The Surface Design Association’s scarf and shawl auction is now open (even though their website header hadn’t been updated last time I checked).

There are over 100 gorgeous scarves and shawls, but there are also books, DVDs, magazine subscriptions, etc.  All items are donated and the proceeds benefit the Creative Promise Awards, conference scholarships, SDA grants, and more.

If you want the best in surface design, I can’t think of a better place to shop than this fundraiser for the Surface Design Association.

The Surface Design Association Conference begins today and continues through May 31, 2009 in Kansas City, MO. The Members’ Show Surface Matters is at the Belger Arts Center. More information here.

Materials include white cotton fabric, acrylic textile paint, oil paint sticks, pigment ink, rayon thread, cotton embroidery thread, vintage polyester scarf, Lutradur, and velvet fabric.

I am generally impatient to begin and finish an artwork, but I was working on this piece while I had several other big artworks in progress.  So I added a layer a day and let it evolve organically.  You can read more about the creation of this artwork here.

It’s interesting that I unconsciously return over time to the same themes drawn from my love of the Midwestern landscape.  Here is January Fields from way back in 2003:

And this is Four O’Clock from 2004.

I was studying the work of Helen Frankenthaler at the time and wrote, “I am inspired by Frankenthaler’s work and words to capture that feeling in the sky and fields in Nebraska late in the afternoon in March when the sun is slanting down, the wind is blowing like crazy (as usual!) and we are teetering on the edge between the death of Winter and the birth of Spring.”