Lisa Binkley's Fiber Art Blog

Uncommon Threads exhibition opens tomorrow

If you will be in the southeast Wisconsin area any time over the next few months, be sure to stop by the Museum of Wisconsin Art, 300 S. 6th Ave., in West Bend to see this exhibition. I'm looking forward to seeing the exhibition and giving a Gallery Talk on Friday. Here's the promotional information from the museum's website:

Uncommon Threads: Contemporary Wisconsin Textiles
March 28 - July 15

GOING IN, Lisa Binkley, Fiber and beads, 2005

Sneak Peek: Friday, March 30, 10:30 A.M.
Opening Reception: Sunday, April 15, 1:30 – 4:00 P.M.
Family Program: Sunday, April 15, 1:30 – 3:30 P.M.

Textiles is a term that can cover a myriad of fabric-focused work. It can be practical or decorative, historical or contemporary. This show will feature artists who are working in textiles that reflect an acknowledgement of the past but with an approach that is very much current in approach, materials and personal input. Participating artists include: Linda Barlow, Lisa Binkley, Barbara Chappell, Briony Jean Foy, Marna Goldstein Brauner, Sonji Hunt, Sharon Kerry-Harlan, Lee Ann Kleeman, Chris Kleppe, Pat Kroth, Gabriele Meyer, Leslee Nelson, Christopher Niver, Casey Puetz and Bird Ross.

Art making--with arrogance and humility

This past week hasn't included any art making for me. Instead, I've driven about 1,900 miles with my 16-year-old daughter to do the first 2/3 of our tour of colleges of interest to her. It's been great mom/daughter time, and I've seen more of the Ohio countryside than in the past 4+ decades of my life. Since we have such an early spring in the Midwest, it was also a wonderful treat to see flowers and flowering trees in bloom everywhere we went. (Who knew we'd be in shorts in March in Michigan?)

Yesterday we visited Denison University in Ohio and had the good fortune to sit in on a creative writing class taught by the gifted poet and teacher David Baker. I was moved by a lot of what he had to say to his students in the class. I also found this video online of him reading some of his work and talking about writing poetry. I found it very meaningful as a visual artist as well. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gcCluuEfUg). Just after minute 3:00 in the video he talks about the need in writing poetry to be both "extemely arrogant, enough to think you're going to sit down and say something of value to the world, and extremely humble and embarrassed by that very thing." He goes on to talk about gradually relinquishing yourself from the picture to "that other thing" that is the art you're making.

I immediately connected with these statements in thinking about my own visual art-making process. I, too, find myself hoping to say something of value to the world in each piece of art I make. And yet I also often find myself a bit embarrassed putting my work out there in the world and simply hoping that some people will connect with it or be moved or affected by it in a positive way.

Today I head out to do these very things--put my artwork and myself out there in the world. I'll be dropping off three pieces of my artwork at the Museum of Wisconsin Art this afternoon for the upcoming exhibition "Uncommon Threads: Contemporary Wisconsin Textiles"; then I'm headed to Oshkosh to spend two days teaching and lecturing about my work and techniques in bead and thread embroidery.

I always find myself saying a little wish/prayer before each class, hoping that my teaching will be a blessing, will be enriching, to the people who have chosen to spend their time working with me.

Do It Yourself Fabric Design

I recently tried out a terrific, fun service that I wanted to share. I'd recently read about places that will print fabric of your own design, and that happened shortly after a good friend told me about a drawing she'd done years ago that she wanted to find a way to enlarge and print on fabric so that she could bead it. I also have a drawing from my childhood (below) that I've thought for a long time could make an interesting textile design. So I pulled all of that together into one big experiment, and I'm really happy with the results (so is my friend).

Quilting Daily had a post a while back about do-it-yourself fabric design companies. I opted to try one of the three mentioned in the post: www.spoonflower.com and am really happy with their customer service and the quality of the finished fabric.

I took a mostly pen-and-ink drawing I did around age 11 (think 1974ish) while sitting in my school library listening to the book "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" (hmmm... I still do a lot of listening to audio books while making art). Once I omitted the hokey rainbow, waves, and seagulls from the center, I found what remained still appealing to me. So I played with it a bit in Photoshop and then uploaded the file to Spoonflower's site. From there you select scale, type of repeat (in this case "mirrored"), and type and quantity of fabric. In just a short time I had two yards my new fabric (organic cotton sateen) at home just waiting for me to turn into a quilt! I've included a close-up of some of the fabric in the lower image so that you can see how the print translated to fabric.