The Colors of Snow

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Art, color, design, design challenge, pattern, silk, snow, snow dye, tie dye

For textile artists living in areas with snow, winter provides a novel vehicle for putting color on fabric. The top image shows the original piece of heavy silk organza, a/k/a gazaar, that was prepped, manipulated, and piled high with various colors of dye mixed into snow. As the snow melts, the dyes, often composed of many otherwise hidden colors, begin to “strike” the fibers at various rates. This reveals unexpected intensities and blending within the fractured patterns that emerge from the unbound cloth.

A new Tie-Dye themed Design Challenge at Spoonflower.com was the perfect motivation for digitizing this snow dyed silk and creating the pattern above. Click here to vote for your favorite design through March 31, 2020.

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Blue Skies

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Art, blue jay, classic blue, color of the year 2020, design, design challenge, spoonflower, steller's jay, textile design

This new Steller’s + Blue Jays design was created for the Spoonflower Limited Palette challenge. Just four predetermined colors, inspired by Pantone’s Classic Blue color of the year – 2020, are allowed to create any pattern for this challenge. You can vote for your favorites at Classic Blue Challenge.

Free Shipping Worldwide on Custom Printed Fabrics

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Art, artist designed fabric, custom fabric, eco-friendly fabric, opera masks, spoonflower.com

Once again, Spoonflower is offering FREE Shipping on all orders now through October 27th. Your choice of any design on more than 20 fabrics. Also available in wallpaper. Eco-friendly printing and produced in the USA!

Free Shipping on Custom Fabric Designs

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American made, Art, artist designed, Chinese Opera masks, custom fabrics, custom giftwrap, custom wallpaper, eco-friendly, environmentally friendly, organic fabrics, Peking Opera masks

June 24-28, get free shipping on custom fabrics, wallpaper, and gift wrap from Spoonflower.com.  Spoonflower’s printing process is environmentally friendly, using a fraction of the water used in traditional textile printing, reducing the carbon footprint, and offering great fabrics including organic and sustainably produced options. All this and produced in the USA!

Science Museum of Minnesota

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Art, diatoms, great blue heron, green heron, hand dyed silk, hand painted silk, Pine Needles, Science Museum of Minnesota, silk, St. Croix River Valley, St. Croix Watershed Research Station, St. Paul, walnut dyes

The Science Museum of Minnesota was directly across the street from the convention center and conference participants were able to visit for free. Again – a photo using the panoramic app. One of the things I especially like about taking pictures like this is the irregular shape of the image. It really bends the space.
There is a Pterodactyl(?) skeleton suspended from the ceiling and a world map in the floor of the entrance.

After leaving St. Paul, we drove to Marine-on-St. Croix to visit the St. Croix Watershed Research Station (SCWRS). I was an artist in residence there in 2008 and last year at this time delivered the piece I created as an interpretation of my stay at Pine Needles, the cabin designated as the “residence” for this program. I hadn’t had the chance to photograph the piece before delivering it to the station, so I took the opportunity on this visit. Click on the photo to see a larger version.
The pieces I create as interpretations of residencies tend to be more complex than my other work. Hopefully, the story of the two or three weeks I spend immersed in a new place become well integrated as a snapshot of that time. Once in a Blue Moon combines images I obtained from the research done in the river directly outside the door of Pine Needles – diatoms and discs used in Lead 210 testing of sediment core samples – with the plants and animals I observed during the three weeks I lived there – Great Blue and Little Green herons, the blue moon that occurred, and of course, the pine needles.  The SCWRS is part of the Science Museum of Minnesota.

The Other Side of the River

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Art, Ashleigh Still, blues, Bo Ramsey, country, jazz, JJ Hill Library, Minnesota Public Radio, music, poetry, Real-Phonic Radio Hour, St. Paul

I just returned from St. Paul, Minnesota (work related trip) and had a chance to attend the first in what will be a monthly Minnesota Public Radio Program called Real-Phonic Radio Hour. The show took place in an amazing space – the James J. Hill Reference Library in downtown St. Paul. I took lots of photos with my iPod using an app called Photosynth. This is a free panoramic photo stitching app from Microsoft that actually works pretty well!  Click on the images for a larger version.
This view was taken from one end of the room and ends pretty much where it began. In the real world, the columns are parallel to one another and the walls behind the columns are filled with books.
The Real-Phonic Band – Erik Koskinen, Paul Bergen Frankie Lee and JT Bates; Bo Ramsey and Ashleigh Still performed along with a wonderful poet.
A fun result of the way these frames are stitched together is the disappearance of portions of previous images – notice the bass player in the red shirt – or what’s left of him.

The scene after the performance from a perch atop the opposite end of the room – the walls of books were so high that narrow open walkways were constructed for access to the library. I was on a wider balcony which still seemed pretty scary! But this gives a more realistic  view of the room. Keep in mind that each of these images is composed of many frames – probably no fewer than 2 dozen for this one.

Craving Color

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Art, textile workshops, vat dye

Just back from a fantastic workshop with my friend, Barbara Schneider, who showed 5 eager students the magic of vat dyes. First there was some hard physical labor as we mixed all of the necessary powders and liquids together to make 8 basic colors. Then, after a feast of Wild Rice and Mushroom soup (vegetarian, thank you), we headed back to the studio and made as many samples as possible. The images below are from the workshop and I’ll post some results a bit later. If any of you are interested in taking one of Barbara’s workshops, I will post a link to her site in the sidebar.