Stellar Nurseries - New Work

Stellar Nurseries

In anticipation of the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, I am thrilled to share new artwork I made in response to this incredible event. I was so excited that I made not one, not two, but three new art quilts featuring the telescope and its mission. This one is titled Stellar Nurseries, and it depicts the telescope arriving and setting up at the second Lagrange Point. One of its early missions will be to observe, through infrared light, the nearby dust clouds that currently obscure the environments where planetary systems form. Here I have imagined three vignettes of the imagery the telescope will transmit back to us.

Stellar Nurseries, detail 1

The telescope in my quilt is made of hand stitched gold silk hexagons, with a gray silk depiction of the sun shield. The telescope and shield were engineered to fold up in order to fit in the rocket for launching, and once deployed it will slowly unfold and get set up for observation.

Stellar Nurseries, detail 2, by Sue Reno

 The gold coating on the beryllium mirrors is a stunning example of form following function.

Stellar Nurseries, detail 3

The telescope will use infrared to see farther, and further back in time, than is currently possible, so I was able to freely visualize the type of imagery that will be transmitted back to earth once it begins its missions.

Stellar Nurseries, detail 4

The background on the quilt is made of black silk noil, which has the combination of sheen and deep intensity I felt worked well to evoke the darkness of space. The vignette panels are wool, silk, and mylar fibers, needlefelted and then heavily stitched and hand-beaded with glass beads and semi-precious stones so that they glitter and gleam.

Stellar Nurseries, detail 5

The telescope and vignettes are surrounded by handstitched hexagon shapes. I spent a lot of my pandemic anxiety obsessively stitching hexagon "flowers" in three different colorways and two different sizes, which I then auditioned on the background before joining them into the large panels for the quilts.

After the hexagons are all painstaking joined, it's time for the fast and fun paper removal process.

  I've been obsessed with hexagons ever since working on my first JWST quilt, Luminosity.

In November of 2016 I was one of a group of 22 wonderfully diverse artists selected nationwide to attend the James Webb Space Telescope Artist Event at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. 

I had the opportunity to meet and interact with engineers, technicians and other team members from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the world's next-generation space observatory, tour Goddard's Integration and Test facility, see the world's largest clean room facility, and see the James Webb Space Telescope itself. I had time to sit in front of the mirror and create, which I spent hand stitching silk hexagons for my representation of the mirror. Back in the studio, I worked on creating a large art quilt, and documented the visit and the process on my blog. You can read about all things JWST in reverse chronological order by clicking the tab in the top header. 

And in a nod to Luminosity, I had one of my images from that day printed up for the backing of the quilt.

Sue Reno, with Stellar Nurseries

Stellar Nurseries is 40" square; I'm posing with it here to give you a sense of scale.

So what lies ahead for the artwork? The excitement will continue, as the artists involved in the original project are planning a virtual reality gallery, with scheduled tours and artists talks. I've played around the beta gallery, and it's really quite wonderful. I will update with dates and times, etc., in the new year as plans become available.

As always, thanks for viewing and commenting, and please follow along on your platform of choice: 

Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/suerenostudio
Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/suereno
Tumblr: http://suerenostudio.tumblr.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sue_reno_studio/

Galaxy Assembly - New Work

Galaxy Assembly

In anticipation of the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, I am thrilled to share new artwork I made in response to this incredible event. I was so excited that I made not one, not two, but three new art quilts featuring the telescope and its mission. This one is titled Galaxy Assembly, and it depicts the telescope arriving and setting up at the second Lagrange Point. One of its early missions will be to observe and study galaxies at all stages of development, from epoch of first light through to the current time. Here I have three imagined vignettes of the imagery the telescope will transmit back to us.

Galaxy Assembly, detail 1

The telescope in my quilt is made of hand stitched gold silk hexagons, with a gray silk depiction of the sun shield. The telescope and shield were engineered to fold up in order to fit in the rocket for launching, and once deployed it will slowly unfold and get set up for observation. 

Galaxy Assembly, detail 2

The gold coating on the beryllium mirrors is a stunning example of form following function.

Galaxy Assembly, detail 3

The telescope will use infrared to see further, and further back in time, than is currently possible, so I was able to freely visualize the type of imagery that will be transmitted back to earth once it begins its missions.

