Improvisations

I really love fabric but am not very good at sewing! A friend brought me some fabric from his trip to Africa, so last Friday and this Friday I made two small canvases (6" x 8") using pieces of the cloth, acrylic paint and tissue paper. I was inspired by one of the Quilts of Gee's Bend that had a lot of blue denim in it and a band of colorful pieces at the bottom. These were really fun to work on and allowed me to work with fabric but no sewing machine!!

Inspired

Walking through the Saint Louis Museum of Art inspired me to go through my "Home Book of Art" printed in the 1850s and use parts of an engraving of a painting as the focal elements of this piece. It is called "Florentine Poet" based on the painting's title. I tried to evoke the elegance of the place and time with the papers I chose; I also used a page out of the book describing the painting and the de Medicis of Florence.

Exploring

We recently went to the Saint Louis Museum of Art to see the show "Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning and American Art, 1940-1976." I decided to create something with a more abstract feel -- using bits of paper like de Kooning used  splotches of paint. This was the result. I'm calling it "Offering" since the Egyptian frieze fragment shows men presenting offerings of grain and animals. The green paper at the bottom I thought gave a feel of the Nile valley with lush vegetation. I chose the other colors based on what had been used to paint the frieze.

and so it begins...

I'm hoping to update this with the latest work created by Rob and me. I'd love to get feedback on new directions I may be taking and how my work is evolving. Rob has been taking photos of his latest limestone sculpture as a "work in progress" so I'll get those photos from him to upload as well.

The collage shown here uses two bird photos taken by my friend, Sheila. I've merged the branches of the two photos with paper to make it look like one scene.