BJ Parady Fiber Arts and Notes

You may not see Rothko in this….

Posted on January 30, 2012 by BJ Parady

A few years ago I had a friend who would go on and on about the paintings of Mark Rothko. She even wanted to make curtains like some of the paintings. I looked him up, admired the paintings, and (in my head) went, meh.

Then I saw an original Rothko at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Wow. What a difference. They just don’t photograph well. In person, you can see that they actually consist of layers and layers and layers of transparent colors, building up depth and, well, expressionism. Way cool. Still not sure how you could do that in curtains, though…

Anyway, one of the ideas I’ve been working on is achieving something similar in fabric. You can only take a piece through dye baths so many times before all the molecules are all tied up. You can only put so many layers of paint on before the fabric becomes stiff and loses any advantage over just painting on canvas.

But you can layer fabrics of various opaqueness, with different colors and such. And get a look vaguely reminiscent of Mr. Rothko. I’ve done this with all sheers, or some sheers.

c2012 BJ Parady

And that’s what happened here. The bottom layer is a handdyed cotton (blue-violet, it shows up better in the picture below). The next layer is some gelatin dyed fabric that is the upright rectangles. On top of all that is a blue-violet silk organza. And some strips of painted linen.

c2012 BJ Parady

I added batting and a back, and sewed the silk down on the machine. The overall effect was a little blah and boring, so I started cutting out small sections. That’s where the piece is now–maybe it’s done, maybe it’s not.

But the point is, I started at one point (Rothko) and ended up with something my own–just because another artist influences you, or inspires you, doesn’t mean you have to make clone art that looks like their work. Let that piece be the little quotation at the beginning of the book, and you write the whole story.

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wordless Wednesday

Posted on January 18, 2012 by BJ Parady

c2012 BJ Parady

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Monoprinting Made Easier

Posted on January 16, 2012 by BJ Parady

I’ve played around with monoprinting off and on over the years. (BTW monoprinting is a process where the artist makes a design on a plate using paints or inks or dyes, and then transfers that design to another surface–paper or in my case fabric–to make a unique print. Because the medium transfers, you only get one print. Hence: mono-print.) I first did it on paper:

c2007 BJ Parady

I tried using the techniques I’d learned for paper with fabric, never was too happy with the results. So I kind of abandoned that path, and moved on to other processes. Then I started hearing about gelatin printing, first, I think, from Rayna Gilman (that links to one of her blog entries on the subject, it’s also covered in her books). I liked the organic quality of the prints, the fact that you don’t use a press to make the print, the fun of it all.

I even acquired a lifetime supply of gelatin (point of fact, if you never use it, any amount is a lifetime supply). But I never took the time to actually try this at home.

Then the other day I read about the Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate from Fibra Artysta. I ordered one and got it (very, very quickly). The last couple of days I’ve been testing it out. This is what it looks like:

As you can see, I’ve been busy:

First thing: it does feel weird. Kind of like I expected, but weird. It’s probably easy to damage, but on the other hand it’s also easy to be protective of it and care for it. Like I only carry it around on the plexiglass sheet I work with it on, not by itself.

But I can make very interesting monoprints with it. Different paints react differently to the surface (some produce some kind of lypophobic reaction that creates some interesting bubble like holes in the paint). You can roll the paint out on it, stamp it, move it around, draw in it whatever you feel.

c2012 BJ Parady

The vertical line on the left was created accidentally–there was a crease in the fabric when I printed it, so this was formed. I love it when things like that happen and look good.

c2012 BJ Parady

Here I moved the paint around with a sideways held chopstick. The effect is subtle but cool. The ability to maneuver is directly related to the thickness of the paint.

c2012 BJ Parady

The large white spots are caused by what I’m calling the lypophobic thing going on with some of the paints. Way cool.

c2012 BJ Parady

Ghost images are a term in monoprinting that means a print made from the ink left behind on a plate after a print has been made. Kind of a second run at the same design–except they are always lighter than the original. As you can see here, ghost prints can be made on the Gelli Plate.

I got the 8″x10″ one as it was closer to the final size I want. Overall, I’m quite charmed by it and intend to keep using it to make more and more prints…to add to my pieces of printed cloth to finish up…but it is fun.

Will I ever try the real thing? Probably–because there is one thing that happens with the gelatin that doesn’t happen here. Deterioration. As the gelatin breaks down from being handled, you can get some really interesting prints. That I want to see. Some day. In the meantime, I’ll keep this in my tool kit.

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wordless Wednesday

Posted on January 11, 2012 by BJ Parady

c2011 BJ Parady

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Year Long Journals

Posted on January 9, 2012 by BJ Parady

This time of year lots of artists are talking about starting year long journal projects, with strong senses of purpose and good intentions. More power to them.

