Inspiring Artist

I found this amazing artist that I'd like to share, her name is Kei Ito.

Metal Coat 02

Here's an excerpt from her website "My practice links together costume design for dance and theatre productions, fashion design for individual clients, accessories under the label ‘Always Sky Above’ and textile and costume exhibitions for Galleries.
My work is distinguished by an interest in exploring new possibilities of pattern cutting and explorations of geometry. In this respect I am linking ideas of pattern with thoughts about the movement of the body.
Another feature of my working process is in its relationship to different costume and textiles traditions. In some respects I relationship to tradition might be likened to travelling through space, in effect the past affords to us the luxury of moving through times in ways that might enable us to sense its nuances. Design is not just the economy of outcome but the potentiality of an unrealised future in the process of occurring."

White Crin dress

Wave Cut Dress

Wave Bag

Paper Wall Project 2000

I love the way her work annihilates the boundary between fine art and commercial design.

Silk Sculpture Progress

I've been working on a silk sculpture for my June show in the Elizabeth Denison Hatch Gallery at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington, DE. It's coming along. I'm planning to show this with a new large diptych oil painting.

I thought I'd show you what goes into making this piece. I start with silk organza and nuno felt it with off white wool. Here I'm laying out the wool.

Here I'm drizzling warm soaping water over it until it's soaked.

It's a little hard to see white on white so I also photographed the same process with turquoise wool.

Next I cover it with another layer of bubble wrap and roll it up.

I wrap it in a towel and roll it back and forth.

Then I unroll it and rub my hands over the back of the silk further working the wool fibers through the silk. In this part of the process I can actually see the wool fibers coming through to the back of the silk.

After that comes the fun part, I rinse the soap out and throw it on the table with force at least 200 times. It's called felling and it shrinks and compacts the wool which in turn makes the silk crinkle.

It's time to dye it in a puddle of dye and let it dry untouched for a few days. Here it is dry.

I have to steam it before I cut out the pieces.

Here's a stack of the pieces ready to be sewn together.

I've sewn them together, put wire in the seams and hung them up in my studio.

I'm working on color and composition issues but in 3 dimensions, instead of 2 which is a whole different ballgame. I'm trying to find the balance between too much, and too little. Then, there's the whole logistical issue of how to hang it.

Here I played around with adding the bubble silk to it. I'm going to make some pieces with smaller bubbles in a lighter color. I have a lot of work left to do! If you're in the Wilmington area I'll have my studio open this Friday from 5-9 pm at the DCCA.

Inspiration

I've been known to say that nature never ceases to amaze me. These photos were taken on Providenciales, in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The waters surrounding the island are gorgeous turquoises that change depending on the depth of the water. I really couldn't dream of a better place to go while working on my current body of work.

The last 2 photos are of a silk sculpture I worked on before the trip, it's crazy how it looks like the colors and forms I photographed. I know there will be more work coming out of this trip. We stayed right on the beach and the sound of the waves rolling onto the shore lulled me to sleep every night.

Arden Community Recreation Association

I'm working as the art director at the ACRA camp in Arden, with Jeanne Orr as my wonderful assistant. It's fun some days and down right grueling others. The rewards are obvious when the kids repeatedly say "This is so fun!" and the parents comment that their kids can't wait to get there in the morning to go to the art room. Here are some of the projects we have done so far. Spin art, do you remember this from when you were a kid? My twist is using colored cards. They don't seem to tire of this because of the surprise of seeing what it looks like when it stops spinning.

Watercolor with India Ink. The ink was done first, then wax candle drawings, then watercolor. The ink and the wax give the work dimension and the kids like playing with the different techniques.

Here are some felt sewing kits they made. The idea is to stock the book with sewing supplies and also use the pages to practice embroidery stitches. One little girl has put a lot of work into hers since this photo so I'll have to post an update.

Ken Mabrey, an amazing artist in the neighborhood came in as a visiting artist in the art room. He brought some of his original stencils and the kids stencilled on handkerchiefs with fabric paint dabbers . 38 handkerchiefs were stencilled that day! Some of them were made into vests the following day, I'll have to photograph someone wearing one, they were super cute with the stencilled handkerchief as the back. Painted Paper Collage is a 2 day project. First the kids paint with acrylic paint papers that will be used to collage with the following day. The painting day draws more of a crowd than the collage day. For painting I put out all kind of tools to paint with and make marks with like combs, sponges and large brushes. Here's some of their papers.

Here's some of their collages made from their painted papers.
Here the kids made their own stamps and printed with them.

This was just the projects for the first two weeks. Two other visiting artists volunteered their time to work with the kids and I apologize I don't have photos at the moment. I'm usually too involved to pick up a camera while I'm working.