Sock Dolls at Rockford Schools Summer Arts Camp

www.JenniferGouldDesigns.com

Sock Doll "Self-Portrait in a Bikini and
Hawaiian Skirt"

Sock Doll "Wild Woman"

Again, making up for lost time when I wasn't blogging, I'd like to tell you about my gig as an instructor for the Rockford (Michigan) Public Schools Summer Arts Camp the summer of 2011.  It ran for a week (Monday through Friday) and I taught 2 classes.  The girls in my classes were from 6 to 12 years old---an age group I especially love, but I have to admit that it was the hardest $200 I've ever earned, except for my time as a college freshman working for Saga food service.

I taught a 50-minute class on making sock doll puppets and another one on painting jeans and T-shirts.  For some reason I assumed these girls could thread a needle, even one of those huge plastic needles with big eyes with yarn.  Not so.  Sometimes I questioned their ability to have an imagination but I have to give them credit for trying those 5 days.  It was incredibly hot in the cafeteria of the middle school and they were doing something that they'd never done before and I probably hadn't explained it well.  I did have lots of materials on hand, even extra socks.  By the second day, I was not having any fun---it was pulling teeth and I felt like it was MY teeth.  So the third day I brought my camera, took each girl's close-up picture of her face, hands and feet.  Now this was fun.  I printed out the images on my printer, having downsized the pictures so that the face was about an 1-1/2" and hands/feet to match.  By Thursday they were cutting out their faces and making great pieces with dangling hands and feet and wild hair.

The jeans and T-shirt painting class went a little better but the clean-up took me longer than the 50-minute class.  But they had a great time.  Unfortunately I couldn't stay on Friday evening for the presentation of all the work in the lobby (went to my niece's wedding rehearsal dinner and wedding in Columbus OH---wouldn't have missed it!), so I didn't get to see all the parents oohing and aahing.

Discharge to Doll: Swatch Exchange

Kona Crimson cotton discharged with hot
Thiox, sprayed with bleach, Jacquard paste
dots; blue stripes are ProChem textile paint.
This piece later appeared in
Cloth Paper Scissors magazine.

Black Kona cotton discharged with bleach;
dots were made with Jacquard paste.

"Fern Woman" with Jeannie Palmer
Moore's fabric

In the spring of 2011, I participated in a fabric swatch exchange through Cloth Paper Scissors magazine.  We had to send eight 9"x9" fabric pieces.  I decided to send two different sets of fabrics since I had so much from my discharge experiments the summer of 2010.  I, in turn, received wonderful fabric in the mail about two or three months later, one of which was from Jeannie Palmer Moore in California, a quilter, dyer and surface design artist of incredible talent.  Her cotton twill was dyed in subtle sage, olive and browns using a shibori technique (whipped stitch to create a line that looks like fish skeleton, called ori-nui).  Her piece was so beautiful that I put it in a doll for a show the next year (which she later purchased!).

YT Galleria Show, Grand Rapids, Michigan

If you're in the area, please visit the show and even better, attend the reception on Thurs., Dec. 9, and meet Ann Willey.

Square Headed Women

Black Tan Big Circles

Woman in Tassels

Ms. X

Green Pink Leaves

Pink Green Leaves

Black, Brown, Tan