Busy Weekend

It's been a wonderful, productive weekend...hours upon hours...uninterrupted work time in my studio...no music, no telephone, no conversation...just creative solitude...a slice of heaven.



I had plenty to do. Most of my work had been anticipated before the weekend. I knew I had to rust more fabric with nails in order to complete the artist book, Nails in a Coffin, 1861 to 1865. I needed five more pieces but I rusts dozens more. I rusted the five pieces of silk, several different pieces of silk, and quarters of old damask napkins. The three fabrics took the rust in utterly different ways.

In any event, I was able to finish the pages for the book. The photos here show the signatures being stitched together. As I type, the entire thing is under weights. Tomorrow I'll see how the completed volume looks. Alex will hopefully make a mini-video of the result within the week. If so, I'll post it here.



Later I'll have images of Strata VII. I finished it over the weekend. I also had to create an artistic skate board for the charity event that opens this Thursday. I'm the sponsor, afterall! I decided to create Skate Saint, based on the Virgin of Guadeloupe...with an altered crescent moon skate board.

I took an image from the Internet, desaturated it, and altered it further with PhotoShop. I traced the reverse onto the skate board and painted bold areas of color. Then I did a photo-copy transfer onto the painted areas. One of these images shows how I scrubbed off the photo-copy paper to reveal the transfer. Later, I embellished the figure with sequins, beads, paint, jewelry, and plastic heart-shaped buttons. It's done. Thank goodness.



Yet, I also had to do something "fiberish" with this image. I took one of the photocopies and transferred it to a piece of polyester using Xylene. First, I colored the material with heat-transfer paints. Before I knew it, I actually made a miniature quilt. It still needs a few beads...mostly because I can't resist. I'll put up a photo soon.

Speaking of the "irresistible", I also prepared a number of African artifact transfers on book pages...I prepared them for hand stitching...even though I need to do this like I need another hole in my head!