Indigo Dyeing Day for Newbies

The results of all their work was fabulous!

One of the resists to create pattern.

Some new to resist dyeing
had a good time trying
to wrap rubber bands
around their T-shirts.

Sue Vegter (right) explaining process
to Jeanne Emery and new friend (left) from
the Bartlett/Van Wyk family.

Indigo dyeing day was Sat., May 3, this year (2014) and to my surprise, my former college roommate Pat Van Wyk Bartlett brought a lot of family from their reunion that weekend in Holland.  Everyone in that group was completely new to the technique and came with washed cotton T-shirts.

Yarn dyed in pokeberries.

Along with new people were some who were new to natural dyeing using onions skins (yellow to green) and pokeberries (hot pink) and overdyeing with indigo.

Dyed in just onion skins?

Yarn dyed in pokeberries and then overdyed
indigo.

Indigo Dyeing Show 'n Tell: Lou Wolf Vallance

The annual indigo dyeing day at my house this year was May 3.  Along with the blank fabric that everyone brought stitched or ready to be rubber banded was the quilt top that my friend Lou Wolf Vallance brought to show everyone what she had done in years past and how she had assembled the pieces.  It was a huge piece with glorious sections that she had spent an immense amount of time stitching before the dyeing days.  Feast your eyes!

Discharge Dyeing Class at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts

I look forward to doing a discharge dyeing class on Sat., May 31, at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts, in Saugatuck, Michigan.  Check out their website and the class info/details at:

http://sc4a.org/Education/Fiber-Workshop-with-Jennifer-Gould.aspx

The class is in conjunction with the arts center's exhibit "Material Girls:  Quilts by Judith Jarzembowski + Rugs by Judy Bowman Anthrop  (April 11 – June 8) 

In the class, we'll be playing with taking the color out on purpose from dark to medium colored cottons, especially cotton, using bleach and a couple of other discharge agents.  It's amazing how you can get multiple colors from a variety of discharge agents on the same fabric (see the sample here where Black Kona was discharged with bleach and gel on the left in an arashi shibori pattern as well as stamped using Thiox on the right).  Look forward to seeing you in the class!

Michigan League of Handweavers' Biennial Fiber Show and East Lansing Art Festival

On show at the Holland Area Arts Council, May 17-June 29, 2014, for the Michigan League of Handweaver's 18th Biennial Fiber Show:

"Is Life Really Emerging from Newly Discovered Moon Rocks?"

"Is Life Really Emerging from Newly Discovered Moon Rocks?" Detail
showing embroidery in cut and torn open areas (continues underneath).


My booth at the East Lansing Art Festival is #40 on M.A.C., right off of Grand
River across campus from MSU's main campus.  My work will encompass all
the types of work I do from dolls (all my new ones) to a lot of new handprinted
and discharged fabric, jackets, and scarves.  Look forward to seeing you
on Sat., May 17, and Sunday, May 18, 10-6!  

Silk scarves, shibori and discharged dyed

Artists Alliance at St. Cecilia's Terryberry Gallery

In the Wildwood: Winter

In the Wildwood:
Spring

In the Wildwood: Spring- detail 

Woman Enveloped
with Ferns

 Ever since my last post in January, I have been working diligently to get a number of large pieces accomplished which have stretched and developed my work, particularly the "In the Wildwood" series.  The "Winter" piece incorporates red twig dogwood, pruned from my bush outside my studio door.  The "Spring" piece, which like the Winter piece, uses a lot of deconstructed screen printed fabric and embroidery, I made first in the midst of the worst of this winter's horribly brutal weather.  Then I began on the Winter piece.  The "Woman Enveloped in Ferns" is covered with fly-stitched embroidery (a derivation, I think, of the blanket stitch) ferns that even envelope her face.  The Wildwood pieces were first exhibited at the "Celebration of the Arts" sponsored annually by the First United Methodist Church in downtown Grand Rapids, MI, during February.

Woman Enveloped with Ferns - detail.

Currently those pieces, along with three more new ones and some production pieces are on exhibit at the St. Cecilia Music Center's Terryberry Gallery with the Artists Alliance, a group of currently 12 members.  I don't have images of all the walls but it's a great show with dynamic work on exhibit through April 28.

Work by Deborah Lass (watercolors on left wall),
Jennifer Gould's dolls, Carol Brauer Schmidt's collage
and pastels, and Carol Cousineau's pastels.

Lynn Anderson's watercolor florals, Brenda Mattson (right
two pieces), and Jennifer Gould's Button Jester dolls.

Betts Casey's abstracts and Jennifer Gould's
textile figure.

Betts Casey's black and white abstracts were some of my favorites in the show.  If I'd know she was going to do these pieces, I would have made more figures in black and white and red!

Betts Casey's abstract.

Betts Casey abstracts.

Carol Cousineau's pastels and
Jennifer Gould's textile figure.

Christmas Cards I Save!

Traditional Japanese objects that are part of
Oshogatsu New Years celebrations

Christmas Cats!!  I actually bought the long accordion fold card
and saved it to display every year.  The little cards on the left: I
bought a box of these cards and send them out jurdiciously to those
who I think love and value cats; the littlest one was sent to me.

I used to do the One-of-a-Kind Show at the Chicago Merchandise Mart
every early December, and received this Christmas card from them.  I
love the scenes of downtown Chicago and the bright colors.

LaVonne Marshall used her painted
watercolor papers to collage this
Christmas tree long ago.

Japanese cranes from my mother-in-law
in Tokyo.

As I mentioned in my previous post about Japanese Pop-Up cards, I save the really unusual ones, especially if they're handmade.  This group are mostly multi-fold accordion style.  I set them up all over my main floor so that in the white landscape of winter (really bright from all the ambient light reflecting off the snow) or the dark overcast days and blizzard conditions (like today), I can see them.  And I have to admit I keep them out until I know that the snow and ice are really thawing, the sun is getting higher in the sky and the intensity of light is greater.  So hope you enjoy these, too.  (The cat ones are my favorite, of course!)

The accordion fold cards are inspiring me right now as I am working on a piece for my Lakeshore Fiber Arts Guild's brown bag challenge which will be accordion folded but a hanging piece (vertical) rather than a horizontal standing form.  That post to come.  Actually the next post will be about handmade ornaments.

Unique Christmas Cards: Japanese Pop-Outs

This card has side tabs (pink at edges) that you pull
to open the window and show the landscape.  I always
think this is Kyoto in cherry blossoms.

A lovely very small (3"w x 2.5" t) pop-out
card from friends Asayo and Tom Toyota.

Side view to illustrate how it's
put together.

I love the cards that my friends send me, especially those that are unusual and colorful.  My friends in Japan often send what are called there "pop-up" cards.  These generally now are multiple layers of 100s of Santas (definitely wouldn't be done in the US) although back in the 80's and 90's my former husband and I received some that were of landscapes and birds.  Some day I'm going to try my hand at making some pop-up cards like the first two above---my favorites!

As you can see I hang many of these over my slider door on ornament hangers from the top section so they can hang in pop-out form.  Most of the cards I hang on a wide cotton lace piece around  my dining room window and the overflow get taped to my front door (inside, of course!)