Art Archives - Page 13 of 27 - Sherri Woodard Coffey

Category Archives: Art

Well, look what came in the mail

Sarah Swett’s book is handsewn

Sarah Swett has written and produced this small book about weaving a bag on a box. You can buy it here. I love her drawings and you can see more of them on her blog, A Field Guide to Needlework. Clever name, right? I’ve actually tried weaving on a box before, not very successfully, but after reading this small book, I’m thinking maybe another try is in order. It seems there are remedies for the problems I had with this type of weaving.

Inside the envelope Was a postcard with a picture of the very first weaving I saw of Sarah’s. I remember being astounded at the range of color she achieved with natural dyes, the detail, vitality, and energy in the piece. I still think that.

Energetic postcard

In my effort to become more observant, I have been taking a lot of pictures. I’ve driven by this sculpture a million times and decided to take a picture this time. I especially wanted to get at least part of the pink window with the red sculpture, which is in front of the studio of Rebecca Low, the sculptor.

Rebecca Low’s studio

Taken using the remote shutter

While shopping in Target the other day, I picked up a Bluetooth Remote Shutter. All you have to do is put the battery in, turn it on and pair your phone with it, turn on the camera, and push a button. Voila! A picture is taken. There’s not one on the Target website, but the one I got is very similar to this one at Amazon, except no wrist strap. Lower price too.

Below you can see my project for,the week–putting the table loom together. I really wish the directions were better, or that there was at least a list of parts with pictures. This really will probably take the week. Why did I decide to do this?!!

Ashford table loom in pieces

Inspiration with children at the Japanese Garden

Bark before Photoshop

As I mentioned last time I wrote, family is here, so time has been spent going to the zoo, Japanese Garden, and restaurants. Besides the family pictures, I find myself taking inspiration photos also. Keep in mind these pictures are taken with my phone, and after the original was taken, there was manipulation, with a Photoshop app on the phone and with Photoshop on my computer. In the case of the photo above, I played around with it before posting on Instagram. I have no idea why or what I could do with this photo, but I really like this bark. Also, it’s not from a tree that I am familiar with.

From Instagram With a lot of Photoshop thrown in.

Plain brick path

Bricks using vibrance adjustment

Bricks-hue adjustment

Using contrast and exposure adjustment

Plugging along

Upside down, but …

http://www.blurb.com/images/uploads/catalog/70/167570/2025509-629e613087368b0b167e9b96d5711020.jpg

James Koehler’s book

Because of a family visit, I probably won’t be posting for a couple of weeks. Busy visiting. Right now? You know, the housework stuff that needs to be done. My favorite thing.

A weaving world update: I cut the piece off the loom; it’s basking on the floor as we speak. I’m not totally sure about it yet. Seems a bit plain. Maybe some embellishment? This piece is wide and kind of narrow. I will be trying out a new hemming method that I read about in James Koehler’s book Woven Color. We’ll see how that works out, but not for a couple of weeks. Plus, I am finally stitching those weather pieces to linen, which I will glue to a canvas–the linen, not the weaving. Afterwards, I think I’ll put them in painted frames for a bit of color. By the way, I Googled Woven Color to find a wonderful page of brightly colored pictures. The book is available on Amazon.

In case you don’t receive my monthly (kind of) newsletter, here’s the link I’m doing a series of short articles about color. This month’s color is indigo blue.

Link to most recent newsletter.

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Making a decision

The taupe is too yellowy in this picture.

I went to Cutting Corners and bought taupe and gray linen on Monday. I’ve written about Kirsten Glasbrook’s book before and her method for mounting and framing a small tapestry. I have decided to try her method, except for the blockboard, I am going to substitute archival foam board. I now have the new linen colors and the black I already had on hand. In Glasbrook’s book, she mentions using watered down acrylic paint on the linen. If I don’t like the colors I have, there may be some painting happening around here.

By the way, I love both the whimsical and more serious tapestries that Kirsten weaves.

In the meantime, I suddenly remembered these boots that I bought on sale at DSW. They are Chookas, although they are now to be known as Snake/Fireant Protectors. Not as comfy as my New Balance shoes, but right now these boots have the advantage.

Tackling the dreaded first

For me, my studio time is the time that’s actually spent weaving. Several months ago, I wove four small pieces. Those pieces have long been finished, and my brain has been working on what to do with them. They’ve been on my to-do list all of those months, but today during a conversation with my accountability partner Carol, it came to me that I need to tackle these BEFORE weaving. Duh! So, after a walk, weeding the garden, being stung by fire ants, mowing the shoulder-high thistle plants, and shower, I dug those pieces out of hiding. Then I couldn’t decide about a background. Off to Photoshop. Of course, the final decision my be decided by the color of linen I can find in the stores. This whole process is an experiment. I may do some other small pieces and need to have a go to technique for finishing.

So what do you think? What color should the background be? From looking at the samples above, I think I can safely rule out black. Please vote or suggest a color. Really. Seriously.

What to do

From Instagram

Yarn shelves in the studio

According to rainfall charts, our previous highest rainfall total was in 1982 with 13.66 inches. We have now surpassed that and have over 14 inches, and the month of may is not over. Wettest May on record. From drought to flooding. Wichita Falls previously had no water in its lake, only cracked soil. It is now above level. Water everywhere. Squishy yard. As one who usually enjoys rainy, cloudy days, the weather is now affecting my mind. Sunshine is reason to go outside and dance!

