MISSA Day 2

I had said I was going to post after my second day at MISSA (Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts) but a few things happened to stop me. I decided to stay on campus rather than drive to and from home for over 3 hours each day. The campus is isolated with no cell phone coverage and my lap top worked with a weak signal only when I sat on a bench outside the library. So here is a catch-up of my week at MISSA.
Here are the lengths of silk after day 1 in Shannon Wardroper's class.

This is a the view looking down on the floating classroom, a marine biology lab during the school year.

This is where I liked to have my afternoon tea, a sitting on a rock under an oak tree, looking down towards the sea.

A close up of a section of my painted silk.

MISSA

I have just spent the day out at Lester Pearson College. It is an International Baccalaureate High school, with students from 100 different countries, during the school year. Over the summer, it turns into MISSA -Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts.

Today I started a 2-day class, with Shannon Wardroper, where we learnt how to paint and resist layer upon layer of colour and design onto silk yardage.

Our classroom in the best one on the campus - the floating marine science lab. After each application of dye we stood out on the dock in the sun and breeze to 'shoot the breeze' while our cloths dried. Such a idyllic way to spend a summer's day.

Shannon has been wonderful taking us through the fundamentals were we practiced all sorts of techniques and methods for colour building.

Here is part of my yardage. It is getting very busy but I have been able to try lots of different things. I was a bit too heavy handed with the wax in the first few layers.

Here the wax is still on the silk. Tomorrow we iron off the wax, iron on interfacing, then cut it up.

I'll show tomorrow's progress next post.

Working Hard on Dissertaion

I have not visited bloggerland for nearly a month because i have been thoroughly immersed in researching for a dissertation, the module i am doing this semester for the BA (Hons) programme I am enrolled in.
Here is a picture of what my desk looks like. You can't see the piles of books i have on the floor either side of my chair.
The focus of my dissertation is a collection of 5 of my mother's embroidered cloths she worked in her teens/early 20s.
My mother came and stayed with us and in that time she wrote about her cloths and i was able to interview her. So i have lots of primary research material to work with.

The state of my latest stained cloth experiments tells me I have been very busy because I obviously left them too long and they have gone to the next stage of decay. Oh well, it was an experiment and I still got results.
The cloth above was soaked in soy milk first. A textile artist who follows my blog from Australia recommended soy milk to me. Thank you very must for the good advice.

The second cloth was soaked in tannic acid first, before being covered by leaves under a big maple tree. As you can see the staining wasn't as marked. So soy milk is the winner.
Now I am ready for the fall when I will put some cloths out under the maple tree just before it begins to drop its leaves. This is part of my on going dialogue with this tree.

Victoria College of Art

My big news is I have decided to go back teaching.
I have had a look around all of the schools in Victoria where art is taught and have settled on teaching at the Victoria College of Art.
The school is in this 100-year old building, originally an elementary school with a boys' entrance and a girls' entrance.

I will be setting up a Textile Arts programme and will begin with an intensive 6 week course on hand stitching. It is called Mark Making with Thread. Students will attend twice a week for 6 hours each day so they will be able to work in an atelier studio type of set up.

The last week will be for final critiques of work and the mounting of a public exhibition of their work. It is all very exciting and I'm so looking forward to teaching the course in November. In the meantime, I have to get my dissertation written for my own BA studies.

Each year the year-3s work together on a community/group project. The front doors of the school show the project last year's year-3 students worked on. It is made from painted and polished copper.

I'm back - sharing a knitting video

I'm back.

I've been so busy with life i haven't had time to do my usual stuff, including posting on my blog.

I'm in 'catch-up' mode for the next couple of days, then I'll get to telling you what i have been up to.

In the meantime, i found this wonderful video for you, on Knotty by Nature's blog - they are one of the best local fiber stores we have access to here in Victoria.

jeffmilner.com � Lysanne Latulippe

Canadian Quilt Associaltion 2010

More work in Articulation's booths at CQA.
Vickie Newington's work.

Vickie Newington and Wendy Klotz's work.

Ingrid Lincoln and my work.

Two of Vickie's works.

Continuing Tour - CQA

To continue the tour of Articulation's exhibition at CQA, here are 2 works by Vickie Newington. On the left is the companion work to 'Ally' called 'Concrete Reflection' and on the right 'Big Sky Country II'.

Next to that is Vickie's 'Colours of History'.

On the table was my 'Nana's Garden' series.....

