studio 78 notes: batik

Showing posts with label batik. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

street art splasher

Remember this? When I was in NY a couple of weeks ago, I took a picture of a mailbox that somebody had dripped paint all over. The mailbox was right outside the art gallery I had just left, but I didn't connect the dots. I just thought it would make a great screen. It did.

However, 10 days after I shot this picture, an article appeared in the NY Times about the protesters who were throwing paint over street art to protest the fact that street art in NY has gone commercial. Huh? Today there was another article saying that the protesters are just throwing paint blobs, handbills, and stinkbombs at street art and galleries without having any real focus for their campaign. It's not clear what they are trying to do. The mailbox must have been a trial run.
I took the screen with me over the weekend and at one point, demo'd how to print with a Thermofax . Here is the result.

On another note, here is my demo piece for the soy wax. I used these items because they are rather graphic illustrations of what you can do, but I think this piece looks too much like others I have printed. Can I get out from under myself?

One more picture I forgot to post. This is what happens when you try to open a plastic container full of dye that has been sitting in the sun and has created a vacuum. Fortunately, I was wearing my oldest, paint-splattered Birks. Don't try this at home.

This morning, in my nice hot shower at 78 Sullivan, I gave myself a Reduran pedicure and most of it is gone. Never a dull moment

Saturday, February 11, 2006

a fun day

Happily, the predicted snow held off till five minutes after class was over today. Hopefully, all the travelers who came from afar have gotten home safely by now. I always worry. Today was the soy wax workshop at the Arts Guild of Rahway, NJ and we all had fun.

Kendall Storm (below)

and Joanna van Ritbergen

drove down from Westchester County, NY and batik-d and painted their hearts out. I would never have guessed that this was the first time either of them had painted fabric, let alone doing batik. They waxed and painted and waxed and painted and waited till they got home to iron out the wax and wash the fabric - and I hope they will send me pictures when they are done.

Arlene Jacobs, who does all kinds of fiber work and is a member of the NY Textile Study Group, came out from NY City and was nonstop. I think she went home with more completed fabric than anybody! Here she is at work. Diane Carey came the longest distance: a couple of hours drive from somewhere in Northern Pennsylvania on the way to New York State. Diane has pretty much taught herself surface design and you can see the concentration she brings to her work. And then we have the two musketeers: the famous artist-website designer,Gloria Hansen, and the famous blogger, Mary Manahan, who is looking impatiently at the softball she put into the wax, waiting for it to get hot enough to stamp with. It never did. But hey, you never know. You gotta try everything! Right, Mary? Later in the day, they insisted that I do 'show and tell' and give a lesson in how to wrap fabric for steaming, just in case they decided to use dyes the next time they do batik. Somebody grabbed my camera and made me SMILE while I was showing them this batik piece I did with kitchen implements. Joanna wanted to buy it but I wasn't ready to part with it. However, I will eventually be putting some fabrics for sale on my other blog "Off the Design Wall." I just haven't gotten to it. Been too busy keeping my studio clean. All in all, a good day. I got home before the snow started to stick, but we did stay in tonight and eat leftovers rather than get stuck trying to get up the various hills we have around here.