Custom Book

I finished this book a couple months ago, and am just now getting photos posted! This customer wanted a 12 x 14" book in which employees could adhere letters to their retiring coworker. The cover is handmade gampi paper that has been walnut stained, the pages are Canson Mi-Teintes in Azure, and the closure is a found twig. I had a hard time giving this album away. 

Finally Wrapping Up--Riley Residency

I am incredibly behind with my blog posts! But better late than never, right? I'm beginning to give in to and be okay with my artist-tendencies, which often means things will be last-minute or late or not done to the full extent I would ideally want, but sometimes it just doesn't matter! We worked on this project the entire month of April, with an opening reception held the first Friday of May. 

To recap, I was very blessed to be able to do this project through the Nebraska Arts Council's Artists in Schools/Communities program with the help of the Lincoln Arts Council and Riley Elementary School. Each third and fourth grade class designed and created a nuno felted tree for a total of five trees which now hang in the Riley Media Center. 

Mollie Magnuson with the LAC helped me prepare for the project in the images below: 

Cutting down 175' of bubble wrap and duct taping to make pieces wide enough to cover each tree.

Onion dyeing silk chiffon to prepare the fabric for the kids to nuno felt.

Drying 40 yards of onion and coffee dyed silk chiffon.

Explaining how I connect journaling, drawings, and tree imagery into my own work.

Students are adding their drawings to the silk using dye crayons. We decided to only use the crayons on two of the five trees, a huge relief because you have to iron every inch of the crayon drawings before they can get wet!

Cutting silk chiffon so the pieces can be laid onto the main tree fabric.

Students are helping one another keep their skeins of wool yarn from getting tangled as they "draw" with the yarns onto silk.

Just about every student used their handful of wool roving to make a Santa Claus beard. This boy was extra creative with his unibrow.

A single tree with wool roving and yarn drawings, waiting to be felted.

Wetting down the piece after tulle is laid over everything to keep the wool in place. The days it was nice enough to go outside were the best.

Bubble wrap laid on top to help with agitation. Amazing, the excitement that ripples through the crowd when they see bubble wrap, and the shared disappointment when its explained that the bubbles need to remain unpopped for the felting to work.

Rolling up the package. Layers from the bottom up: plastic, silk, wool drawings, nylon tulle (mesh), bubble wrap.

Tying up the package with nylon stockings to hold everything together.

Everyone wants to be the first to roll the package. Such hard little workers: you can come to my studio anytime with that enthusiasm! 

Each class helped with the rolling of all 5 trees. This Steelers fan is helping one group of rollers by counting the number of times they've rolled their package. Each tree had to be rolled approximately 1000-2000 times (little arms produced huge variation in how fast the trees felted).

Happy Messy Rollers!

Adding hot water to three trees laying out on the cafeteria floor.

Some days we had to work in the cafeteria because of the weather. Thank you janitors for helping us with our wet & soapy mess!

Each of the five classes spent two class periods rolling the trees. Surprisingly, their spirits were high the entire time! I'm never this happy after rolling for an hour. 

I really do wish I had these felters as my studio assistants!

Demonstrating the "pinch test", how to tell that the wool is beginning to wiggle through the weave of the fabric.

Explaining the Fulling Stage: the step after a successful pinch test when you're ready to begin shrinking the wool further.

Students made posters to invite their family and the public to the opening reception. I love that they think I'm more awesome than I really am! 

At the moment, these trees are temporarily hung, but will be permanently installed as a forest within the school's Media Center. From what I hear, the trees were hanging on the Lied Center stage during the Lincoln Arts Council Mayor's Awards. Sadly I had to miss the event, but I'm so excited these young fiber artists got to share their installation pieces with a larger audience. Here, students are explaining the project to their principal.

At the opening reception, students were excited to see how their hard work transformed the wool & silk into art pieces.

Adults who made it happen: Riley Art Teacher, Jessica Northup; Me; Lincoln Arts Council Staff Member, Mollie Magnuson.

Below is a video made by Emily Bulling of the Lincoln Arts Council. I can't thank the LAC enough for all of their hard work!

I have much more to post, so stay tuned to read about my trips to the Surface Design Association Conference in Minneapolis and the Cottonwood Festival in Hastings, NE, as well as some custom books I've been working on recently!