...and Miriam Birkenthal's 2 exquisitely hand embroidered purses and a 3 dimensional table piece inspired by a vigorously growing dandelion.

More from Articulation's CQA Exhibit

(Left) Wendy Klotz's 'Gates Puzzle' silk piecing and applique and Vickie Newington's stump work and stamping.

Donna Clement's 'Spruce' and 'Cedar', free motion embroidery on cotton, silk, linen and paper.

Wendy Klotz's 'Colours of the Forest', hand dyed, hand/wet felted, machine embroidered wool and organza.

Vickie Newington's work. (not sure of the title of the left hand one, 'Alley' or 'Concrete Reflection', but it is from her Winnepeg series), painted, printed, burned, felted, machine embroidered, layered. Right, 'A Hole of My Own', cotton, rubber, metal , plastic has been hand dyed, embroidered by machine and hand and layered.

I think Articulation's work was successful in showcasing a wide variety of stitching techniques and materials.

The Dialogues Continue

Gardening vs Nurturing. This dialogue has been going on for several months now. The black landscape fabric is still visible as it holds debris on top of it but the crocheted doilies are blending right into the ground. There is no sign of decay or staining on them.

I feel as though it is time for me to respond. But what could I say....

Next sunny day I need to sit beside the textiles with my sketchbook and wait for something to happen.

This is the side view of my old sweater staked out on the grass. The new growth is pushing up on the sweater because it can't work its way through the fabric. It looks like there is a pregnant body inside which is interesting because that is why I stopped wearing it. That plus the tomato soup stain on the front.

More Articulation work at CQA

I am posting images of the Articulation exhibition at CQA on 2 different blogs - mine and Articulation's.
Left - Ingrid's "Night" is an abstract response to the city she has lived in for many years. There are lots of layers here: screen printing, applique, mark making by hand.
Middle - Gloria's work started as a black piece of cloth that she discharged, cut up and reassembled. The black boarder is lost on the black curtain.
Right - My work. While I was researching the Tyndall stone quarried just outside Winnipeg, I found a reference to it also being known as 'Tapestry Stone', which just begged me to make a stone block in a tapestry technique.

Here are 2 different responses to being in the rain forest.
On the left is Donna's work and I find her response as a prairie girl most interesting. With a life-long perspective of the flora being below her knees, she has emphasised the continual falling of leaves and debris from above as a unique aspect of the rain forest ecosystem.
The work on the right is Vickie's. Her perspective is as a more distant observer looking at the rain forest as details move in and out of focus. She has a more atmospheric response.

The work on the right is Leann's, another life-long prairie girl, and like Donna, she too responded to the mass of many greens and leaves falling from overhead.
The work on the left is Donna's from the Winnipeg body of work. She explored in a number of works the ethnic diversity of the immigrants to Canada as they came to claim their grid-surveyed plot of land.

While in the rain forest on Vancouver Island, Vickie looked down and in the decay of an old stump saw new life growing. She layered 9 fabrics and, using the reverse applique technique, she revealed the stump's growth rings and rotting core. She used stump work techniques to show the new sapling (nice pun there).

Babes In the Woods

Last post I mentioned the classic image 'Babes in the Woods' then thought people may not know which image I was thinking about. So I found this 1935 version of it to explain what I was reminded of when the 2 children sat down in front of my work 'Succession'.

Succession/Regression at CQA

Over a number of earlier posts I showed you the development of some work for Articulation's Rain Forest body of work. I couldn't show you the finished work because we had a contract to have a certain amount of new work at the Canadian Quilters' Assoc conference in Calgary.
And here they are, out in the world for the first time.
On the left, 'Regression', on the right 'Succession'
Once it was hung I was thinking about how they were made to be suspended from a ceiling, to be viewed from all sides. And how they don't look as full of life against black curtains with low light.

But once these  2 children ran up to the work and sat down in front of it, I felt everything was alright.
 The boy called out to his mother, "Look Mom, its real." I just had to take a picture (with Mom's permission).
The children's reaction to my work made me feel it was successful. I had achieved what I had intended with the work.

This reminds me of that classic photograph 'Babes in the Wood'.

CQA Conference

Wendy Klotz talks about her work.

I talk about my work.

Gloria Daly's 'Stalwart' and Donna Clement's response to the arbutus tree, both works from the Rain forest body of work.

Ingrid Lincoln' 'Graffiti' and 'Cityscape' from the Winnipeg collection and my 'Meadow' from the Rocky Mountain collection