Galaxy Assembly, detail 4

The background on the quilt is made of black silk noil, which has the combination of sheen and deep intensity I felt worked well to evoke the darkness of space. The vignette panels are wool, silk, and mylar fibers, needlefelted and then heavily stitched and hand-beaded with glass beads and semi-precious stones so that they glitter and gleam.

Galaxy Assembly, detail 5

The telescope and vignettes are surrounded by handstitched hexagon shapes. I spent a lot of my pandemic anxiety obsessively stitching hexagon "flowers" in three different colorways and two different sizes, which I then auditioned on the background before joining them into the large panels for the quilts.

After the hexagons are all painstaking joined, it's time for the fast and fun paper removal process.

I've been obsessed with hexagons ever since working on my first JWST quilt, Luminosity.

Luminosity

In November of 2016 I was one of a group of 22 wonderfully diverse artists selected nationwide to attend the James Webb Space Telescope Artist Event at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. 

I had the opportunity to meet and interact with engineers, technicians and other team members from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the world's next-generation space observatory, tour Goddard's Integration and Test facility, see the world's largest clean room facility, and see the James Webb Space Telescope itself. I had time to sit in front of the mirror and create, which I spent hand stitching silk hexagons for my representation of the mirror. Back in the studio, I worked on creating a large art quilt, and documented the visit and the process on my blog. You can read about all things JWST in reverse chronological order by clicking the tab in the top header. 

And in a nod to Luminosity, I had one of my images from that day printed up for the backing of the quilt.

Sue Reno, with Galaxy Assembly

Galaxy Assembly is 40" square; I'm posing with it here to give you a sense of scale.

So what lies ahead for the artwork? The excitement will continue, as the artists involved in the original project are planning a virtual reality gallery, with scheduled tours and artists talks. I've played around the beta gallery, and it's really quite wonderful. I will update with dates and times, etc., in the new year as plans become available.

As always, thanks for viewing and commenting, and please follow along on your platform of choice: 

Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/suerenostudio
Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/suereno
Tumblr: http://suerenostudio.tumblr.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sue_reno_studio/

First Light - New Work

First Light

In anticipation of the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, I am thrilled to share new artwork I made in response to this incredible event. I was so excited that I made not one, not two, but three new art quilts featuring the telescope and its mission. This one is titled First Light, and it depicts the telescope arriving and setting up at the second Lagrange Point. One of its early missions will be to find and study the first light objects that formed after the big Bang. Here I have imagined three vignettes of the imagery the telescope will transmit back to us.

First Light, detail 1

The telescope in my quilt is made of hand stitched gold silk hexagons, with a gray silk depiction of the sun shield. The telescope and shield were engineered to fold up in order to fit in the rocket for launching, and once deployed it will slowly unfold and get set up for observation.

First Light, detail 2

The gold coating on the beryllium mirrors is a stunning example of form following function.

First Light, detail 3

The telescope will use infrared to see farther, and further back in time, than is currently possible, so I was able to freely visualize the type of imagery that will be transmitted back to earth once it begins its missions.

First Light, detail 4

The background on the quilt is made of black silk noil, which has the combination of sheen and deep intensity I felt worked well to evoke the darkness of space. The vignette panels are wool, silk, and mylar fibers, needlefelted and then heavily stitched and hand-beaded with glass beads and semi-precious stones so that they glitter and gleam.

First Light, detail 5

The telescope and vignettes are surrounded by handstitched hexagon shapes. I spent a lot of my pandemic anxiety obsessively stitching hexagon "flowers" in three different colorways and two different sizes, which I then auditioned on the background before joining them into the large panels for the quilts.

After the hexagons are all painstaking joined, it's time for the fast and fun paper removal process.

  I've been obsessed with hexagons ever since working on my first JWST quilt, Luminosity.

Luminosity

In November of 2016 I was one of a group of 22 wonderfully diverse artists selected nationwide to attend the James Webb Space Telescope Artist Event at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. 

I had the opportunity to meet and interact with engineers, technicians and other team members from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the world's next-generation space observatory, tour Goddard's Integration and Test facility, see the world's largest clean room facility, and see the James Webb Space Telescope itself. I had time to sit in front of the mirror and create, which I spent hand stitching silk hexagons for my representation of the mirror. Back in the studio, I worked on creating a large art quilt, and documented the visit and the process on my blog. You can read about all things JWST in reverse chronological order by clicking the tab in the top header. 

And in a nod to Luminosity, I had one of my images from that day printed up for the backing of the quilt.

