New Work - Heat Index

Heat Index

I am pleased to share my latest work, Heat Index. It's constructed using four of the prints I made in this past summer's wet cyanotype frenzy, combined with silk patchwork. The size is 54" high x 51" wide.

Heat Index, detail 1

I talked about the basic construction of this work in blog posts Part 1 and Part 2. The plants used are (clockwise) Queen Anne's lace flowers, tulip poplar leaves, red maple leaves, and tall blue lettuce leaves. Tall blue lettuce is an elegant wild plant, Lactuca biennis, typically found in disturbed landscapes.

Heat Index, detail 2

The leaf prints are heavily stitched, to add detail and texture. The silk patchwork is also heavily stitched, and reflects light in beautiful and subtle ways.

Heat Index, detail 3

I made this work in response to the abnormal/new normal weather patterns I experienced in Pennsylvania this summer, with torrential downpours, soupy humidity, and high temperatures contributing to an almost daily high heat index warning.

Heat Index, detail 4

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Heat Index - Work in Progress, part 2

 The task lighting over the needle on my sewing machine is so nice and bright it washes out photos I try and take at night. But that's a good thing! I can see clearly where I'm going as I freemotion quilt. This is a wet cyanotype/solarfast print of some Queen Anne's lace flowers. I was doing the first round of quilting on them, as I designed and constructed the top for my latest work, Heat Index.

 Above are parts of it pinned up on a design wall. The silks shown in the last post have been strip pieced, cut up, and are being sewn together in sections, framing the panels. The prints are so gorgeous and complex I wanted to keep the sashing relatively simple so as to enhance but not distract.

 While all of this was going on, I prepped a piece of fabric for the backing. The back isn't normally visible when the work is on display, but I consider it part and parcel of the work, and I makes me happy to have something interesting back there as I spend hours and hours quilting it. So I as I often do, I put a big piece of cotton sateen on my driveway and poured textile paints over it in a semi-random fashion.

 I then misted it with the hose, to let the colors move and blend. As the fabric dries in the sun, the paint continues to move about.

That fabulous crackle in the finished backing fabric is the imprint of all the surface cracks in the driveway.

Up next, the big reveal! As always, thanks for reading and commenting.

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Heat Index - New Work in Progress

 In the latter part of the summer I experimented with combining the wet cyanotype process with SolarFast printing. The experiments were both fun and successful. I documented the process in making the maple leaf print here, and the tall blue lettuce print here.

 I picked two other prints from those two sessions to use in a new work, Heat Index.

 After picking the prints, my next step was to pull fabrics to use in patchwork to frame them. I used silks in three colorways. Included in the blue set were cyanotypes that were extras when working on the Watt and Shand series and the Silk Mill quilts. (See both here.) They were made from my digital photos that I printed on transparencies for exposure.

 The green set and especially the red set include silks that are "shot" (the warp and the weft threads are different colors) and ones with interesting textures. It brings me great joy to work with these fabulous textiles.

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New Work - The River Ran Deep

The River Ran Deep

I am pleased and excited to share my newest work, The River Ran Deep. It's part of my ongoing series on the Susquehanna River. I was asked to join four other artists--Rob Evans, John David Wissler, Mark Workman, and Ann DeLaurentis-- to contribute work for the "Dine On Harvest Moon Gala" auction for the Lancaster County Conservancy I was happy to make this specifically for the cause. I and my husband are long time supporters of the Conservancy, and benefit greatly from the trail system they have put together and maintain. Many of my works about the river have been inspired by hikes taken on Conservancy properties.

 For the top portion of this work, I made wet cyanotype prints of leaves from native trees, tulip poplars and chestnut oaks. If you've been following my work, you've seen that wet cyanotype printmaking is an ongoing obsession. It's delightfully unpredictable, and dependent on the time of year and the weather conditions. Making these prints connects me to the natural world and my micro-environment in a direct way.

