Beth Emmott | artist

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”

My Maine Brushes

August 30th, 2022

I had made my first set of magic brushes but when I went to Maine last week I gathered sticks, stones, and other bits. Today I made Maine Brushes. One with feathers, one with a bit of muddy knotted rope, two with stones, and one with a pine cone. I decided to leave the black and magenta electricians tape as it was and added black strings with black and clear beads – a bit of drama. The 4 other stones are just because I always collect stones…

Images of Maine brushes
“Maine Brushes”

Scroll on Spool

August 29th, 2022

After making marks with my brushes on paper and fabric this course has had us make scrolls, collages, marks on fabric and paper, and 5 books so far and it’s not over! I liked my first scroll and was sorry to discover I was to cut it up so I made another and wound this one on a spool tying it with hand made silk cordage.

Image of Spool
“Spool with Scroll”

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”

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!

“Page 22”

April 19th, 2022

“Page 22” is a Mixed Media work created for a group exhibition “Artists in Solidarity with Ukraine” at the Germantown Espresso Bar near my home.

Mixed Media piece on Ukraine
“Page 22”

It began as a spread in a journal of paintings begun as a daily exercise.

After days representing my daily feelings, suddenly there were these pages representing the war in Ukraine. Too often all seems normal then one day things turn horrible beyond belief. Once this has passed things tend to return back to normal (what ever that is) until the next catastrophic event. We don’t learn.