New Electroforming

I'm really enjoying the latest round of electrofoming.


Hands down, electroformed beads are my most popular, and electroforming is the biggest hit in statistics for both my blog and my website.


I've been approached to teach electroforming, so I've been thinking about WHAT I would teach. I don't want to step on the toes of those who have taught basic electroforming for years, such as Kate Fowle Meleney, who brought the old technique of electroforming to the glass bead world. So I've been trying hard to distinguish my work from hers and others. I think this carved style qualifies as unique to me.


So I've been thinking hard about what would be required to teach this carved electroforming technique. It's a bit scary that the economy might put a damper on student availability, but something new hopefully always has possibilities. Want to encourage me???

Feeling Koi?

More fish from earlier in the week.



Today, I'm working on a merging of the pods with the cone filigree beads and the table layout. I feel much better after trying it out -- I have more than I thought. Consequently, I've relinquished my touch of panic and decided to make only what I want to make for the next few days. I'll save the next round of koi tiles to wrap tomorrow.

Sculpted Fish

Deadline looming! Three views around the bead:

From Mistakes to Inspiration

All week I left the two broken fish tiles sitting on the graphite near my torch. Every time I saw them I felt a pang of loss. I kept thinking about how to salvage them. Then two things went together in my head -- inspiration!!


Leaf patterns are pretty ubiquitous in the glass bead world. I've been practicing my stringer work leaves with what I call my kelp pattern. That stems from one of my earliest art quilts, Going with the Flow, which has beautiful silk kelp and jellyfish. The kelp leaves have a float at the base of each one, so that's the way I do the leaves -- a stem with attached dots for floats and then long upward leaves.


Yesterday, I decided to wrap the broken tiles onto the bead anyway, try to attach the second part as best I could, then cover the break with kelp. Along the way I remembered this idea I had about surface sculpting the beads to give more dimension to the fish. See the trail where the kelp winds around? That's where the crack was.


It also masks nicely the back of the bead where the tile comes together, especially in the beads where I use dichro sheet underneath, because it leaves a noticeable line.

I am so in love with these -- so much more enchanting than the plain, flat fish. I'll never go back!!! I guess I should wish for more mistakes.

Which do you like better -- the plain, flat fish or the sculpted fish?

ISGB Bead Currents

Last year I vowed to enter more shows and submit to more publications. I'm happy to say that I've had very good luck with that. Everything I've submitted has been accepted. Of course, there were a couple of misses on the submission end of things.

I really wanted to enter Out of the Box, an interesting sculptural challenge with glass and beads that must fit in a clear plexi box 6"x6"x6". The show tours around the country, and I got to see it at Bead & Button. The night of the show preview I wandered upstairs and had it all to myself before the guard asked me to leave. It was fascinating and the printed catalog was nicely done, so I really kicked myself for missing the deadline.

Hence, I came home and entered Bead Currents, another juried bead show at the Gathering. The theme this year was currents, since the meeting is in Oakland near the ocean. I loosely interpreted the theme to mean either water or air currents and submitted both my painted fish beads and bird vessels. The acceptance came recently, several weeks after the supposed May 30 notification date. Subsequently, the beads are due to be received by July 15. Since the beads submitted were representative of the work and not required to be the actual submitted beads, I of course need to make some. I must send a minimum of six and a maximum of ten.

Eek! This week I've been trying to focus. I made a couple of bird vessels -- the transparent pale green bird turned out pretty well and the ultrasoft ivory glass was more challenging. Of course, I wanted those soft light colors so that I can paint the surface. Maybe I better make a few more in the stiffer transparent glass before I try more ivory or white.

I also painted seven fish tiles with black outlines and fired. Then I did the color painting on four and refired. Again, standing right there cleaning the studio, I slightly overfired by about a minute. That shouldn't have been a huge problem except that I then exacerbated it by using a cold pair of tweezers to pick up a couple, which cracked them in two. I also let a lovebird bead get irreversibly covered with soot because I forgot that I need to turn the oxygen way up when working Bullseye glass.

