Apr 8, 2012

His Twinkling Perch

about a week before our grad show opening, i officially completed my ultimate tribute to my Spaceboy!


for our critique day, we had to some how install our final pieces the way we would have liked to see it shown in the gallery. the mere size of this quilt had me display it on the tables instead of taking up an entire wall in the studio which was good for both the other ladyfaces to hang up their pieces and to make my quilt look completed. when i had no luck to lay out the backing and batting to sew it all together before the crit day, i almost cried and continually asked myself what had me make this quilt a queen size!
now that it's completely basted with lots of new stars, suggested by the class, i can't complain for the size. the fact that outer space is so vast kind of plays well with the black space of my quilt. i guess in this case, my brain knew what it was doing...though i hope it'll tell me why next time i'm near tears out of frustration.

at the beginning of the semester i wanted to make an entire collection of accessories in the theme of spaceboy but was pushed to concentrate on just this quilt. one of my ideas was to make a set of scarves originally with a running wolf pack kind of design and have random lines from spaceboy letters. it's still something i'd like to do but i guess i'll have to leave that for later. with everything coming to an end basically by next week, i went ahead and made scarves anyhow and squeezed in a few natural dying sessions in the studio. i bought some tight weave cotton gauze from the studio and used pomegranate with iron mordant and lac with alum mordant.


the pink was a little too pink for me so i dipped it literally for a second in the pomegranate bath and it gave me this way yummy smokey rose color.
years ago i scored an entire bolt of this open weave gauze, which i'm positive is also a cotton if not cotton blend gauze. after dying and printing some for the quilt, i thought it'd make for lovely and textural scarves. i went ahead and finally started to use the gauze and have been dying and printing the spaceboy letters for scarves. i'm kind of going mad with all the different colors of natural dye, i've already decided to hunt around and invest in some big pots specifically for natural dying so just try and stop me.


I don't think i'll have any ready for the gallery opening but i've an on campus craft sale in the works so be sure to come out and pick yours up there! i'll also have everything you see on my etsy shop and a few new hobo gloves, this spring is dragging out quite a bit here in southern ontario so i'm sure your mitts could use a toastin'. 

with all the exposure about to happen, i was thinking of revamping my dot com and my business card design. then the universe told me "heck yes, do it!" 'cause last week we were made to design a business card and artist postcard for the gallery opening.



i've been loving brown craft paper so much the last little while and decided to go with it for the business card, the site revamp will have to wait after i'm truly done with school to draw everything and have it set but ready your true hearts!
for the postcard, i decided to make one for the quilt and not me as an artist. i figured people will remember the piece they saw in person and not so much of the designer who made it, that and the fact that there'll be a book at the back of the gallery with artist statements. i figured they could get a little insight to what my quilt is about and get to take home a pretty nice looking postcard...just in my humble opinion. side note: there is nothing like hand written fonts, yum!

i have to admit it is pretty sad that we will all break off into our own paths and i will miss the studio and craft wing pretty hard. being able to throw around ideas with another designer in your own or another studio won't be as easy or fun to do out there on my own... but i can't help but to feel so reved up to finally live a little and make what i want to from here on out! after doing three years of the wrong program and then three years of the absolute right one, i just need to live and make and work and do shows for the next little while. much like a big bird in a small cage, i am counting the days till that door latch is unhooked and i get to stretch out!

internally yours,
sister valentine

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