(Above: Mandala LXIX. Framed as a diamond: 23 3/4" x 23 3/4"; as a square: 16 3/4" x 16 3/4". Found objects hand-stitched to a block of a vintage quilt. Found objects include: a collection of plastic toy animals; four butterfly votive candle holders; garter hooks; laminated Tampa Nugget cigar bands; sewing machine bobbins; a blue plastic canning ring; a gold disc from a sports trophy; four gold beads; and buttons. $250 plus SC sales tax. Click on any image to enlarge.)
Designing this mandala was a challenge. In my mind, it was going to be super easy to use the colorful plastic animals. They were all going to lay perfectly flat and form a ring of equal width around the center. The colors were going to be balanced too. It took quite a lot of "play" to achieve these results. Some are stacked. Some are close together. Some overlap. Eventually, I had them arranged and snapped a cell phone image so that I could get them stitched down the way I planned.
(Above: A collection of plastic animals and dinosaurs.)
I will probably use this approach in the future because I have plenty more animals, dinosaurs, army men, and cowboys and Indians too. They came from Bill Mishoe's auction. I wasn't the successful bidder on the table lot with them. I didn't bid against the antique dealer wanting the collectible metal toys that were also on the table. They went for quite a fair sum. The box with the plastic toys was literally under the table. I made an offer to the antique dealer and got hundreds of these little toys for a mere ten dollars.
I've also started stitching found objects onto blocks from another old quilt. Of course it came from Bill Mishoe's auction ... for $12.50.
I've cut this quilt into eight blocks. In order to staple each block to the stretcher bar, I had to cut and zigzag stitch the orange patterned sashing from one place to another. It worked well. In fact, in fact, the sashing hardly shows on the finished piece. The added sashing simply made it possible to stretch the mandala over the stretcher bar.
Five of these "star" blocks will be put into existing floater frames with existing stretcher bars. Why? Well, back in 2007 ... I created a series called Strata. They were meant to reflect the layers of the earth. I used all sorts of fibers and a water soluble stabilizer. They were framed. There were at least a dozen of them. They were in a show at Francis Marion College in Florence, SC. A couple pieces sold; the rest went into "storage". Seven years later, I took Strata V: Summer (the one I liked least) apart, cut it into two, applied mat medium to it ... which also attached it to a ready-made 12" x 12" stretched canvas (which I painted with copper acrylics). I like it so well that I did the same thing to all the remaining Strata Series. (The original Strata Series frames were the same size as my Large In Box pieces. Obviously, In Boxes were then made for those frames.) Back then (2014), I put the newly altered pieces into floater frames. Several sold; the rest went into "storage". Basically, there are five floater frames left. Mandala LXX was stitched specifically to be stapled to one of the five existing stretcher bars and to fit into one of the five existing floater frames.
So ... what happened to the half of Strata V: Summer? Well ... I cut part of it for a scrap frame made from a piece of leftover moulding. It turned into Keys for Climate Change. It was so much fun to transform this piece again! The rest of the piece was cut and stitched to more greeting cards. This is one of the reasons I love fiber arts! Reworking older pieces is easy!
2 comments:
Just amazed by these new pieces. These may seem like strange questions but - Do you spend very much time deciding what color thread to use and do you find it makes very little difference because there is so much to look at in your mandalas? Thanks.
My question...do you ever sleep?
Actually what kind of schedule do you set yourself? Set hours? etc
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