Sigh. All the little details I forget when I haven't done some things in a while. I'm relearning as fast as possible. After all, I need to ship the work soon.

Fauna Details

emprint asked for more details about Fauna. I've put small cuts of my strip here so that you can click on them and really see the details.

For the best coverage, see the article about it in the April/May 2007 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. I don't have the details right in front of me, but the overall size of the quilt is roughly 4'x5'.

Our mandate was to construct a panel, approximately 4'x1' with 1/3 sky, 1/3 land, 1/3 underground with fauna accompanied by flora. (We also stipulated blue, not turquoise, sky and a purple backing fabric.) Starting with white fabric, each of the five artists used their own personal toolbox to paint, assemble, and quilt their panel. I assembled the completed panels using a butted, reinforced seam of free-motion satin stitch and a grosgrain facing to finish the edges.

I won't try to speak for the other artists, but I can describe my panel in more detail. I painted Pellon interfacing for the front surface and appliquéd pieces onto a composite background. The cactus flowers centers are machine stitched of pearl cotton loops, and the cactus spines are thin copper wires tacked in place by machine.

Sisters

Sisters are special, and artistic sisters are especially special. Since we met almost a decade ago as a new group of Austin art quilters, now dispersed across the country, we've been supporting one another personally and artistically. We have also followed a common process of making group quilts, but with amazing prize-winning success.

Today, we did it again! After the disappointment of having Fauna barred from the International Quilt Association show in Houston last year (because of yours truly, who had the nerve to stitch sharp wire spines to painted prickly pear cactus), we were thrilled when Quilting Arts Magazine ran an eight page spread on the quilt in the April/May 2007 issue. Today we learned that Pacific International Quilt Festival awarded it second place in the Innovative category.

This quilt marks the first time that we have entered under the moniker of The Gomez Sisters. Our real names in order of the panels, left to right are: Frances Holliday Alford, Kathy York, me, Julie John Upshaw, and Judy Coates Perez.

New Birds

I was shocked to learn that many people don't recognize the downward facing birds in my bird vessels. So I've been playing with some different, much simpler birds. Yesterday I borrowed the branch idea that Jennifer Geldard has been using in some of her "konstructs" and used it to accent one of these birds. The metallic greens and blues on the bird are hard to photograph. A hole runs horizontally through the branch at the top for a cord. I tried hanging one of my painted birdhouse beads in the middle, but it was just too big. I'm going to try some tiny birds to hang from the birdhouses though.

Quilting Arts

Issue 26 of Quilting Arts Magazine contains an eight-page spread of "Fauna," a group quilt including my desert fauna panel. The magazine cover is a closeup of the seahorse from Kathy York's panel. Kathy also has her own separate article in the magazine detailing construction of the three-dimensional fish on her quilt "Sychronized Swimming." And another member of the group, Frances Holliday Alford, has a devoted article about her typically heavily embellished work. The two other members of the group are Judy Coates Perez and Julie John Upshaw.

This issue also has a special article on a public installation of two gorgeous fabric paintings made by Joanie SanChirico, a fellow member of Fiber Connection.

This is the best issue ever, IMO!

Prickles

A group of quilt friends and I traditionally make a group quilt about once a year. The most recent quilt was Fauna, where each person made a strip approximately 12"w x 48"h. All started as white fabric and were variously painted and stitched and then assembled.

My strip, shown here, includes a lot of different cacti as well as desert fauna. I added copper wire spines to the prickly pear cactus. Those spines were deemed "dangerous" and resulted in the quilt being eliminated at the judging stage from the International Quilt Association show in Houston in October.

As I'm feeling rather prickly about that, I've decided to pursue the concept of dangerous quilts. It's such an interesting oxymoronic concept. But first, another cactus quilt for a friend's benefit gala silent auction. Photos coming soon.