Cat's Meow Bangle

I had finished this set in October, but I haven't had the chance to properly photograph the Cat's Meow bangle and earrings until now.  This piece is the result of slipping down a Pinterest rabbit hole of cat illustrations. I had been wanting to do some sort of cat bangle that was large, but not too terribly involved as far as the design was concerned and I found a ton of ideas that fit the bill.  I was concerned about the tail part of this cat design looking strange when converted into the peyote graph paper, but now that I have worn this a bunch, I don't even remember feeling like it looked off. 

I am so pleased with this piece that I'm not sure I'll ever part with it.  I wear a lot of browns and the blue that I picked out goes with a lot.  I would venture to say this matches a large portion of my wardrobe and I really enjoy wearing this as a set.  

The earrings follow the same design as the bangle and I wanted them long-wise but an everyday wear length, so I made them half of the cat head on each side.  

I post the progress of much of my work on my social media.  At the above length a friend said that she wanted it.  So I made another shorter one for her.  I think that this bangle, if one wants it a little wider would work well at the below length also.  I love how versatile this pattern ended up being.  

There is an additional narrower cat-head-only bangle at the Lansing Art Gallery right now (November 2019) for their holiday Michigan Made show.  I'm not sure that I'll get another one done for the REACH Art Studio Not So Silent Night event that I'll have all of my current available jewelry at for sale.  That show, along with a silent auction, food, entertainment and other invited artists is coming up on December 14th, 2019, 7 - 9:30pm. You can check out the Facebook Event HERE.  

River Terrace Church Installation

Here it is.  The final hanging day of my River Terrace Church installation.  It felt like being in art school all over again, up until 3am sewing for a 9am critique.  It has to be done.  My energy and spirit was deep into this project.  I have been through a lot in the past 6 months and this piece lived with me along the way.  Somewhere between exhaustion, joy and beauty I teared up when I finally saw it complete and hung in place.  

I am so honored to have been chosen to create this piece for River Terrace.  I told Laura as I was hanging and hemming the dowels into the bottom of the panels that, as an artist, I usually hope that I am pleased with the work I create (it doesn't always happen), I hope some other people like or appreciate it, but this is different.  This piece I hope, pray, that a congregation of 400+ people like this piece.  I created something that would change the entire background of their sermons as long as it is up.  Laura, Mark, Melissa and Carol all encouraged me to come to the Easter service.  I wasn't really planning on it since that week I had to finish this piece, I was late at work for floorset and I was volunteering for the Capital City Film Festival.  I wasn't just tired, I was exhausted.  I decided I would make my best effort and the fact my Dad wanted to drive in an hour to come to the service with me that  morning solidified my decision.  

Approximately 38 hours + of designing and meetings.
More than 130 hours of pinning, sewing, hand stitching and cutting.
315 some odd feet of black satin ribbon.

I felt like I was running back to Jo-Ann's for more ribbon every week.  I could do a two hour lecture on the design technique and my process creating this work.  I'm lucky that I had such a great group to work with while putting this piece together.

I've been to a lot of Easters, but this one meant much more to me than any other Easter. I was pretty much in tears the entire service.  Every word that the Pastor spoke, the hymns, the congregation spoke to me.  It kept circling me back to my past 5 months when I had decided it was time to join AA, and without that fellowship, support and weekly meetings, I wouldn't have gotten this installation finished by Easter.  The constant state of overwhelm I was living in has washed away and from it came this piece and a new beginning of my artistic drive.

This piece was commissioned to highlight the beautiful stained glass windows at River Terrace.  I have always been inspired by stained glass but I've never pursued any work based on it.  From the first meetings around doing this piece I've been excited to play with this inspiration and now I want to do more.  Please excuse the above weird panorama, but the color was better split between two different photos so I just plopped the one over the other so you get the idea. 

