Category Archives: Gallery Exhibitions

13Oct 2012

Coils Dress

Our annual gallery fundraiser at work was last night.   I don’t have a lot of time to make very elaborate pieces of art, so this is my goal each year, to make a dress to wear to this event.  This is based on a vintage-inspired pattern, with some tweaks.  The fabric is digitally printed silk/cotton from my friends at Spoonflower.  The same scribbly circles from the skirt show up smaller scale on the top although as a very subtle color variation (you can’t really see it in the photo) and the fabric has a lovely silvery sheen with the green.

The image I based the fabric design on is a photo of a pile of video cables.  I love the juxtaposition of 1940′s inspired dress with digitally printed video cable design.  My friend Jay does something high-tech with keeping TV stations running and sent me a couple dozen photos from his last trade show gig that were pictures of coils and tangles and piles of bright colored video cables.  I love that I have friends who don’t think I am crazy when I send messages like “OMG, I need that photo to make a dress, can I use it please!?”  Ok, he might have thought I was crazy, but he sent me that photo and 15 more.

I had a lot of fun walking around last night and talking about the dress and the design.  Two of the people from our local printing company (who do the newsletters and things for the center) wanted to know all about the printers and how many colors they use.  Because I work at a place where I am surrounded by some amazing artists, at least one person commented on the hand-picked zipper (where else would that happen to you?) and everyone needed to touch the fabric.  On Tuesday I will show it off to a highschool class we are doing a residency with.  They are coming to dye some fabric with me to accompany their own Spoonflower printed designs.

14Aug 2012

Mosaic: Spoonflower & Sewing

“Take This!”, an exhibition of work by Textile Center instructors, closed today.  This piece called “Mosaic” was my contribution to the show.  It is cotton voile, digitally printed by Spoonflower, layered over a sheer cotton with a burnout paisley design.  The top layer is very slightly transparent so you can see the texture through and the lining peeks out about an inch longer than the top layer for another hint of paisley.  The fabric design is based on a photo of a “mosaic plant” which is a neat little water plant that we found at the Como Park conservatory.  The original plant is about 3 inches across; I printed this one at 54+ inches across.  (If you look closely in person, you can see an itsy-bitsy bug on one sleeve.)  I pretty thoroughly modified a Simplicity pattern to get the shape.  The trim at the neckline is some vintage lace that I handpainted with Dye-Na-Flow paints to match the fabric and it has 3 vintage metal buttons on the back.

06Mar 2012

Things in Progress

It’s been quiet around here but really I am working on all kinds of things.

This exhibition opened at the Textile Center and light rail construction “officially” started.  Constructions in Concert.

I taught a digital fabric design class.  Hi Class!  This was their “grid works” fabric design based on a celestial theme.  I am teaching another class at Darn Knit Anyway in May.  You should come!
I started knitting another “Venomous Tentacula” shawl.  I wear my other one all the time and I love when people ask me what the pattern is and I say “venomous tentacula” and they look at me like I have lost my marbles.  The photo of my other one is actually featured on the pattern page – the designer asked if she could use my photo (cool!) and will be featured on another site that is putting together kits to go with the pattern.  This one is merino/silk yarn that I dyed and I have been waiting for the perfect thing to knit with it.
I have very recently become the co-Captain of the Etsy Sellers Assisting Sellers Mentoring Team.  (Team SASsy)  My job is keeping track of the team blog and Facebook page and doing a lot of mentoring in between.  If you have an Etsy shop, you should know about us.
I submitted an article to a new e-zine about teaching embroidery to kids.  We will see if they like it.

And somehow it is March already.  How did that happen?

12Nov 2011

Eye Spy

“Eye Spy”, digitally printed fabric and hand embroidery.  Cotton fabric, rayon & silk thread.  8″ x 8″.

I made this piece to donate to a fundraiser for the art center in the city where I grew up.  They have an anonymous auction every year where artists donate pieces but you don’t know which artist belongs to which piece until the end.  So I had to wait until after the event to show this off.  The owl is one of the education owls for the U of MN Raptor Center program.  He was very photogenic.  The “eyes” design I drew digitally and the “feathers” are a pencil sketch that I scanned.  Printed at Spoonflower.   I then went in and embroidered feathers on top in shiny silk and rayon threads, so it has a little depth and shimmer.  You may recognize the design from a skirt I made a while back; I liked it so well I decided to play around with using it in other formats.

17Aug 2011

“Smart Art”

Nice article by the Northfield newspaper about the WWW exhibit that my piece was in.  I just found it, although I think it has been up online for a while.

03Aug 2011

Northfield, MN: Cows, colleges, contentment*

Went to see my piece at the WWW exhibit at the Northfield Arts Guild last weekend.  It is a great show!  If you are in the area, it is still open through the 6th. It’s a lovely little space and we enjoyed wandering through downtown Northfield and along the river.

*I saw this motto on a sign as we were driving in to town.  No kidding.

12Jul 2011

A Surprise

9 July, 2011

Dear Becka,

At last evening’s Opening Reception of the WWW Exhibit in Northfield,
your piece, “Through the Looking Glass”, was awarded 2nd Prize. Your award
check of $500 will be put in the mail on Monday.

The reception was a great event celebrating the wonderful work of WWW
artists and we hope you will have an opportunity to visit the gallery.
You will be impressed with the work of fellow artists and, as you should,
will feel pleased being honored with an award!

Congratulations,

Toni Easterson
Curator, WWW Exhibit

Isn’t that a lovely email to find in your inbox?  The piece that won the award is the one documented here.  I was completely surprised.  Thanks Northfield Arts Guild!

01Jun 2011

Yellow & Tidbits

We have had so much rain here that there are a lot of these in the yard.

Lots of art in progress and not much to show here yet.

  • I am presenting a seminar on Etsy in two weeks at the International Surface Design Association Conference and Etsy just revamped a whole bunch of things on the site.  I spent tonight doing research.
  • My looms have arrived!  The second batch of little frame looms are here and I will start shipping out my pre-orders tomorrow.  Then they will be in the shop with no waiting.
  • I will have 3 pieces of art in three different exhibitions in June.  Details to come.
  • I just got the coolest piece of fabric from Spoonflower yet! I drafted and printed a skirt with a giant waterlily on it.  Linen/cotton.  Printed so that I just had to cut it out and sew it up.  That’s a sample for a class that I am teaching in just over 2 weeks for the MN Quilters Annual conference.  I am going to wear it to class.
21Feb 2011

Waterlily

Lily Pond Box.  Donated to the Textile Center’s Fiber Frenzy fundraiser last weekend.  Made from scraps of hand-dyed fabric.  The boxes were donated to the center and we in turn gave them to board members and individual members at our annual meeting for them to do the finishing – adding fiber art to the “frame” in the top.  It will make a lovely jewelry box for someone.

 

21Jan 2011

Through the Looking Glass

This is my piece for “A Common Thread” annual members exhibition at the Textile Center.  It is “interactive” art.  The background of the piece is digitally printed fabric, which is a “QR code”.  This is like a bar code and if you have a smart phone, you can get a QR reader app and scan this art.  Then what happens?  Your phone will zap you off to my website and a journal of the making of this piece, which you can find right here. Go there and read all about it!