New Work and Upcoming Exhibitions

I've been working on a new series of sculptural wall pieces that draw from a wide range of previous explorations, many of which have been featured on this blog in the past:

My studio wall of samples.

By looking at all these separate explorations at once I was able to begin to make connections between inspirations that felt quite separate at the time.  The work that has resulted feels almost like tactile collages.  

I am drawn to the way similar patterns re-appear again and again in the natural world and I address this by layering and combining similar imagery executed in different materials and processes, which lends the work an abstract quality.  The forms are still familiar, but they can be interpreted in many different ways.  There is a tension between structure and chaos in nature, in which very precise processes on a microscopic scale create unique, organic forms perfectly suited to a specific purpose.  I see a parallel between this construction of the natural world and construction in textiles, which often require tedious and precise actions, but result in soft and pliable objects.

 

Two of these new sculptural pieces, Emergent Geographies III and IV are part of a group exhibition up this month at Ground Floor Gallery in Nashville, TN.  The exhibition is called Touched and features a great collection of soft sculpture from some really amazing artists, all of whom I'm very honored to be showing with.  It opens tomorrow, Saturday October 3rd.

I will also be showing this new series as part of a solo exhibition next month at Blick Art Materials here in Savannah, opening November 13th.

Transient Structures Sneak Peek

I'll be installing Transient Structures in just a few days.  Here's a sneak peak of some of the work getting prepared in the studio.

Natural Dye/Synthetic Dye Experiments

I have been working with natural dyes for the last few months and thinking about their tendency to fade and how I can use this as an advantage in my work instead of struggling against it.  I'm envisioning work dyed with matching natural and synthetic dyes that changes over the course of days, weeks or even years to expose hidden patterns or imagery.

For now I'm doing some simple experiments with a few of my favorite dyes to gauge how much time it takes each to fade and what the color change is.  And I also learned how difficult it can be to match the dyes exactly - this will take a lot more experimentation...

Dye Samples.  From left to right: no mordant, alum, iron, copper.
From Top to Bottom: Onion, Brazilwood, Turmeric, Blackberry.

 

I painted half of each sample with a synthetic dye, and also tried to match the color with an industry produced sewing thread.  All three layers were partially covered with a black paper resist so I would have a control area to compare to. Then the entire group was hung in my studio window to fade.  Its been a little over a week and I'm already getting some results:

Turmeric with no mordant sample before fading experiment began

Turmeric with no mordant after one week of direct sunlight exposure

Brazilwood with no mordant after one week of direct sunlight exposure
(bad matchup of synthetic dye to natural dye)

I'm not too surprised that the unmordanted colors showed the most fading first.  I was expecting the blackberry to be less fade resistant than the brazilwood, but its hardly faded at all.  Perhaps because it produced such an unsaturated color to begin with. I'm going to keep checking on the fading every week or so and will update the progress as I go. 

Studio Bits Part 2

Image of a Physarum Polycephalum Slime Mold

And My interpretation.  Machine embroidery on dissolvable interfacing.

   

I'm especially excited about these little end bits, I was afraid I would loose all the complexity when I dissolved the interfacing but they turned out just fine.