Thank you Dad for coming out and supporting this piece, thank you to the group and River Terrace that made this possible, a huge thanks to my boyfriend for tolerating piles of paper, ribbon, needles, pins, thread and fabric taking up the living room, dining room and studio, and thank you to my AA groups (you know who you are, you've heard all about this piece).

2019 Church Commission Progress

If you follow me on Instagram, Twitter or my personal Facebook profile you have been seeing snippets of a piece that I'm referring to as "the big project" or "the big commission."  I have been commissioned by a local church to create a hanging triptych to be hung at the very front of the church's sanctuary. Three panels approximately 3.5 feet wide by 12 feet long each.  It's very exciting to be working so large and getting to play with all the silky, shiny and sheer fabrics I can get my hands on to create this large piece of fiber art.

I usually am pretty wary of taking on commission pieces but after meeting with Melissa and Laura one afternoon in October, I came home excited and inspired.  There were already bits of an idea in place, but they needed someone who knew how to put it together.  This fiber piece is being created to compliment the stained glass windows that accent one side of the sanctuary.  I pulled imagery from these windows and started pulling fabrics and colors. Stained glass has always spoken to me, these particular stained glass windows are a bit more modern looking than one would imagine when you think "church" and the lines and color are very much along the lines of my style of artwork.  I have already been thinking about how these window designs would play into my beaded jewelry and other various works of mine.

This process has been interesting due to it's size, I have the first cartoon for the first panel and it's taken over my dining room table.  There's lots of rolling, unrolling, moving cats, and placing fabric going on in my dining room.  I pin together sections and stitch, pin, cut, stitch, press, roll, unroll....  

I wanted to go skiing yesterday, but I couldn't ski with a free conscience knowing that the Easter deadline is looming over me.  I thought I'd finish this panel yesterday but I only got to the point of sewing the rest of the pieces at the top together and starting to measure and press the edges.  As usual, this is a long tedious process. Just the way I like to do all of my artwork.  I did solve my slippage and too-small-ironing-board issue though. I've been pressing and moving fabric between my ironing board and my dining room table. My ironing board was taking up more space than was comfortable to work in and moving the fabric back and forth just wasn't working for me or my surfaces.

I have had a padded table cover sitting in my Amazon wish list for forever.  Ever since someone (Cheryl maybe?) suggested it at a learn-to-use-your-sewing-machine workshop day at my place a few years back.  The top of a table pad is vinyl but the other side is soft and thick.  Thick enough that I can do light ironing on top of.  I can also pin into it!  Why I waited so long to order this table cover, I'll never know, but it's going to be a huge help with this project and future projects.

I cannot wait to have this finished and be able to show the finished hanging in all of its glory, but for now, bits and pieces and fun pops of color.  A huge thanks to Melissa for suggesting hiring me to make this piece and to Bryan for being totally cool with me turning our dining room into an extension of my studio and being a cat-wrangler when I cannot have them messing with this.

I have a few other things coming up too:

I'm the March Presenter at the Weavers Guild of Kalamazoo!  Monday, March 11th, 2019

I will (as usual) be at Fiber Feast with the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild modeling and selling my jewelry for their annual fashion show and luncheon. Saturday, April 13th, 2019

Ginkgo Leaf Bangle 1

This Ginkgo Leaf Bangle came about in some planning for My Arts night Out with Rhea at Old Town General Store.  I've been thinking that making some pieces specially for this event would break me out of the more basic designs I've been doing.  So I asked Rhea what her favorite plants were and Ginkgo was the first one she said without skipping a beat. 

I've only worn this bangle out once, today it juried into the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild's Runway Show for Fiber Feast.  I'll have it back by May 4th though for First Friday's Art Night Out.  

I really enjoyed playing with the shapes and colors of this design and I imagine I'll be using it again soon.  

The next bangle(s) I'm making for My Arts Night Out are leaning towards Old Town General Store's Michigan theme with some Michigan Cherries.

(Photo shoot from yesterday where Clark is trying 

very hard to not jump in the light box or push beads on the floor.)