My grand plan to work outside has been hampered, even though really difficult weeds pull up easily from the saturated soil. Of course, before tackling those tall weeds, I first poke around with a rake because this weather has flooded out usually hidden critters. Like snakes.

So I have been weaving (halfway finished with the big loom project) and getting slightly frustrated with my yarn storage solution. I already had these locker baskets when I bought the shelves. I had the baskets hanging from picture hooks close to the ceiling all around the studio, and others on makeshift shelves. I decided to consolidate all of these baskets. The problem is that the baskets are slightly too wide to put four on a shelf. Hence, the frustration when I try to pull out a basket. Time for a trip to the Container Store, pretty much my favorite place ever. You can see the red line of the first basket I checked out. I would need to buy lots of those or the black boxes in the pic below. One is see through (an advantage) and one has a lid (an advantage).

From Container Store

At this point, instead of spending money, I may just reduce the wire baskets to three per shelf, hang the extras back on the wall, and be done with it. See what an exciting life this is?

From soggy North Texas

Yes, soggy. As is my steps sound like I’m walking in a bog when I go outside. The sun has been a rare event here, and as you can see (thanks to Accuweather), won’t be around much until June. Yet, I’m still reluctant to complain since we’ve been in a drought, and the rains will end. In August I will be wishing for rain.

So, what’s been going on during this perfect weaving weather? Not much. A bit of weaving here, a bit of unweaving there. I’m very unfocused right now. The Fort Worth Weavers Guild has a rug study weaving group, for which I am the mentor–how weird is that? We have a Facebook page where we post pictures, questions, resources, and messages for help. Trying to explain dovetail joins and what the weft does on the return trip, has made me admire anyone who can write articles or a book on how to do something. Words are hard!

I have gone down a couple of rabbit holes also. You know, those computer research projects that lead into something else that leads into something else, and so on.

One was seeing Kay Sekimachi’s work again. I’ve written about her before, and I am still fascinated by her work.

This picture was on Colossal, which in turn came from My Modern Met. How did she do that? I really would like to know. There is an exhibit of her work at the Bellevue Arts Museum. *** By the way, Colossal has so many interesting art articles it’s worth a weekly visit.

If any of these pictures look familiar, it’s because they came from my Instagram account (user name sherriwcoffey).

More rabbit holes later. I really am going to weave today, I really am going to weave today, I really am going to weave today …

***(In the Realm of Nature: Bob Stocksdale & Kay Sekimachi is organized by Mingei International Museum, San Diego, California. The local presentation of this exhibition is curated by Stefano Catalani.-See more at: http://www.bellevuearts.org/exhibitions/in_the_realm_of_nature.html#sthash.SWxFNFpA.dpuf)

Cartoon puzzle

cartoon puzzle

This may not be the my smartest move, but for the piece I’m working on, I decided to make the cartoon myself. I wanted the cartoon to be 25 inches horizontally, so in Photoshop I changed the image size to 25. Yep, there’s no way I can print that. So, also in Photoshop, I fairly evenly divided the drawing into 16 pieces, then copied each section and printed each one out. Then I taped all the pieces together, and voilà, I had a full size cartoon, unwieldy, but a cartoon.

Next I cut a section of gridded vellum and traced over the cartoon. Ready to move to the loom, where, unfortunately, the cartoon needed to be smaller, as in 2 inches smaller. Back to the computer. Repeat the process. Weave. And it works!

Now, would it have been better to have copies made at FedEx? I don’t know. My reasons for not going that route are:

Frequently copies have to be redone because the employee doesn’t know how to set it up to meet the (my) criteria.
I would have had to go back again anyway after I discovered that I had made the wrong size.

Money-wise, by the time I pay for the paper used, printer ink, etc, it might have been less expensive to drive to town, but then I would have to add in fuel. The time spent on this may have been equal.

What do you think? How do you do cartoons? Or maybe the questions is, do you make cartoons?

Gallery walk-Dallas

Wall Gallery really had a fast turnaround time for getting the new frames done. First, the area where my work hangs. This is such a fuzzy picture, or maybe it’s my tired eyes. The pieces look good among this group of artists, I think. To the left of the door is Door (ha ha). It’s sandwiched between two sheets of acrylic.

I’m sure everyone knows how difficult it is to take pictures of reflective material, so I’m going to ignore that. You can see how there are white “nails” holding the sandwich together. This method is the less expensive method of framing with acrylic.

To the right of the door is Path to the Sun, which is mounted on linen and framed inside an acrylic box. You can barely see the linen, but it’s a natural color. No one was asked to make a decision on that, but next time, the gallery and I both think that white would be better, similar to most gallery walls. We all prefer this method of framing, and of course, it’s the more expensive method. Since I have been researching methods for mounting for several months, I was not surprised to find out that itty bitty stitches were used to stitch the piece to the linen. Those stitches are not in just one section, but all over

Wall Gallery

It has been busy around here. As usual at this time of year, the weeds are trying to take over, like some kind of horror film. I did cut off the small, multicolored piece, but no finishing yet. Instead, I tied on the warp and started weaving again. That’s what we always really want to do, right. To heck with all those have-tos, need-tos.

I also made a trip to Dallas to visit Wall Gallery. They kept four pieces, and have a plan to frame them in a completely different way. I can’t wait to see how they turn out!