Introducing Julie B. Booth

Hi. I'm Julie B. Booth. I've been creating 3-D fiber work since 1993. As time has gone on, my work has become increasingly stylized. I'm very influenced by the simple shapes found in the art and craft work of indigenous cultures. I also design and print the fabrics for my cloth figures. Many of the faces on my figures are formed from polymer clay. Here are some samples of my work.

Sister of the Four Directions

Warrior

Small Primitives

Janet's Icon

In addition to cloth wall figures. I've also created padded wire armature sculptures that I then wrap with fabric and stitch and add beads. I've done a series of chairs with faces. The faces are made from polymer clay.

Longing

Flow

 More recently, I've been spending a lot of time designing fabrics and teaching classes in surface design on fabric techniques. Designing fabrics takes me back to my years as a graphic designer and to my college days as a studio art major where I focused on printing techniques. Here are some samples I've made for some of the classes I teach.

In early 2010, I was approached by a Washington, D.C. gallery called Caos on F (www.caosonf.com). They asked me to design a number of fabrics for their home furnishings arm called Caos on Fabric. This was an exciting challenge. I had to create four different designs, two colorways of each design. The big challenge was, in fact, working BIG...each piece had to be 9 feet long! Below is one of the designs. If you want to know more about how I designed some of the pieces you can go to the Caos on F site and visit the Press section.There you will see a video of me explaining the process.

 Finally, I love teaching. I've just finished up the fall session of Exploring Surface Design, a class I teach at The Art League School in Alexandria, Virginia (www.theartleague.org). On the last class, I brought in gelatin "plates" that the students used to create a number of monoprints. They really had a great time printing on gelatin (who can resist that wiggly stuff?!). I was really pleased at the results from their "playtime." I'm always amazed at what my students produce in class. I've compiled a number of photos of student work on flickr. If you'd like to see the exciting things that they've created, you can see more at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieboothclasses/.