Textile Art & Fine Craft
Commissioned work in progress, February 2024 Studio Three 17 is shifting focus from an art business to an art practice. I have worked with fabric and clients for over five decades. I began with clothing repairs, alterations, and construction. I progressed through crafts, home decor and furnishings, and finally to fabric art. During the pandemic … Continue reading Shift Happens
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. --T. S. Eliot This is the view from my home farm looking west. And this is the week my brother celebrates his birthday. That was a big … Continue reading Call / respond week 22
One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. --Michelle Obama I added this quotation to my collection this past year, pairing it with the artwork, Collect. Most readers will see that title as a verb, … Continue reading Call / respond week 19
To make a prairie it take a clover and one bee-- One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do If bees are few. --Emily Dickinson "Revery" is woven from strips of fabric and matted on both sides. It is designed to hang in a window of on a french door. This … Continue reading call/respond Week 18
And it's spring when the world is puddle-wonderful --e e cummings I was a middle schooler when the poetry of e e cummings took hold of me. As an Illinois farm child, spring was a mixed season because on wet years the mud was nearly unsurmountable. But the poet's picture of spring enchanted me. Years … Continue reading Call / Respond Week 17
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. --Helen Keller This is a detail from one of the 40 panels of the work Dancing Ground. About Call / Response: Quote-a-day calendars infuse my day with an unpredicted perspective. This year I will post weekly words of another person and my … Continue reading Call /Respond Week 12
A very great vision is needed and the person who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky. --Crazy Horse I found the words from Crazy Horse one day this past winter. The art piece, Sequestered, was begun a decade ago after a really good study about time … Continue reading Call / respond Week 10
We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves and others, — Albert Camus Joseph in The Well and the Camus quotation have existed in my repertoire for years but were just put together … Continue reading Call / Respond Week 9
One of the marks of a gift is to have the courage of it. Katherine Anne Porter Heart's Desire began as fun, putting together tumbler patches in a neutral colorway. After I had layered it with batting and backing and quilted through the layers, I added tucks to the bottom of the hanging. The copper … Continue reading Call / Response Week 7
A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. —Annie Dill Dance at Midnight is an early work, completed long before I found this quote. I chose it as an illustration … Continue reading Call / Respond Week 6
On good weather school days, my father Wes often managed to be in the farmyard when the school bus pulled in to drop off the three of us kids. We enjoyed seeing him there. But as we made our way off the bus, we prepared for the certainty of him asking, “What did you learn … Continue reading Wes and Will: More Good Questions
The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself. --Ursala LeQuin This diminutive piece (3.5 x 5.5") resides in our library as a tribute to my love of good questions, which I learned from my father. I made it long before I encountered the quote from Ursala LeQuin. Those words are being … Continue reading Call / Respond Week 4
An unexpected aspect of working for faith communities and on larger scale pieces is the need for custom fabric with large faith motifs or repeated motifs in colors appropriate for season and space. For over a decade I have been exploring printing by screens, stencils, and blocks using either paint or dye on a variety … Continue reading Visual Vocabulary
"....the self we assume like a garment." - Kate Chopin
https://videopress.com/v/38RgRV8S?preloadContent=metadata Using images of creative process for encouragement. Commissioned work for congregations is work that is shared with a variety of people over time. I like that aspect of the work. People I never know will be experiencing my art seven years and a Sunday from now. I caught myself in an uncharacteristic act on … Continue reading A 45 Degree Adjustment
An unexpected aspect of online worship is the opportunity to have a close up view of altar and pulpit furnishings. My pew partner Joan recently wrote me, asking that I expound on the woven cross she saw closely on Zoom Easter worship. I created this white frontal for our congregation, Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in … Continue reading Woven Cross
Tiny art work in a garden gallery. I long for local art shows when the supporters of the arts dress up to celebrate innovative, creative work. My Board of Directors ( dolls, action figures, inanimate friends collected over decades) encouraged me to prepare work to show in our garden this summer. The abstract collection features … Continue reading Celebrate Small (July 4, 2020)
Three handcrafted wooden stools work in our home. Today they tell me to choose a summer that is a mix of work and rest. I struggle to overcome pandemic inertia; canceled events cleared the calendar of interaction but I have commissions to complete. The white stool was made by my grandfather when I was a … Continue reading Summer Solstice: Three Simple Stools
Custom work filled many summer days at the studio this year. Completed projects are now delivered. Before I completely shift into next season's work, my hands and mind are revisiting techniques and tools: a bit like a family reunion. Grandma Alice showed me how to tie quilts when I was a teenager. My fingers readily … Continue reading Joy of Making: Knots
Fabric artists and quilters often point to a fabric in a piece, naming it as the inspiration, the starting point. My work usually begins in a conversation with a client or in an a dialogue that has a bit of friction to it. I have struggled with getting started on works I want to make … Continue reading Fabric as Inspiration
There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. --Fred Rogers Remembering my sister-in-law, Kay. About Call / Response: Quote-a-day calendars infuse my day with an unpredicted perspective. This year I will post weekly words of another person and my textile art. I want more time with the words and … Continue reading Call/respond week 23
Spring is nature's way of saying "Let's party." --Robin Williams Trio of Dancers was joyously created several springs ago from remains of three other projects: the pieced background, the triangle screen print, the three-dancer design. Context, pattern, and design. Sounds like an art party to me. About Call / Response: Quote-a-day calendars infuse my day … Continue reading Call / respond week 21
Be like the bird when pausing on limb too slight, sings, knowing she has wings. --Victor Hugo This quotation was discovered before I turned 20! This week, the warbler and the quotation and I are celebrating the birthday of one of my daughters in law. Kendra is an artist, a lover of birds, and one … Continue reading call / respond week 20
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. --Bertrand Russell One of the original self portraits of the artist as as egg My husband enjoys looking at what is happening in our garden, while I tend to invest more energy in the making and keeping of a garden. His example reminds me that an … Continue reading Call / Respond Week 16