For the imagery representing the river, I turned to the same needlefelting technique I've used for In Dreams I Drifted Away and In Dreams I Flew Over the River, among others. Layers of wool and silk fibers are integrated into a wool base, providing great detail, movement,  and texture.

 The surround of the river panel is made from individually hand-pieced hexagons. This type of work is very slow and meditative.

 The further surround is made from fabric that I mono-printed to in waves and interlocking geometric/geological patterns. At the base, the whole work is grounded by thick, earthy woolens. The work is 44" high by 42" wide.

I've lived near the beautiful Susquehanna most of my life and have observed it over the years cycling  through droughts and flood stages. This summer I've watched as potent storms and historically heavy rainfalls have made it run high and run deep. I'm here to chronicle this and future conditions.

You can contact the Conservancy for information about the auction and advance bidding: https://www.lancasterconservancy.org/contact/

Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 30

 Wow, here I am at part 30 of my experiments in wet cyanotype! It's been a fun ride so far, and I remain as fired up about the process as I was when I first started. Big thanks to everyone who has followed along so far.

 I did a fairly straightforward batch of wet cyan prints, with an eye to the changing of the seasons starting to limit my plant availability. But realistically, the weather is still terrifically hot and humid here in PA, and this batch printed up in a fashion typical of mid summer. I used hosta leaves and a sprig of comfrey for the first three.

 I then tried some big old dandelion leaves that had made themselves at home in a flowerbed. It's been too beastly out to do much gardening, so this counted as weeding.

 I rounded out the batch with a wood poppy leaf, and a twig from my ninebark shrub. For some of them I added some washing soda solution, and on others a bit of very dilute red textile paint,

 The cyanotype colors broke down quickly and beautifully.

 I let them expose for about 6 hours in the bright sun and high heat.

 These are the prints after exposure and before rinsing. They are looking beautiful and promising.

 That red paint moves around in very unpredictable ways. I love what it's done here.

 And here are the finished prints, keepers and small delights all.

 I love the much maligned dandelions in general; I've made wine with the blossoms, and eaten the greens in the spring. Now I can add printmaking fodder to their list of laudable qualities.

 I got some nice eco-prints tones from the sap in the wood poppy leaf.

 The ninebark print has a lot going on as well.

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Experiments in wet cyanotype - part 29

Welcome to part 29 of my ongoing experiments with wet cyanotype. You can read all of the posts in reverse chronological order by clicking the Wet Cyanotype tab in the top header, or go here.

Buoyed by my previous success in combining wet cyanotype with SolarFast dyes, I repeated the process for this batch. Again, I painted fresh cyanotype solution in the center of cotton panels, surrounded it with SolarFast red dye, and laid on my plants. I used Queen Anne's lace for these two.

Then I did two with red maple leaves.

For three of the panels I topped them with glass for the exposure. I kept the exposure times on the short side, about an hour, for the ones with the flowers. Here they are after exposure, and after spending the night drying off in a dark room.

I left the maple leaves out in the sun longer, about 4 hours. For one I used a pane of glass, for the other I used a sheet of thin vinyl.

I really like the way the creases in the vinyl collected moisture and left a pattern. This is worthy of further exploration.

Here are the finished prints. As in the last batch, I first rinsed out the excess cyanotype chemicals as per usual practice, then washed them with textile detergent to properly set the SolarFast.

This one has a yearning vibe I find particular appealing.

The maple prints turned out great as well.

This was the last of the SolarFast products I had on hand. I wanted to use them up this summer, and that prompt worked out much better than I had anticipated. (See other experiments here.)  I have more ideas for experimentation, but practically speaking I will probably not get to restocking it and working with it until next spring.

Thanks for reading. Recently there was a glitch with the Blogger comment notification process (affecting everyone, not just me) that was preventing me from approving comments in a timely fashion. I think it's all fixed now, so thanks for your patience and feel free to weigh in with your thoughts!

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