The Classic Cuff (Bangle)

The Classic Cuff

My day-job is being an ops manager at Talbots.  I've found my way back to retail which I really love, because I enjoy being around clothes and fabric.  We get asked a lot "What goes with this [skirt, pants, sweater...etc]?" and something that nearly always works is a white button-up shirt.  So this idea of beading a bangle in the style of the cuff of a shirt popped into my head.  

This idea has been simmering for months, maybe even a year.  One of my hang-ups for this piece was getting beads tiny enough to look like shirt-fabric.  Lo and behold, Fire Mountain Gems now carries size 15 delicas!  I was going to settle on size 15 rocailles but they weren't going to have the look I desired.  The delicas lay smooth and flat as with my other bangles, I just needed smaller.  

It was nice working with a new product.  These take much longer to finish something with how small and delicate they are.  The glass breaks easily and cannot take much stress so I have to be a bit more gentle when beading. This particular piece was also hard to keep going back to because beading one color gets boring.  I also wanted the buttons to be able to move through the button holes, which it is created with full button hole slits, but the beads are too delicate and stiff for the buttons to move through.  It still has the look that I wanted, so that's a win. 

I'm not sure what will come next of these tiny seed beads, but it will be an intricate pattern to be sure.

Paned Vines 2002

Paned Vines (like window panes) was an experiment piece that I wove in college.  I was considering how to mix double weave with plain weave in one piece and created this.  I was weaving loose, open fabrics a lot of the time back then.  The double-weave vine portions of the "panes" are woven loosely and the solid strips vertical and horizontal are the plain weave, woven tighter.  

As a lot of "experiments" wind up, I learned a lot, it's not one of my favorite pieces, but it shows parts of my development and processes as a weaver.  When I showed it for critique the double-weave portions were a jumble and almost too sheer to see the patterns.  Thus, I ended up backing this piece with black fabric to clean up the color confusion.

Currently this piece is hanging at the Haslett Library at the Bookend through the end of this month if you're local and would like to see it in person. 

Art History Daydream 2002?

Art History Daydream by Jenny Schu

The title of this piece comes from the fact that the original image I worked off of was a doodle in the corner of my Chinese Art History lecture notes.  I was working a lot in Theo Moorman inlay weaving and this is one of my favorite pieces I've done in that technique.

Detail

The base layer is plain weave black rayon and the colored inlay is a mix of different chenille.  This piece measures 31.5 inches long by 33 inches wide.

My favorite response to this piece is from one of my Kinder-campers one of the years I was teaching art camp.  There was a teacher's show and I had submitted this piece.  In class he came up to me and told me that he could see dragons in my weaving.