Nuno Felted Forest by Riley Elementary

Just half an hour ago I finished installing the five nuno felted silk and wool trees created by Riley Elementary 3rd and 4th graders. This 4 week Artists in Schools/Communities residency project flew by and has been one of the most fun things I've done to date. Each of five classes took the time to lay out their wool in tree-ring-like designs, carefully apply soap and water, and roll and roll and roll to felt the wool through the silk. I am incredibly proud of what they've accomplished, and hope they feel lucky to have been introduced to fiber art so early on! The installation will be a permanent display in the school's media center.

I was incredibly lucky to work with Riley Art Teacher Jessica Northup and Lincoln Arts Council's Mollie Magnuson, who got funding for us to do this project through the Nebraska Arts Council. I'm positive this project was made so much fun because of working with these two, and I hope we can do it again somehow. I just love when everyone involved has the right combination of being easy going while hard working and fun spirited. Why wouldn't you want art to be fun?

Below is a small snapshot of one of my favorite areas of texture. You'll have to come to the public reception this Friday, from 4-6 pm at Riley to see all five trees in person! I hope to have some process images to post in the near future, so stay tuned!

Would YOU hire me?

This is the resume I delivered yesterday to a papermaking studio here in town. My mind is a skipping record of “oh please oh please oh please” whenever I think about the possibility of working here. I don’t know about anyone else, but giddy is the only adequate word to describe how I feel when I see the deckled edges of a stack of handmade paper and tears well up when I see it letter pressed, I just love it all so much.

We’ll see. I know I shouldn’t let my hopes get too high, but I’m way beyond that.  Oh please oh please oh please!!!

Need a stamp?

I'm so excited! My custom stamps came in the mail today from The Paper Princess. I ordered a stamp of my website address to put on my shopping bags, bookplate text for the inside cover of my books, and a return address stamp. Her Majesty was kind enough to give me a discount on the 3 stamps, and I highly recommend her! The stamps came inside this super cute box, which I must admit was the deciding factor for my order! Thanks PP!

My first official photo album

Between 3 and 4 years ago, my husband (then-boyfriend) and I attended at least 30 weddings over the course of two summers. Wouldn't you know it, now is the time for all those friends to be reproducing! I can name at least 15 people who are or were recently pregnant, lots of them with girls. So I decided I should get 

Setting up my Studio

Sneak peak of a wool and silk piece I'm working on in my new studio space.

Just over a month ago I started as the Fiber Artist-in-Residence at the Lux Center for the Arts. I am grateful for the space and excited to start teaching classes this summer. So far I feel like I've spent my residency just finding supplies and setting up my area. It's definitely a challenge when the many techniques I do--dyeing, printing, felting, papermaking (luckily I've chosen to limit all my bookmaking to my home)--require their own set of newly-purchased equipment and table space. Thank you Grandparents, for setting up a college-fund that I forgot about during college! Here is what I've figured out so far:

My desk serves many functions--in addition to my writing area, it holds my pot, hot plate and kettle (don't worry, I don't plan to use the burner with those fabrics hanging so closely above!), bucket of mordanting silk, and covers my drying system for newly made paper. 

This is one of the random stations in my space--paper pulp next to drying onion skins, the latter courtesy of thé Cup where I just started working several weeks ago. My coworkers are so nice to save these for me! I can't wait to see what shades of yellow and orange they give my silk. 

This is a view of the Fiber Room, which I share with the Painting Artist-in-Residence. I hope he doesn't get too frustrated with my goldfish syndrome or the smell of wet animal hair and onions.

The Lux even has a tiny beater! This was the selling point for me--when I saw that they had a beater to make paper pulp, I applied for the residency within two days. I have yet to use it--I'm waiting for Tim to build me a stand for the motor to sit on--but I look forward to the day when I can make my first beater load. I'm sure it will take quite awhile to prepare a pound of fiber in that tiny tank, but it's infinitely better than using a blender! 

A base layer of merino wool for an upcoming felted piece. Another random but necessary station. 

If anyone out there is working on their spring cleaning and would like to see their cast-aways go to a creative use, I am still on the lookout for:

• bath towels
• food processor
• shelves 
• long tables--I'm thinking those white plastic ones for picnics and potlucks
• electric tea kettle (I bought one already, but could always use more for teaching)
• panty hose (to cut the legs off and use as ties. perfect use for the ones you've snagged!)
• stainless steel pots of any size
• dish drying rack
• iron
• measuring spoons/cups
• egg timer
• rain gutters
• Assistants--welcome any time!

Tim photographed me listing out the supplies I still need during my first First Friday event at the Lux. It's been strange starting to refer to myself as "artist" rather than "student" when I meet people. I guess if an organization lets me into their space as an artist, it must finally be true of me? It's been an exciting journey getting here--I can't wait to see where it continues to take me!