Art Archives - Page 14 of 27 - Sherri Woodard Coffey

Category Archives: Art

Interesting structures

The other day I was reading the Wall Street Journal, and came across a book review with a whole pag e of architectural pictures. Fascinating stuff! In fact, this kind of article is the whole reason I read the WSJ, that, and because it was a free subscription. The picture that caught my attention was, I thought at first, a microscopic something or other. But no, it’s actually a building in Dubai called the GEOtube Tower designed by Faulders Studio in 2009. (A Google search turns up some amazing images of their work.) building in Dubai is covered with steel mesh, which is bathed in saltwater, which I’m assuming causes rust to form and creates the interesting patterns. It’s worth going to the WSJ page and looking at the slide show of structures. I often find a seed of a design idea hiding in architectural pictures. The book is on one of my wish lists at Amazon.

Monstrous weed, has little hairs that cling, small purple flowers. appeared suddenly a couple of years ago.

My to-do list is a mile long this week. Along with trying to keep a monstrous weed under control, I am working hard to get studio time in again. Living in Texas, we don’t complain about rain, but every time I have time to plant my vegetables, it rains. I did get the beds weeded, though. Tomorrow, said Scarlet.

Surprise! More organized than I realized

Whilst not sleeping the other night, I got out of bed to look for a cartoon of a previously woven piece. To my surprise, I found my notebook of finished pieces, and even more surprising, I found many notes with yarn samples, diagrams, dye formulas, what worked, what didn’t. I have a memory of starting this notebook, but not of getting it so up-to-date. It is by no means a complete record. Many pieces are missing, and there are no dates.

Gardening plans have been scuttled because of rain, and even though a brand new 60-inch warp is tied on, there is no weaving because yarns haven’t been dyed. What to do? Work on taxes? Postcards? I’m making a new cartoon for the next weaving. It’s not a very large cartoon, so I enlarged the design in Photoshop, then selected sections and printed. I ended up with five printouts that will be taped together.

Spring Group Show 2015-Fort Worth Art Collective

Artists and textiles

This is not really a blog post, but a collection of articles about artists and textiles. And when I say “artists,” what I really mean is famous artists. The American Textile History Museum has an exhibition called Artist Textiles: Picasso to Warhol. It will be there through March 29. The Textiel Museum in the Netherlands, also has information on their website, with a different set of pictures. Here’s a great article on art and textiles by Mirka Knaster. Below are a few of my favorite books. What are some more? Let’s compile a list.

Printing

Linoleum print

The Saturday after my NY visit, I took a monoprint class, something I’ve been wanting to do for a couple of years. The class was a small group and met in the home studio of one of the students. Junanne Peck introduced us to linoleum prints and monotype. I still don’t understand the difference between monoprint and monotype. Maybe it will make sense someday. And no, I don’t know how I got the texture in the print. Just the vagaries of ????

Prairie Fire

The picture at the top is of one of my prints, which is based on Prairie Fire. I had to think of this as I do my ikat pieces. I printed the paper yellow with the block before I carved the design. Then I took the block and carved my drawing in it. After applying orange ink, I took the same yellow print and printed again with the new carved block. you can see where the edges don’t line up. You can see the ikat piece on the left. My other linoleum print is below. I had a drawing of a spiral made with lines. This one is my first print, and I didn’t think it out very carefully before starting, so the whole thing kind of looks like a flower.

Warp cut off, new one in progress

I did it. Cut off the linen warp. I liked the heft it gave to finished pieces, but did not like working with it. I am warping an 12/6 Swedish cotton at 8 epi. That should let me do more of the designs I have in mind. We’ll see. Of course I’ve already made a huge mistake in the warping process. I only did 8 ends instead of the 16 ends necessary for a 2-inch section. Remediation is needed.

ZigZag I, hand-dyed with natural dyes, wool yarns, tapestry, 51″ x 31″ Private collection ©Sherri Coffey

Looking through some old files and came across this piece. Still like it, but you have to look closely to see all the colors.

And, I came across this on Facebook. It’s from this Growing Bolder page with all kinds of cute pictures and sayings. Mostly I just ignore those things. I also liked Kim Bruce‘s photo share of the t-shirt-wearing lady. The shirt says “Old is the new black.”

