BJ Parady Fiber Arts and Notes

© 2010 BJ Parady

Last week we went to sail on a Tall Ship at Navy Pier in Chicago. We sailed on the Roseway, which spends its winters in St. Croix teaching local children science. The ride was pretty cool.

But while waiting for the ride, I noticed one of the crew members mending the sail. Every job has drudgery.

My drudgery is paperwork. I hate it so much I would rather vacuum then do it–which would be a meaningful statement if you could see the state of my floors right now. But today, the last day of the month, I buckled down and did some. It’s not done, but writing a blog entry is on the list…

Part of what I’m doing is preparing entries for some shows. I haven’t entered many shows in the last couple of years, for various reasons. Moving 250 miles cost me a year in getting my act together. And I’ve gotten more selective over the years in what I will and will not enter.

For instance, there is a major art quilt show that shall not be named that charges what I feel to be an exorbitant entry fee–$75. In addition to this fee, if one is accepted, one has to pay the shipping of one’s art to and fro–which is usually a minimum of $50. For this one gets the prestige of being in the show.

While prestige is good, I am tired of artists bearing the burden of the costs of the show–we’ve already spent the time and money to make the art, when is enough enough?

So I’m picky about what I enter these days, choosing ones that I have a hope of getting into. This limits my exposure, I’m sure. But until (if, when) my bigger pieces start selling, it’s what I can afford to do–financially and psychologically.

Except for Quilt National. I’m considering my entry fee there a donation. Maybe one fine day I’ll have a piece accepted there.

Fortunately, it’s not a life or death dilemma, just a ‘what do I do’ kind of quandry…

© 2010 BJ Parady

I spent the summer making a set of small pieces (small physically, smaller price) for my great fall marketing campaign. I intend to use all the social media I’ve been working with to promote the art, with the goal of selling some.

So now I’ve got around 20 pieces ready to go–except for the one above. It’s very much in the flavor/style of the series, but I’ve grown quite attached to it–so much that I may not put it up for sale. I’ve photographed them, gotten the jpgs web ready, I’m all set to go. But where?

I see two choices. One is to reopen my store on Etsy, and put them there. This is the easiest thing to do–their software makes it very easy to load new pieces. All the sales are handled by them, and it’s fairly cheap for the artist.

The other choice is to put them on my website and use Paypal for the purchases. This will involve more time on my part, although now that I’m using WordPress for my blog, I may be able to find something on there to make it easy. The Paypal process is not too bad.

In both cases I would have to handle the shipping, so that’s not at issue.

The main con for the Etsy is that I tried it before and didn’t have much luck. It’s become a very big site, and all of the sales that I made then were driven from my blog, not from Etsy….so why go back?

The main anti for on my site is the time involved–although I’m probably blowing that out of proportion, it’d only be a few hours….

What to do? Any thoughts? I know some people are anti-Paypal, but I’ve never had any issues with them…If I’m doing all of the promotions, then what do I gain by using Etsy? Will there be accidental buyers (accidental in that they came to my site accidentally)…

Or is all this dithering just my way of postponing the work until another day?

In the past, I have done a lot of pour dyeing–a technique I picked up from Robbi Joy Eklow. You hang the fabric (I presoak in soda ash solution) from a clothesline, either outdoors or indoors, and pour away. The colors run and mix as they will, and the results are uncontrolled and spontaneous. I like them.

But in my present house and yard, I don’t really have a good place to do that. It’s a very messy process, and I tend to be kind of sloppy. Plus there’s the grass I killed at the old house when I used vinegar as a fixative on silk scarves…

A couple of years ago when I started snow dyeing, I grabbed an extra under-the-bed plastic storage box and used that to lay the fabrics out in…and got similar results to the pouring process.

So I’ve been doing the same thing with non-snow dyeing. Here’s the process I use:

© 2010 BJ Parady

I’m filling this bucket with hot water. Next I add the proper amount of soda ash, stir to dissolve, and then soak the fabrics in them.

© 2010 BJ Parady

Here are various fabrics laid out in the tub–some tea towels, a couple of white cotton shirts I bought on clearance, some silk scarves to sell at Artworks (Keokuk, IA), and some pieces of cheesecloth. The fabrics are scrunched or roughly pleated, anything to get some variance in the dye.

Side thought: When I first started hand dyeing years ago, I was obsessed with getting even, non-mottled fabrics. Why was that?

Then I start pouring dye. Usually analogous colors, but sometimes as here I was going for browns, so I used a khaki mixed dye from Dharma, some golden yellow that I’m trying to get rid of (lemon yellow is much clearer), and some eggplant. I mix one at a time in a 2 cup measuring cup, pour out half kind of randomly. Then I dilute back up to 2 cups, and pour more. Repeat with all colors–I have found that more than 3 colors gets to be too much. I do squish down fabrics as needed (with gloved hands–fiber reactive dyes also react with the proteins in your skin) so that no white is showing.

© 2010 BJ Parady

And now they sit, and I wait. I did put the lid on the tub, that may or may not be necessary. But I’ll let them sit on top of my washer until sometime tomorrow when I’ll wash them out and see what I’ve got. It could be anything.

But whatever it is, I’ll use. The randomness will inspire art.

© 2010 BJ Parady

This is the original image I used to make a Thermofax screen–it’s from a photo I took of a pair of old bur oaks at Nelson Lake Park, near Batavia, IL. In Photoshop Elements, I simplified the image to just black and white.

It is definitely borderline as to the fine detail–the areas in the middle of the tree have very thin defining stencil lines. I do like to push the envelope; this time I pushed it maybe a little too far.

© 2010 BJ Parady

This, I think, explains why this print doesn’t have much detail. I made it with Jacquard Discharge Paste. While I really like the paste in general–and although it may not show in this photo, there is a great range of hue in this piece–it probably is a little thin for this particular stencil. I’ve lost some of the spaces under the trees, and most of the details in the canopy.

Not that the prints I discharged are unusable–I’ll probably still play with them. But the ones I printed with fabric ink came out better:

© 2010 BJ Parady

or this:

© 2010 BJ Parady

I played with two colors while applying the ink, switching back and forth between a brown and a spring green. I managed to get seven prints all together, so I can play with them.

It’s kind of odd that I’m doing this at all–they’re way more realistic than the pieces I’m making currently. But I like them, and they help pass the time while I’m mulling big decisions about a major piece…decisions which involve a heat gun…