Sue Reno, with First Light

First Light is 40" square; I'm posing with it here to give you a sense of scale.

So what lies ahead for the artwork? The excitement will continue, as the artists involved in the original project are planning a virtual reality gallery, with scheduled tours and artists talks. I've played around the beta gallery, and it's really quite wonderful. I will update with dates and times, etc., in the new year as plans become available.

As always, thanks for viewing and commenting, and please follow along on your platform of choice: 

Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/suerenostudio
Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/suereno
Tumblr: http://suerenostudio.tumblr.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sue_reno_studio/

Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 72

The season for fresh greenery is winding down, so I'm fitting in more #wetcyan and #solarfast experiments as I can. For this large panel on cotton sateen, I used some sensitive fern leaves and box elder leaves. Above is the print before exposure, below you see it after exposure but before rinsing.

Here is the finished print. It came out nice and crisp, with a pleasing proportion of background mottling and patterning. Nothing outrageous, but very, very lovely. Into the queue for stitching it goes!

 Thanks for viewing!

A reminder that you can follow along on your platform of choice: 

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Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 71

Welcome to another installment, number 71, of fun with cyanotype! For this batch I continued my experiments with using vintage embroidery as a starting point. These first two textiles, the two halves of a dresser scarf, are courtesy of Martha Ginn. After seeing my previous prints, she was kind enough to send me some of her embroideries to work with. I usually source these from flea markets, and sometimes people give them to me from family estates, but I think this is the first time I actually know who stitched them. It makes the process more meaningful.

Martha says: "The dresser scarf I can recall stitching while pregnant with my daughter, and using, washing and ironing for many years. BTW, I still love ironing--seeing something wrinkled become neat, smooth, and sharp-lined."

These are box elder leaves, with wet process cyanotype and just a bit of Solarfast chemicals mixed in, shown here just before exposure.

For the next print I pulled a deer embroidery from my stash, and used the same mix of chemicals and box elder leaves.

Deer were a very popular subject matter back in the heyday of these embroideries, which were often done from kits, or from patterns in women's magazines. It may have been the Bambi influence, or the fact that many households had deer hunters. I've used a deer embroidery before in a large quilt, adding stitched details.

Deer and Mayapple, detail

This is Deer and Mayapple, from my Flora and Fauna series.

Deer and Mayapple

For the final print in this batch, I used a delicate floral embroidery with a cutwork center that Martha gifted me (but did not stitch). This one has calla lily leaves.

Here are the prints after exposure, but before rinsing. 

There's no predicting how the fabric (of unknown fiber, but probably heavy cotton or linen) and the embroidery thread will pick up the chemicals, which is one of the things that I love about these experiments.

The deer print is looking a bit dark at this point, it absorbed a lot of the chemicals.

And this is why I love printing with calla lily leaves, the semi-transparent areas on the leaves leak the light through.

Here are the finished prints.

These two have a very lovely heathered look. When they are stitched to add definition, they are going to be very beautiful in a subtle way.

I'm kind of in love with this deer print. It gives me the feeling of peeking through the tree canopy to see a doe and fawn resting in a clearing. Again, stitching will add definition.

This one is also special, with a twilight-in-the-garden feel.

Thanks for viewing!

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Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 70

 

Time for more fun with mineral paper, wet cyanotype, and horrid invasive plants! These two first prints, shown here before exposure, are of Japanese knotweed leaves. For all of their faults, they have nice flat substantial leaves that print really well.

These next two are the opposite, from the beloved and native wood poppy plant. They too have leaves that behave well for printing.

I finished out this batch with a fern frond. When I started in gardening at this property two years ago I made an effort to record the names of all the ferns, but they move about a bit, and while I can recognize some easily, I'm not certain about this one at this point. It doesn't matter a lot for this purpose as all ferns are lovely.

I added just a small amount of purple Solarfast solar dye chemical to the cyanotype mixture for these, and you can see how it sorted itself out in the post exposure, pre rinse images.

These are just ridiculously gorgeous at this stage.

I know from experience most of those orange tones will rinse away, so please enjoy them in these pictures.

Here are the finished prints. There's a lot going on here, and it's all good.

Just an amazing amount of fine detail in these, and a bunch of interesting color gradations.

This fern print is intense! Enjoy!

Thanks for reading, and a reminder that you can follow along on your platform of choice: 

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