Back into the studio

Gardeners & art lovers enjoyed good weather for last Saturday’s Art and Garden tour. I was situated in a garden in front of an historic (1910) St. Paul home, one of several Peace Garden sites  in the Twin Cities. The gardens and plants were the stars of the tour. This garden was all about the rich textures and colors of leaves, and the structures of plants and shrubs. Here is just one example.

I displayed my runners and hangings on trellises, and placed my pillows on the brick stairs leading to the massive front porch. Textiles as garden art and decoration!

I have a couple of weeks left to prepare for the Loring Park Art Festival. This morning I discovered that I accidentally recycled one of my smallest stencils along with the newsprint used to blot and flatten it after use. This is something John Marshall warned us about, and now I have learned the lesson!

Stencils are soaked before and after using, blotted with newspaper, and flattened under books before storing them away for the next use. So if you layer a bunch of stencils  between newsprint under a pile of books, tossing one away accidentally is easy if you are not mindful when putting them away.

 

Liking the new arrangement

It’s amazing how shifting a few objects around in a room can open it up. I pasted a long piece of linen yesterday (3+ yards), and began painting the work today. I can move around the work more easily. The picture shows the pasted section resting on the top of my flat file, which is on wheels allowing me to push it around as needed. I’m glad that I can now work with a big piece of fabric like this.

And from the other direction…

The pasted fabric stretched out to dry.

Because the rice paste shrinks when it dries, the surrounding fabric pops up a little from the surrounding pasted areas.