Really.

But I won’t be doing it. Part of it is the ‘been there, done that’ syndrome. My first attempt I made one 4″ square every day, with a theme of what was happening that day–either in my personal life or the world at large. It was 1997, I remember because one of my great nieces was born in December of that year, and it chronicles the time we were expecting her arrival. Except I trailed off some time in October…it’s very hard to make something every. single. day. Playing catchup after a weekend off is no picnic, either.

I then moved on to monthly pieces, inspired by the first journal project on the quiltart list. These I finished. I experimented with techniques, made them relevant to my life each month.

c2006 BJ Parady

A few years later I chronicled the life cycle of a red buckeye in my yard, making a piece every month reflecting what it looked like. A lot of these involved playing with printing photos on fabric.

Then I lost interest in the process again. I had found it wasn’t inspiring increased creativity or skills, it just was this looming presence I had to deal with on a regular basis. (Come to think of it, that’s kind of the same feeling that makes me not want to do commission work…)

But after I moved, I tried another method. Because it was the end of January before I worked out the parameters for this project, and because my birthday was coming up in March, I decided to make it a real year for me–a year from birthday to birthday–and began on my birthday. I used an actual journal this time, a Moleskin one, and used fusing and other glues to attach small collages (4″x6″) to each page. Sometimes I wrote about them, sometimes I didn’t.

c2012 BJ Parady

This BYP (BJ Year Project) worked out fairly well, there are some skipped dates but I made it all the way to my next birthday. There was one problem:

c2012 BJ Parady

The journal got a little obese. The covers are almost hemispheres from the strain. So when I decided to keep going on my birthday, I went to another Moleskin journal, but lowered the size to 2″x3″. This helped, but the pieces are quite small:

c2012 BJ Parady

Sometime about six months later, I got stopped on this for some reason–vacation? illness? don’t know? and never went back. Except that I dip into both of these books on occasion to recall compositions I worked out on these pages.

So will I do it again this year? Well, for sure I’m not doing a calendar year one. Probably I won’t start one on my birthday. I have instead switched to making notes (collages/ drawings/ stitching samples) as they occur to me, with no grand plan involved. That works for me.

Would it work for you? Can’t say. Give both ways a try, see what happens. To those of you who make these projects every year and keep them up, I’m happy for you. Maybe envious. Maybe not.

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wordless Wednesday

Posted on January 4, 2012 by BJ Parady

c2012 BJ Parady

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Being Janus

Posted on January 3, 2012 by BJ Parady

January is named for the god Janus, a two-headed sort of guy, with one head looking backwards and one forwards. So I guess it is as good a time as any to look back on where I’ve gone in the past year, and forward to where I hope to go this year.

c2011 BJ Parady

I got several small pieces made. I pretty much kept to my pledge of not buying new stuff, of making do. The one place I fell short was the one I expected to fail–thread. I seldom seem to have the right one for a particular job. And they keep making these cool ones…like a variegated pearl cotton or one with wool in it that kind of poofs out after you stitch with it.

And I participated in two group shows as a featured artist. Sold some small pieces. Gained followers on Facebook and Twitter.

But. All in all, I have to say it was kind of a fallow year–nothing big accomplished, no big advancement in the ‘career’ thingy.

Was that the fault of not buying stuff? I don’t really think it was–I can find no way to use the lack of spending money as an excuse for my shortcomings. Maybe I needed some down time creatively. Maybe I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough. Maybe I didn’t spend enough time at it. Maybe I’ve tried and tried and have finally realized I’m not going to make the big breakthrough to fiber art stardom. Maybe I don’t want to.

I just don’t know.

c2011 BJ Parady

But I can try again this year. I have thoughts about a newer inspiration, the cottonwood trees in my neighborhood. These are kind of trashy trees (they seem to drop some new stuff in my yard every week), ones I never paid much attention to until I came to live next to them. But I like the way their leaves twist in the slightest breeze. I like the way their furrowed bark looks in the wintertime. I like their tall, spreading stance.

And I intend to continue to try to use up what I already have. Even though I never have before, I want to try working with commercial fabrics and overprinting them and using them with my hand dyed and painted stuff…I need to use them up. It’s not that I don’t want to support my neighborhood shop or help the economy or whatever. It’s more that I have come to deeply believe that the best way I can ‘be green’ is to use what I already have, adapting it as needs be, but using it instead of causing more to be made while what I already have languishes in my drawers.

I want to make art about my environment without making the world a lesser place. Looking forward, not so much back. Adios, 2011.

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