January 29, 2013

Two New Textiles: "Cherry Ribbon" & "Chartreuse Ribbon"


Cherry Ribbon and Chartreuse Ribbon


My two most recent paintings were inspired by the drawing studies for these textiles, which you can see at this blog post. Not only was I excited about making paintings based on these ideas, I was excited about the textiles too. I've enjoyed making shaped pieces––you can see two recent works here––but haven't done anything quite this sinuously complex. 


Cherry Ribbon, hand dyed wool on linen, 16 x 9 in.


I like playing with illusion, as imperfect as my attempts are. 


Chartreuse Ribbon,  22 1/2  x 8 1/2 in.


I also want the forms to be interesting, to hold the space around them in an energetic way.




Making these illusionistic pieces is a good deal more complicated than textiles with flat shapes. I dip dye a long piece of wool, gradually adding more and more of it to the dye bath so that one end is dark and it lightens gradually toward the other end. I then cut the wool apart into its graduated values, labeling each one, from 1 to 7. Being organized really helps the work along. The small hand-cranked machine you see clamped to the table is my wool cutting tool; it cuts the wool into narrow strips for hooking. 




I put some recent pieces up on my studio wall to see how they felt about each other; not bad, I think.


7 comments:

  1. The illusion you created with these is a heck of a lot of fun, and I like seeing them in playful positions on the wall. In fact, it would be great to see a whole wall of these floating around!

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    1. Thanks, Mona. I'm hoping to do at least two more of these in the next few months.

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  2. love that you are going in two directions at once---the minimal/formal and the wacko illusionistic

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  3. Thank you, Lori and Mia. It's fun spreading out my ideas in different directions, with the medium holding it all together.

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