More Folk School park two

This is a group shot of the amazing students I taught at J C Campbell the week of Nov. 6. How is it that I luck into having such wonderful people as my students. Maybe the atmosphere at JCC has something to do with it.

As promised I am going to post the remainder of my photos tonight. This is Tone C. with her beautiful daughter, beautifully rendered by her Mother. Tone is also an instructor at JCC. I'm always a little intimidated when I have a teacher in my class. However, Tone put me at ease and let me believe I was really teaching her something.

A close-up of the finished top. Tone is also is a felt maker. She used her own felt for her daughter's hat. She also free-motion thread painted some of the flowers in the background. Beautiful job Tone.

Mary was another student who really didn't need my help in making the portrait of her daughter and son-in-law. Mary is a doll maker and a wonderful one at that. She came to the class with a vision of how she wanted this done. I think her vision was right on. Another beautiful job.

Susan C. is doing a wonderful job on this piece. The portrait is of her good friend, Ellen. Ellen taught Susan how to quilt.

Susan was having a problem with the fabrics for the portrait. I have to assume responsibility for that as I guided her in this direction. I recently received a note from her and I think she has this worked out in her mind now.

Susan had perhaps the hardest landscape to make and she got a lot done considering we only worked two days on the landscape. Another job well done.

Susan M. is Susan C's sister-in-law they decided to take this class together. I got the feeling from Susan that this class was way out of her box. I believe she told me that she had never done anything like this before. I really would rather have someone who doesn't have a preconceived idea of what they need to do. Susan was very open to suggestions and really listened to my instructions.

Her portraits did not have as much information (pixel wise) as do most of the others. This made the pattern a little harder to read. I was so proud of what Susan did in this class. I can't wait to see it finished.

This is Beverly K's grandson. Beverly is one of those people who is her own worst critic. (She admitted this to me) She did such a wonderful job on this piece, but it was not without inflicting self wounds. I'm stretching this a little to make a point. I really want my students to enjoy what they are doing. I also want them to work to their best ability but love of creating should overtake perfection.

Now that I'm off my soap box, Beverly was unhappy with the dark fabric around the outside of the face. I agree that the transition was to stark. After Beverly returned home she changed that piece.

This is the redone face. Great job.

How do I do this every time. I missed getting a photo Donna D's granddaughter. If you read the previous post Donna created the landscape of the lake. Her granddaughter's photo was another hard one to work with. Her face was in shadow and we had to guess at some things. However, it was really turning out to be a very good portrait. Sorry Donna.

Jane O. did a great job on her granddaughter. She has a very complicated portrait to work on as there are three people in the photo. Jane sent me the photo and I just fell in love with these three faces.

I usually recommend that my student start with one portrait but when you think about it that's what they are doing. They just finish the other two at home. Jane did a super job on this and I can't wait to see the finished piece.

This is Mary M. with Stephanie and Grace. Mary is a real animal lover. These animals are lucky to have her in their lives. Mary wasn't real happy with her fabrics for the dogs. She was thinking about changing them later. I thought that they worked quite well. The fabrics were heavy, textured fabrics. I see those as working well for animals.

We all decided that Mary's leaves worked really well for this piece. They lend a feeling of folk art to the piece.

What can I say now. I have made eight new friends in the quilt world. I hope that I inspired in them the desire to continue creating. I know that they always inspire me.

More Folk School

I'm going to finish blogging about the landscapes that were part of this class last week. Beverly K. wanted to portray her grandson at the lake where he likes to fish. She brought a piece of batik fabric where colors blended into each other and represented the water quite well. After adding a little paint to get yellow in the right areas she had the perfect piece.

Since we only had two days to actually work on the landscape Beverly was not able to get the leaves of the tree finished. She was throwing around several ideas one being snippets. There are several ways this could be done.

What she has on the background now is leaves that she fussy cut out of printed fabric. I demonstrated a technique I use where you cut out small pieces of fabric and place them between tulle and Solvy. You then thread paint over the surface and connect them by threads.

Mary K, sent me a photograph of her daughter's wedding. They were married in a field in Ohio that was lovely. However, Mary wanted to present them in a landscape with Stone Henge in the background. Stone Henge represented the careers of both bright and groom.

