Virginia A. Spiegel

Stick and Sand, 28×12″

This is my entry for the Surface Design Association member show, Merge and Flow, to be held in conjunction with the SDA Conference.  I have been working on it for some time as you know if you have been following me on my FB Fan Page.

I spent a lot of time building layers of fabric, paper, thread, and paint.  I knew all along that  with a theme of Merge and Flow, the artwork had to be something about the Boundary Waters.  But I decided to let the artwork evolve as it desired.

The center of the blue couched spiral is a piece of tissue paper that I printed with one of my hand-cut stamps.As soon as I focused on that I knew where I wanted to go.  I printed a photo on silk organza of me crouched on a rock in the Boundary Waters, oblivious to everything, creating a design in the sand all around me with a stick.  The design is almost identical to the stamp design that I carved — another one of those too weird to be coincidental moments.

Stick and Sand – detail

I am focusing on ambiguity of late and I like how my head disappears in to the artwork.  It may be unclear to most viewers what exactly this artwork is showing.  I say, Success!

Folio 2  (Black Trees), Page 5
7″h x 5″w matted to 10×8″

Not one, but two new series debut today.

Folio 2 – Black Trees are ten artworks based upon a ten word poem.  There are layers upon layers of fabric and paint — a mysterious story of tree, sky, and branch on each page.

Folio 3 (Woven Words) – Page 5

The second new series up today is Folio 3 – Woven Word.  The poem and artwork focus on doors, windows, and words — so much in our lives concealed and revealed.

The base layer of painted cloth and stitching is almost obscured by the many layers of screen printing.  The final touch is hand stitching with beautiful hand-dyed red embroidery thread from Laura Wasilowski.

In case you missed its debut, here is the Folio 1 – Thread series.

Folio 1, page 1

The best books I read are somewhat ambiguous.  They force readers to add their own interpretation to the story being told. I am currently very interested in exploring the limits of ambiguity in my art. See all the artwork here.  This series is a folio of “pages” based on ten-word poem. Sometimes the word is visible on the page; sometimes layers have obscured it. I’m not divulging the poem as I wanted you to be able to imagine your own story.  But if you want to know the word on a particular “page,” I would, of course, share. And I can tell you that the poem is entitled Threads.

Folio 1, Page 10

This week I’m still enamored of collage and multi-tasking as much as last week.  On deck this week are some collages incorporating paint, paper and wax in two different forms.

First up is a small series, Red Square, which are collages on artist canvas board mounted to a larger canvas board.  I have several mounted on white as shown here

and a few with the backing canvas board painted and waxed.   I like them both – totally different looks.

For requent updates on what I am up to in the studio, LIKE my FB Fan Page.

Chicory 2

The Chicory collages are finished and submitted for distribution in a private swap.  I always make a few extra in any exchange so there is no pressure to send them all.

The background is acrylic paint on watercolor paper with Caran d’Ache artist crayons.  I wrote over the entire background with information about chicory which blooms with mad abandon along the roadsides here.  An odd fact about chicory is that its blooms open and close regularly each morning and evening, even when cut for a flower arrangement.

The collage was made by first layering a small strip of contrasting painted paper over the background. I Photoshopped my own photo of a chicory flower, printed it on Lesley Riley’s TAP, and then ironed it to light blue painted fabric and adhered the fabric to the collage with Misty Fuse.  The collage is 7×5″ mounted to 10×8″ on heavy watercolor paper.

I like having mixed-media collage as a nice contrast to my more “think-y” textile artwork.