1 day + 100 artists + 100 patrons = $10,000 to fight cancer

I am delighted to be an invited artist for "The 100" to be held next Wednesday, February 4, 2015. The goal for this fiber fundraiser for the American Cancer Society is to raise $10,000 in one day. Just 100 people will have a chance to purchase a randomly selected artwork for only $100! 

See all the details on the Fiberart for a Cause website. See a selection of the artwork available on the FFAC Pinterest board.

I'm sure you will want to be one of the very exclusive 100 patrons who will be randomly assigned artwork from an extraordinary line-up of international fiber artists.

Fiberart For A Cause has already raised $240,000 through the generosity of fiber artists and patrons.

The artwork that I am contributing to this very worthy cause is one of my Bird:Houses - the Apostle Bird. As a patron, you have a chance of receiving this piece.

The FIberart for a Cause fundraiser is one that is near to my heart. I am asked to donate my work to a lot of causes over the course of a year and this is the only one that I say yes to instantly, without hesitation. Virginia Spiegel is a remarkable woman who has made a remarkable contribution to the fight against cancer with her imaginative and highly successful fundraisers.

In honor of my brother-in-law, Juan, who we lost way too early to leukemia.

Printmaking and more at Create Mixed Media retreat in Chicago!

I had such a great time teaching at the Create Mixed Media retreat in New Jersey in July that I'm doing it again in Chicago this month. I'd love for you to join me!

I'll be teaching four workshops. First up is the 4-color block printing class. You'll learn about design, registration for perfect prints, marketing and selling prints, and even cut your own mat. You can add some stitching by hand and/or machine. Everyone works on their own design and New Jersey's students came up with some stellar ones!

On Saturday I'll be teaching a class called Art Websites for Beginners. All you need is a laptop with wifi capability and some images of your work. There's no software to buy or download, no special knowledge needed. By the end of class you'll be well on your way to a beautiful website you can maintain and update yourself. We work on the websites in real time, one step at a time, until everyone is confident and ready to move onto the next step. In New Jersey we joked about having a hacker party with pizza and beer in the hotel lobby after class to keep working on our sites together. Fun!

Saturday night we jump into the Live Tweets class. This is a great introduction to soft sculpture and the results are delightful. Make a bird with fabric and paper that you've painted or printed yourself. What a fabulous way to show off your handiwork!

And on Sunday morning join me for a great inspirational exercise that ends up as a house with a bird on it in the Bird:House workshop. Randomly choose a "bird word" and create a collaged and stitched house to illustrate it. We talk about inspiration, the principles of design, and many construction techniques. The houses can either hang on the wall or sit in a wooden stand when complete.

The Create retreats are great fun, inspirational, educational, and a wonderful way to connect with our "tribe" while trying new things and meeting new people. I hope to see you there!

Housing Starts

Last year, the uber-talented and enthusiastic Kathy York got a brainstorm to gather a group of artists to create a village of Fiber Houses. The resulting village is so vibrant and interesting, isn't it?

I built three houses for the project and at the time I thought they were on the large side, but looking at the village now I can tell they're not. My houses are in the center right in the village above.

First side of my pointy house 

Second side of my pointy house

Side one of my squatty house

Side two of my squatty house

Side one of my tall house

Side two of my tall house

I had a lot of fun playing with roof lines and proportion. Maybe it's my frustrated architectural tendencies?
Each of my houses is composed of both fabric and art/found papers and incorporates some printmaking.

Following along on the rest of the blog tour to learn more about the houses and their artists.

Susan Else (website) May 2 http://www.susanelse.com/

Frances Holliday Alford May 3 http://www.franceshollidayalford.com/weblog/

Pamela Allen (website) May 4 http://pamelart.homestead.com/titlepage.html

Frieda Anderson May 5 http://friestyle.blogspot.com/

Lisa Call May 6 http://blog.lisacall.com/

Jane Davila May 9 http://janedavila.blogspot.com/

Naomi Adams May 10 http://killerbeedesigns.com/blog1/

Jamie Fingal May 11 http://jamiefingaldesigns.blogspot.com/

Barb Forrister May 12 http://www.freespiritartstudio.blogspot.com/

Vickie Hallmark May 13 http://fiberartglass.blogspot.com/

Connie Hudson May 16 http://beyondtherail2010.blogspot.com/

Leslie Jenison May 17 http://leslietuckerjenison.blogspot.com/

Sherri McCauley May 18 http://sherrilipmanmccauley.blogspot.com/

Judy Perez May 19 http://judyperez.blogspot.com/

Melanie Testa May 20 http://www.melanietesta.com/mtype/

Laura Wasilowski May 23 http://artfabrik.blogspot.com/

Kathy York May 24 http://aquamoonartquilts.blogspot.com/

PS: Sorry about the wonky formatting in this post. Blogger is being a pain in the patootie and won't bend to my will this morning...