Yes, I did it

You may remember that I REALLY wanted to see Matisse: The Cut-Outs at MOMA. So, I did it! Yes, I traveled to NYC in February and lived to tell about it. I was there between storms of the snow variety.

JFK sculpture

New York is not my favorite place to go; it’s just too darn busy. Crowded. Rush rush. First off,, right out of the box, the gate where we landed was at the farthest end of the terminal. I didn’t know that when I set off to wall to baggage claim. I was offered a ride in one of those golf cart vehicles, but no, I was fine. Geez! After miles and miles and miles, I got my luggage and worked my way to ground transportation and the shuttle.

It was important to me to stay within walking distance to the museum. Driving from the airport, dropping off the other passengers, seeing all the familiar things we associate with NYC, well, there’s just something kind of exciting about that. Driving past the famous theaters, seeing the marquees, kind of makes the pulse beat a little faster. My hotel was on 8th Avenue and 53rd. After dumping my stuff in my room, I went out on a reconnaissance mission and a bite to eat.

The next day I worked my way toward the museum for early hours for members. The sidewalks were slushy and slipper in spots, so I very carefully walked across streets. I could just see myself getting flattened after a fall in the middle of the street.

The exhibition was wonderful. I took notes of the pieces that grabbed me the most and why. Nearly always it was the color, but shapes came in a close second.

Unfortunately, my knee didn’t cooperate to the extent that I would have preferred. I got a shot in it just before leaving, realizing that this would be kind of a test for it. I want to go to Peru, which will require a lot of walking. Well, the knee is not ready for Peru. Plan B.

Artist profile

Carolyn Edlund of Artsy Shark and Arts Business Institute interviewed me for an ABI artist profile. She is a lovely person and made this a completely comfortable process. After our conversation, she sent me a list of questions, and I wrote my answers. Our conversation made me think of a few things, so I’m glad I took notes. Since I am not the best writer in the world, I did ask friends to read my answers and make sure they made sense and/or make suggestions. I LOVE that she included such large images with the article.

Changes, flux, etc

Wari, private collection

Do you ever feel like everything is in flux? That’s where I’ve been for weeks, or maybe months. I seem to flutter back and forth between doing the weft ikat and tapestry, between wider sett and closer sett, between linen, cotton or wool warp. Why can’t I settle down to one thing?

Although I like the heft of the linen warp, but I don’t like working with it. If I stick with 4 epi, I will go back to wool, which also has problems. The Swedish cotton sitting on my shelf is 12/9 and 12/6.

Because of some ideas rolling around in my head, I am thinking of cutting off the linen and putting on a new warp of cotton. Kind of silly, but … Now to decide which sett to use.

By the way, the British dictionary definition of flux: continuous change; instability. Yep, that’s me. I don’t even want to think about the medical definition on the same page.

Do you ever go through these indecisive times? How do you solve it?

Proper–y’all come

Proper on Magnolia hangs art, choosing new art every two months. So that’s where I’m hanging out through March. There will be a small reception Thursday, February 5, 7:00 PM.

Above is a simulation (since I couldn’t get a good picture) of the pieces hanging on the wall. In Fort Worth, we have two up and coming streets that are THE place to be–Magnolia and West Seventh. Both have lots of new restaurants, bars and other nice places to hang out. Magnolia is an old street with lots of two-story red brick buildings. I’ve long thought about using one of those buildings to have a studio. Well, not any more. Real estate in that area has exploded.

These pieces couldn’t be hung in the usual way, since nails could not be used. They have a rail at the top with some sort of covered wire that hangs from the rail. At the end of the wire is a hook that slides up or down as necessary. So, I put D-rings on the back of the boards, but I now wish I had put screw eyes on the top of the board because I think they would hang better that way. Live and learn, as they say.

Tangled Velcro

The piece on the left has always hung vertically, but I decided to change that up. Doing that means cutting a new board and attaching Velcro. Someday I’m actually going to order Velcro from Uline, because you can get just the hook part. You can see my Velcro mess here. You would think it would be simple, but it took a bit to get this mess untangled.

In between doing other things, I have warped the Mirrix and have begun testing some yarns. Thinking about making a change. I’ll post pictures next time.