This is the archive for the ‘fiber’ Category

Documentation

March 13th, 2023

This has been a very difficult time personally and I haven’t been in my studio for a while. In one month, I both broke my tibia and worst on March 4th lost my brother, Senter, to cancer.

I still haven’t been able to work but have started to document some smaller work I’ve done this past year in a small sketchbook. Mostly mark making, collage, and simple printing, resulting in mixed media books and other explorations. Some of this work was done in courses lead by Lorna Crane and by Sally Tyrie through Fiber Arts Take Two. Revisiting work is calming, a chance to slow down and think about my direction – how will this work influence future projects. I still have a ways to go with this documentation but here are some results to date. It’s a work in progress.

Image of Mark Making Book Image of Marks on Fabric
Mark Making Explorations: 1. Mark Making Book, 2. Painted Fabric Samples

Image of Print-Incoming Tide Image of Marks and Prints
1. Print: Incoming Tide, 2. Small collage using various types of simple printing

Image of Nature Studies Image of deconstructed explorations
1. Prints, acetate images and machine stitches, from a series of 14, 2. More explorations, didn’t go with these

Image of Artist Book-Closed Image of Artist Book-Open
Three earlier fabric books, combined together with a leather cover. I’m still working on the cover.

Three Books

December 3rd, 2022

Treated myself to two courses through “Fiber Arts | take two” recently. The first with Lorna Crane (I’ve shown work from her course in previous posts), and the second with Sally Tyrie. Both were very fun, intense and a lot of work. Lorna’s was about mark making on paper and fabric and developing work from it and Sally’s about research through photographing and drawing, abstracting imagery, exploring with a lot of hand printmaking. Both pushed one out of their comfort zone.

This post is about three books, which were developed from one of Lorna’s projects. They include hand dyed and hand painted fabric and paper, ink, leather, beads, machine and hand stitching, as well as objects such as the stone, bits of shell, and feathers. I wanted a bit of a story with mine. The first, titled “Beginning”, is mainly black, white and brown, the second titled “Water” added color and the third, “Earth” added three dimensional objects. I may combine them into one larger book.

Image of Book Beginning
“Beginning”

Image of Book Water
“Water”

Image of Book, Earth
“Earth”

Not A Heist

April 27th, 2022

In a previous post (titled ‘Heist”) I described a project called “Bound in Place”. It was dyed and then buried as an experiment. When I went to dig it up I couldn’t find it! Hence the “Heist”. Below are images of laying out the rusty bits, attaching them, and adding seed stitching to create texture.

Laying out the rusty bits image of stitching
Testing Layout and Stitching

Image of Dyed Project Image of Burying Project
Dyed and Burying Project

I waited until March the dig it up but couldn’t find it, then in late April, I was weeding in this area and there it was, so covered in mud I almost missed it. The poor thing was torn with very distressed fibers. After washing and drying it it was repaired, attached it to dyed linen and backed with a piece of thin felt for stability.

Image of Found Project Image of Repaired Project
Found and Repaired Project

I’m happy with the result showing the work involved plus a sense of decay—nothing’s permanent. Another time I will bury one in the warmer weather and will mark it better. I’m still interested the effect bugs and other ground dwelling critters may add to the project—and they most likely weren’t at work in the frozen ground!

Heist!

March 28th, 2022

This work is about 12 x 4 inches, made of cotton and rusty metal bits held between two pieces of cotton, then covered with stitches. It was then dyed with tea in the hope that the metal would mark the work with rusty stains. It’s title is “Bound in Place”

Fiber with stitches and rusty dye
Missing

I wasn’t happy with the amount of rust in this piece (the angular rusty bits didn’t react) so I decided to bury it outside and see what the elements did to it. The ground was pretty frozen and I could only go a bit below the dirt but I marked the spot and was very proud of my self that I waited a several months to dig it up. Only it wasn’t there!! I dug all around to no avail. All I can figure is that a squirrel or other critter attracted by the smell of tea made off with it…

Exposition Catalog and Other Bits

February 15th, 2022

Things have been pretty busy and I realized I didn’t post about the catalogs from my exposition at iMPeRFeCT Gallery this fall. I designed them and am very excited how they turned out. The exposition included both paintings and fiber work and was titled, “Beth Emmott: Places.Spaces, Paintings and Stitches”

Front Covers
Catalog Covers

and two inside spreads:

Catalog Spread Showing Paintings Sample of Fiber's Spread
Samples of Painting and Fiber Pages

If any one wants one they are 8″x 8″ and 48 pages and are available at $15.00 each plus shipping.
For more information contact me at: beth@emmott.com
Again I want to thank iMPeRFeCT Gallery for my exposition!

In the mean time, I finished the Alice Fox workshop. We used our rusty dyed fabrics in finished pieces.
Here are two of mine.

Finished Fabric Finished Fiber
“Yellow” and “Plain and Fancy”

They are small and both used old fabrics from my grandmother’s stash. The yellow bit was weighted silk that was splitting and mainly became a tie-dye from the binding it was wrapped with – there was little rusty marking. It was finished with french knots and a simple running thread. The other work consisted a piece of a cotton napkin and old patterned silk with a couched cord. It was a very fun workshop and a good distraction from the cold weather.

I’ve also gotten back to working on my one-a-day sketch book I stopped in June when I as sick and doing a lot of drawing. Now to get working on my painting!

Exhibition

November 15th, 2021

“Places-Spaces, Exhibition of Painting, Stitches, Etc”, finally took place at iMPeRFeCT Gallery after being postponed last year! It was a crazy time getting things ready on short notice and with additional room to exhibit my work but it came together and I couldn’t be more pleased! Finishing work, framing, designing the space and hanging…Then I was interviewed on Germantown radio. It was very fun. And an artist talk—I was anxious but once I got going all was fine.

Image of Stitching
Stitching

Image of Exhibition-Front Room
Front Room

Image of Exhibition-Back Room
Back Room and Hallway

I showed stitching and a series of paintings in the front room, paintings in the back room, and smaller work in the hallway. Oh, and a group of found objects such as sea shells used as small tapestry looms and some of my Tea Bag Tales, they were the “Etc.” part of the title.

Image of Exhibition-Gifts from the Sea Image of Exhibition-Illustration
Small Tapestries and Tea Bag Tales

iMPeRFeCT Gallery is a wonderful gallery run by Rocio Cabello and Renny Molenaar in Germantown, PA. Over their nine years in Philadelphia they have featured an amazing group of artists, musicians, and poets. I feel so honored to be a part of all this and to have been invited to have my exhibition here.

earlier posts