inspiration | Beth Emmott

This is the archive for the ‘inspiration’ 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.

Layers

December 6th, 2022

My second course was with Sally Tyrie. She focused on developing a body of work with a single theme. Here is one of my series. The base layer is mono printed on paper with acetate layers on top. I digitally printed the acetate with my photographs I had manipulated in Photoshop. The final layer is machine stitched to add texture and to hold it together. The concept for this group was taken from walks at both the Jersey Shore and the Wissahickon Creek. This was very fun!

Image of group of layered work
“Mixed Media Layering”

Magic Brushes

August 2nd, 2022

Taking an intense mark making course with Lorna Crane called “Perfectly Imperfect”.
It began making wonderful crazy brushes. We were to embellish them and I based mine on an imagined Prehistoric Healer as they remind me of funky magic wands, BUT the main purpose is the mark making—getting you out of your normal way of working—the crazy bit is for fun. Mark making is in the next section of the course. After that we will use our marks in making collage, scrolls, books, and finally a vessel. We will be marking with ink, markers, acrylics, stitches, etc. etc. Painting on paper as well as fabric. It is a very busy, involved course and a lot of fun!

Images of brushes Three More Brushes
“Magic Brushes”

Never Ending Story Book

March 12th, 2021

The final book in the project (from the previous post) is a “Never Ending Book” in that it can double back on itself in a circular fashion, thus “Never Ending”. Constructed like the others, only with seven sections rather than eight, the paper pages are then covered with fabric in a crazy quilt fashion using bold stitches, resulting in a very textured piece.

Image of handmade book
Fabric and spines in place

Two sections have enlarged spines to accommodate extra pages (I may have enlarged mine a bit much) and the front and back covers are slightly padded. Once the stitching is finished the book is filled with the additional paper pages (not sewn in at this point) and is stuffed with leaves and/or onion skins – I added rusty objects as well, and the whole bundle is compressed between two tiles, tied and placed in a dye pot with boiling water.

Image of handmade book
Before and After

I used an iron pot and added tea bags. The hardest part is leaving it alone for several days with out peeking. This morning I lifted the bundle out and removed the tiles.

Image of handmade book
Unveiling

Then the unwrapping begins carefully, opening each page to remove the dye materials and setting the book and loose pages aside to dry.

Image of handmade book
Drying (The dark bit in the first image is the main book structure. More pages in the second.)

All is currently pretty soggy but I’m excited with the results. Some of these pages were tests and I will now dye some additional pages and then assemble the finish project! That will take awhile and will be in a future post! This has been a very fun project with lots of fodder for future projects.

A Winter Diversion

February 18th, 2021

As a break from all the cold and snow of February, I’m taking an online workshop with Australian artist, India Flint. Titled “February Project 2021” it’s basically making folded books from found materials, dyeing them, adding pages and just generally having fun with people all over the world. Her gentle way of explaining things warms up the coldest day.

Here are a few of my early books.

Image of handmade book

The first red book used a mixed media experiment I had done on watercolor paper. The paper was much too thick to fold as shown so it turned into an accordion book with added fabric to reinforce the folds. It has been put aside for now.

In the second picture, the top left book was also a bit thick for the suggested folding but I was able to open it up and expand the spine. Pages of color have had extra blank pages sewn in creating a small journal/sketchbook. The remaining books are similar but without the need to increase the spine. Some additional pages are in signatures, some fold out to make larger areas to work with. The small bundle includes the books shown in the video below.

These have been dried and are waiting to be finished.

Other artists have stitched fabric to their pages before dyeing them or have added pages from previous dye experiments resulting in a most wonderful range of books —all so different, interesting, and inspiring.

This simple structure is addictive to the point that a solicitation that arrived in the mail yesterday is currently being pressed into a small book. Best use I can think of for junk mail!

And… there are still lectures and video, unavailable until the scheduled week, but listed as a tease of things to come.

A wonderful winter break from all that’s going on. Thank you, India!

Fall 2019

December 11th, 2019

It’s December and Christmas is upon us—Cards are made, lights are up and gifts sent—now to concentrate of being with and enjoying family and friends and to get back to my painting—but first I wanted to make up for not posting for a while.

While in Maine this summer I worked on sketching trees and this fall they were combined with rusty bits found in Maine and Campobello. I have lots of sketches, photos, and plein air studies to inspire work from here. These rusty studies help get me going in the morning.

Sketches mounted

Fall was busy as it always seems to be. After our trips I came home to a painting commission that was fun to work on and can’t be shown yet as it’s to be a surprise. Also began lots of work inspired by Scotland—Orkney and the Isle of Skye. First sketches and drawings and then on to paintings. I didn’t have time during our trip to draw and absorb as I wished but I do have photos as well as the images and sensations seared into me. I want to capture the sense of power and haunting timelessness I felt. I’ve just begun this series.

Evening view from Elgol

In Oct my studio was on an artist studio/house tour—that took a good bit of cleaning up and getting my work in order. So much fun to see people enjoying my work and in discussing it with them.

Mostly cleaned up

And, always fiber. I had purchased small bits of fleece in Orkney and spun and wove tiny tapestries with them as well as continuing to spin fleece from Flying Fiber for use in other tapestries that are in the works. When things get overwhelming, fiber work calms me down, puts things in perspective and I’m ready to go again!

Love my Fiber