Join me at Art-Is-You

Take a class here on the East Coast! Art-Is-You, the hippest mixed-media conference on the right coast, is around the corner and registration closes tomorrow. I hope you can join me (and a slew of other talented mixed-media artists including my uber-cool co-author, Elin Waterston) for a fun roster of classes in Danbury, Connecticut over Columbus Day weekend this October.

I'll be teaching a Bricolage workshop on Saturday, Oct 9. We'll be starting with paint, illustration board, stamps and a pile of found objects and will create unique, personal shadow boxes, a la Joseph Cornell but with a modern edge.

On Monday, October 11 we'll be constructing 3-dimensional Fiber Art Houses. These clever houses incorporate all sorts of imagery and can tell a story, pay homage to a favorite artist, express an idea or feeling, or be a neat way to show off all of your favorite things. I'm working on a whole village right now and am having so much fun!

If you want in on all the hip happenings, don't delay! Registration closes on Monday, Sept 6 at midnight.

Brazenly Radiant Art and positive energy

After finishing a week filled with disappointment, frustration and stress, I'm starting off this week with some art and positive energy. I'm donating a 5" x 7" piece to Fiber On A Whim's Brazenly Radiant Art auction to benefit the Atlanta Breast Cancer Challenge. The auction starts June 16 at the Fiber On A Whim website, please consider donating or purchasing a piece for this very worthy cause.


Continuing my quest for that positive energy and an appreciation of the little things, I got out the hummingbird feeder my daughter had given me a couple of years ago. I had forgotten how much I loved it. Our house has no eaves or porches from which to hang traditional feeders, but this little feeder sits on a metal stake and nestles among the flowers in the garden.


It's made in Mexico from recycled glass and I tracked it down online and discovered that it comes in other colors too, so of course, I ordered a few more. Aren't they pretty? They look very sculptural and when the hummingbirds find them it will be such a treat.


Yesterday I also continued our hallway renovation project. I removed a godawfully ugly wall sconce and changed it to a ceiling tracklight fixture on the same switch. Now we have another small wall free and clear to hang a piece of art (and the ugly sconce is gone, gone, gone!) While removing the sconce I discovered that the previous owners of our house had done a little "creative" wiring (i.e. unsafe, not up to code, forehead-smackingly stupid) to it, so even though I wasn't aware of it all this time, I slept better last night knowing the wiring was correct and safe now. Of course, finding (and accidentally picking up) the mouse skeleton while re-wiring the ceiling box (in the attic, in 98 degree heat, oof) was more than a little skeevy. And yes, to the people who've asked, I do simple wiring - adding switches, outlets and light fixtures when needed. It's amazing what a girl can do with the right tools and a couple of good books!

It Takes a Village

As promised, here is the rest of the village of fabric houses.

Julie's is a treehouse with a cup of tea in every room.
2 Petit Treeanon, Julie Saviano



Mary Gay's house celebrates her family and pets.
99 Keeler Lane, Mary Gay Leahy



Nancy's depicts her second home on the coast of Maine.
545 Blueberry Hill, Nancy Mirman



My sister, Linda, was inspired by the words of her favorite authors.
1821 Textual Way, Linda Oehler-Marx



I love this interior wall in Linda's house. There are pictures of our mom and grandma and an appropriate sentiment about knitting (both Linda and our mom are knit-fiends and our grandma used to be) plus a warning that I'm next to learn to knit. I told her that when I'm 82 and we're in adjoining rooms in an old folks' home then, and only then, can she teach me to knit.


If you'd like to try a fiber house of your own here are some things to think about:

The opportunity exists for a very allegorical approach to a theme of home. While you can create a literal interpretation of “home” and your memories of it, you can also use the inside/outside aspect of the construcion as a chance to explore:

a vision of what home can be
an interpretation of self
a memory, fantasy, dream or imaginary home
hidden/revealed thoughts using symbolism and personal imagery
a specific room: a studio, a kitchen, a garden room, a library
a journal or story house
a tribute to an artist or writer
a chronology of family
a house as a character in a story

Again, the inspiration for our challenge was the book, In This House by Angela Cartwright & Sarah Fishburn, Quarry Books, July 2007

A cool preview of the houses in the book can be found on Angela's website.

13 Nightingale Lane

Ta da! Here's the completed house. Every year I issue the women who work in our shop a challenge. We've had some interesting ones -- collaborative journals, based on art movements, using found objects, etc. This year the challenge was inspired by Angela Cartwright's book In This House. We each made a house out of fabric with either batting or Fast2Fuse inside the walls. There are five houses on display at the Country Quilter during the Northern Star Quilter's show this weekend. They are all different and all wonderful.








13 Nightingale Lane

I plan to disassemble the house after the show and make it into a fiber book, probably with grommets at the sides. That way I can store it flat and still open it up into a 3D house. Now I have to think of something for a new challenge.