouldn’t want to do this outside with this view?  The birds (hawks, bluebirds, mockingbirds, swallows, turkey vultures, chickadees, cardinals, etc.) kept boredom at bay as I ironed away on my 200 yards

Notice primo accessory – cup of java.

Tomorrow:  The Fun Stuff that comes after the Trained Monkey Phase – screenprint, stamp, paint, repeat.
Part 3 on Thursday will be just stacks and stacks of fabric for you to enjoy.  
Then I will wrap up residency week on Friday with some photos of Open Studio Day and the beauty of Texas.

Did I mention I moved my studio down the hall? Here is the old studio with moving in progress. What a mess!  But I did see fabric that had been MIA for years. The joy of painting all your own fabric is that each piece is fabric is like an old friend; I’m always happy to see them again.

Why did I move? A view of the backyard (trees, trees, trees), closer to my paper studio, and a door I can close and leave closed. I miss the great lighting and the space, but don’t miss being a thoroughfare. 

 

The new studio ready to go. It’s a little tight once I set up my ironing board with the big padded board on top, but, hey, it has a closet!

As you can probably tell from the dresser and table, I’m a big fan of Ikea. The Ikea wire baskets with tops are for all the stuff I’m currently thinking about or working on.  The serious fabric storage (not shown) is in sturdy wire baskets in towers from the home improvement store.

You will notice comments are allowed once again. New technology for screening spam is supposed to help. I’m giving it a try. It has been awhile since I reported on what’s up in the studio, so let’s jump right in.

This is how far the series (more than 30 small artworks) for a possible Quilt National entry reached and then I was done. I think, with my summer schedule, that a QN entry won’t be happening this year. The collages in this Third Thoughts series were interesting, but they never developed the cohesiveness or, perhaps, the inner compulsion, that I require in any long-term series.

I have found several small pieces that I might want to expand into their own series. Although I can’t say more at this moment, you will be seeing more of these unique artworks in a interesting venue. If you missed what this series is all about, here is a blog post about them.

So what have I been working on? Something that still hold sway over my creative life – the Boundary Waters series. I finished Boundary Waters #31 and then …

Boundary Waters #32 (Fault Lines) – Detail of work-in-progress

started a nice big piece – Boundary Waters #32. This piece is related to the two Boundary Waters cliff pieces, but it much more abstract (and colorful). It is about the great fault lines in the rocks that caused the impressive cliff faces and jagged shorelines of the Boundary Waters lakes. Just finishing touches remain.

Shrine of the Planting Moon
Collection of Jane Davila

Fibre&Stitch’s third issue has just been released and includes my article, From Studio Journal to Art Quilt. This article focuses on the way I researched my Moon Shrine series, sketched out ideas and developed a series. Fibre&Stitch is an innovative online zine. Each issue is HUGE; this latest issue has 70 pages of mixed-media projects. Sharon B. of the comprehensive textile blog “in a minute ago” has an annotated summary of this issue here.

My studio journals are a continuing record and treasure house from the time I first stepped into my studio full time ten years ago. They, and my Boundary Waters’ journals, are the only ones I have kept consistently, although I have tried and failed with many formats.

Here are two page from my current studio journal:

You can see I USE the journals – trying out my materials, thinking, doodling, working.

Still working away on what I hope will be a new series with seventeen small pieces done. Since I can’t show finished pieces at the moment, I thought I would share some of the materials I have out and about which I am thinking.

The funny part about this is that I could walk on over to Studio B (newly transformed) and paint away. But, no, I have to paint on my ironing surface on top of my good Teflon pressing cloth using the top of my distilled gallon of water. The hardest part of these new works is translating words cut from magazines into something decent looking. I am mainly using two pieces of Stitch-N-Tear laminated together with Misty Fuse and then tracing the words. The print is a linocut.

Raw materials – painted and screenprinted fabric.

Next step: water soluble wax crayons, colored pencil, ink, and graphite.

I am still quite interested as each piece is a challenge and I am finding a theme running through the artwork that I hadn’t expected. My working title for the series reflecting this theme is from one of the source collages, “Like You Give A Damn.” Hey, I do.