I knew before Mary came that she had a vision for this piece. I love to see students do their own "thing". I only guided a bit so I can't take much credit on Mary's piece.

Mary is also a doll maker. If you look up in the right hand corner you will see a stick doll that she made out of a piece of broken tree limb and fabric.

Mary M. is a lover of animals. She rescues both wild and domestic animals. She is certified to take wild animal babies into her home and nurse them back to health. She is also the owner of five dogs.

It was natural then that Mary chose two of her dogs to portray in her piece. Mary's family has owned a piece of property on a lake for a long time. She chose that location for her landscape.

Tone C. worked on the largest of the landscapes made last week. Don't know how but I failed to get a photo of just her landscape. During the time we emailed before class I got the feeling that Tone would be open to an abstract piece. I emailed her about the possibility of an abstract and she was eager to proceed in that direction.

I'm going to leave her photo for the post when I talk about the portraits. More later

J. C. Campbell Class

It seems I've been burning the candle at both ends recently. Out of the last 24 days I've spend eight of those days at home. The at-homes days were scatter here and there. I've enjoyed teaching and my trip to Houston but am now paying for the stress with a sinus infections. Don't get me wrong I would do it all again I'm just feeling a little sorry for myself right now. (besides it's rainy and I always feel better on sunny days.)

This beautiful red oak tree decorates the parking log at the Fiber Studio on the Campus of J. C. Campbell Folk School. I have never been to Campbell when I wasn't inspired by its beauty.

The title of my class last week was "Personal Places: Portraits in the Landscape". This class combine two classes into one. A landscape class and a portrait class. Both are quite an undertaking for a week class but the two together makes for a very intense class. This group came through with flying colors. I'm going to break this post down into two or three sections. Today I'm going to post about the landscape sections.

I like to start this class with the landscape for several reasons. It is a simpler class than the portrait one and it also gives me a chance to see how each students works with fiber and how she/he sees fabric. It also provides a canvas for the portrait.

Susan C. chose a photo of her friend Ellen to create in fabric. Ellen's home is in a word "homey". She has wonderful antique pottery and furniture. She does a lot of quilting so Susan wanted to portray her doing just that.

Because I exchanged many emails with Susan before the class I knew that she had experience with landscapes. I asked her if she would like to begin her piece at home by working on the quilt in the photo. She did just that and gave herself a little hands-up on the project. Her quilt will show up later in photos to follow.

This piece is being worked on by Donna D. Donna wanted to make a portrait of her granddaughter. The setting is a lake that means a lot to their family. Donna seemed to start off a little slow and then I turned around and looked back and she had the whole forest finished.

Jane O. sent me a photo with three of her grandchildren included. I usually discourage more than one portrait in a beginning class but as long as the student realizes that they won't be able to get more than one made I don't object. Besides, I loved this photo and wanted to see Jane work on it.

The beach means a lot to Jane's family. The kids were sitting on steps that went down to the beach. The steps were out of focus and would have made a really interesting abstract background. However, Jane wanted to have the experience of making a landscape so we chose a scene from the beach. Jane will thread paint sea oats on the sand dune.

I've gotten too wordy and will post more later.

Off to J. C. Campbell Folk School

View from the porch at the Keith House.

My cars packed and I'm ready to roll. Off tomorrow for a week at J. C. Campbell Folk School. Looking forward to meeting new students and spending a week at a wonderful place. Keep a look-out for more.

A Trip to Houston and IQA

This photo was taken from my seat in about the third row for the awards presentation on Tuesday evening. My plane was late arriving and I had to wait on my shuttle. I got to my hotel at 5:00 and the awards ceremony started at 6:00. I had time to shower get dressed and get another shuttle to Brown Convention Center.

I arrive about two minutes before the presentations started. I was still getting my breath when they announced that Digital Imagery would be the first category. They announced the third place winner and it wasn't me. I took a deep breath and then they announced that "Ohm" by Marilyn Wall had won second. They flashed a picture of it on the screen and I went up to accept the ribbon.

Afterward I was kind of in daze and don't even remember the next few awards. After all these years to have my work recognized at this level is truly rewarding.

Hope I will have time to post more later. I leave Sunday to teach for a week at JC Campbell so I'm busy, busy, busy.