2012 Wrap Up

Wow. Just wow.
2012 has been an amazing year that I can't believe it's already over.  I still have so much to do! 

I have had a number of things happen in my art career:

Arts Council of Greater Lansing 2012 Individual Artist's Grant

"Bamboozled" Accepted into International Juried Show "Small Expressions 2012"
Long Beach Museum of Art, CA (and my trip to my very first Convergence)

Three pieces exhibited at the Michigan League of Handweavers Biennial Exhibit and awarded two honorable mentions

I gave my first Program with the Needlework and Textile Guild of Michigan followed by a day and a half workshop.  Although I was a little nervous, it went smoothly, and I not only enjoyed myself, but I received so much positive feedback.

Michigan League of Handweavers Workshop Grant and the Chris Clark Fellowship Grant for the Tapestry Workshop I took with Rebecca Mezoff

Artist's Billboard (opportunity via the Arts Council Individual Artist's Grant)

I am officially represented by 2 galleries and 2013 I am adding a third:
Grove Gallery (jewelry and fiber art)
Lansing Art Gallery (jewelry)
coming for summer 2013: Synchronicity (jewelry)

And I have had a successful year of new projects and Commissions:

I made my first runway piece (garment instead of jewelry) for Fiber Feast with the Ann Arbor Fiber Arts Guild

I feel that I had my first successful #eTextiles project design with the Pac Man Bangle (and am hoping to make a new #eTextiles bangle in 2013)

My first beaded sculpture piece is well on it's way: "Uprooted I" (and I just put a coat of walnut oil on the root-base last night)

"She can't see the Forest through the Trees" is probably more than 2/3rds finished (a leaf update will be coming soon, I have been sewing them together and it's turning out wonderfully)

And, as usual, I took the time to make an inspired Halloween Costume, including teaching myself some millinery, getting back to dying full-force, and reminding myself that conductive thread and LED's can be simple.


Looking through my blog this year, I have 21 more posts than 2011.  And I'm finally feeling that this year has been wildly successful after listing it out.  I have no real New Years resolutions beyond trying to be more organized and going bigger and better with my work. 

2011 was a lot about productivity (I recorded approximately how many pieces of jewelry I could make, per week and the total of those items per week), 2012 was all about moving my work from jewelry to experimenting with larger pieces to exhibit, 2013 will probably continue on the lines of my desire to exhibit more.  I will be working on the pieces floating around in my head and on sketchbooks that are beyond what people already expect from me.

I am excited.  Now, for this evening, we are racing lobsters and eating them with a small group of awesome friends.  I hope your New Years Eve is as eventful as ours is!

Tapestry Workshop with Rebecca Mezoff (Michigan League of Handweavers Workshops 2012)

Thursday evening, August 9th through Sunday, August 12th I spent in Holland, MI at Hope College's campus with some of my favorite people: Weavers and Fiber Artists!

I had chosen to take Rebecca Mezoff's "Color Gradation Techniques for Tapestry."  I was dropping something off at Millie Danielson's house and she brought up that I should look into taking this workshop.  I'm not a "workshop junkie" (a term I learned this weekend and liked) because I have so many things that I have to get done with my artwork that I hate to distract myself with ideas and new techniques. However, I do want to support MLH and the learning opportunities that they have right at our back door.  I have zero formal training in weaving wool tapestry at a tecnical level or how to color gradate. So I applied for an MLH Learning Grant and signed up for Rebecca's class.  Along the way, the Arts Council of Greater Lansing announced a new grant that is for individual artists.  It's the Chris Clark Fellowship Grant.  I decided to apply for it and see if I could get the other portion of my workshop weekend paid for.  I recently found out that I was awarded this grant also, along with a number of other artists.  The 2012 Chris Clark grantees can be found HERE.

What a class!

Day 1:

I learned how to splice so that I have no funny knots and smooth transitions.

Back of my piece/sample.  Please excuse the stray yarns...

Front of the piece, looking through the back of my loom so there's warp in the way.

Rebecca was very organized and had a wonderful power point to show up exactly how some of these techniques are used and how to do them.  She had samples all lined up for us to work on, but what I loved about her teaching style is that there were no hard and fast rules as to how you had to weave your piece.

Day 2:

I decided to try using a cartoon (line drawing behind the weaving) to follow an idea that I had.  I am using pick and pick, transparancy and gradation in the teal/black/grey piece.

Day 3:

On to serious gradation!  The yellow is the yarn we had been using (2 ply), and I started in with a purple block of single ply yarn that you use 3 strands at a time.

And then I got home, set it down in my loom room, and it sat like this until last week.  Nearly done, but after 3 full days of over 30 hours of weaving (my choice, they weren't 10 hours days!) my fingers were ready for a break.

Last week I sat down ad finished my gradation in the purple and yellow.  I remembered it feeling overwhelming because of the counting of single yarns and getting just the right mixture for a smooth transition, but it was't when I got back to it.

#1 "Stream of Consciousness"

#2 "Wing It"

#3 Gradation Block

This is the first workshop weekend that I have taken with the Michigan League of Handweavers. Since these were such new techniques in tapestry for me, I was really driven over the 3 days to get as much information out of the thress days as possible.  The last piece that I did, with the gradation block has potential for me to weave my beaded sculptures through it because the side of the purple block are completely open.  I'm playing with design ideas now.

Chekc out Rebecca Mezoff's Blog about her weekend with our class HERE (there's some good photos of me!)

I thought for a moment that it was the first 3-day workshop I had taken ever, but I'm wrong, Briony Foy did 3 days with the Greater Lansing Weavers Guild in Spring 2011 (Blog post here).

Thank you so much to both the Arts Council of Greater Lansing and the Michigan League of Handweavers for providing me with this opportunity!  I will be blocking these pieces and will soon hang them at Grove Gallery!

This activity is made possible in part by a grant from the Arts Council of Greater Lansing.