Other Stuff

This fabric started in blueberry dye. No, really. I found some blueberries in the freezer, boiled them down and drained off the juice, and then poured it over this fabric, which was stuffed into a little container with some random fabric scraps that wanted to be blue, too.



I let the fabric batch for three days, turning the container every few hours. When I took it out and rinsed it, it smelled awful- obviously the blueberry juice was going bad and had turned a brownish color. Since I couldn't use the fabric smelling as badly as it did, I tossed it in the washing machine and ran it through a gentle cycle. What came out of the machine was a gunmetal gray I really wasn't satisfied with.

I had juice left over , so I soaked the fabric again for 24 hours. The result wasn't much more pronounced than after the first batching, and since I was dyeing in blues anyway yesterday, I threw this fabric and the scraps into the bath, and what you see above was the result.

I'm pleased.

In order to go not into textile overload, I still splash paint and glue around on a regular basis. This stretched canvas background emerged last week and now awaits a focal point.


While I had the lighting equipment out, I went ahead and photographed this piece, called Jumping Woman, which I did shortly after President Obama won his election. I was overjoyed with his victory, and this piece was the result.


Like the background above, it was also done on a stretched canvas frame and contains fibers, fabrics and painted papers. I also created a fiber figure with her arms raised high in joy, and painted paper/fun foam "buttons", which were adhered along the bottom. It has a couple of beads I made from painted foil candy wrappers that were then melted and formed into bead shapes.


So, another week is off and running... or flying...


Ready, set, create!