Julie Booth: Working with Flour Paste Resist

 I’ve been busy in the kitchen and in the studio. In 2010, I won the Margaret Conant Grant from Potomac Fiber Arts Guild for my proposal, “Kitchen Resists: Surface Design Techniques Using Resists and Masks Made from Common Household Materials”. Recently, I’ve been having fun playing with a variety of flour paste resists. The photos here are before and after removing an uncooked wheat flour paste resist applied with carved linoleum and moldable foam blocks. I was very pleased that the resist held up so well, especially the details in the African face. I am finding out a lot about what each resist material can and cannot do. I hope to develop a vocabulary of techniques utilizing different resists that I can draw upon to use in creating future artwork.

Uncooked wheat flour paste resist applied with print blocks and painted with fabric paints

Fabric after wheat flour paste resist removed

Fabric detail

Ann Liddle

Three of my pieces are in the exhibit "Women Interpreting the Female Form" exhibit at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, VA.  It's a juried exhibit in honor of Women's History Month.  The exhibit runs through Mar 27, 2011.  My piece "Body I" won an award - I am thrilled.  Here are the pieces.

Body I is 10 small panels, each with a simple stitched body part and acrylic paint.  Each panels is about 4" x4".  When hung in body format, it's about 36" high.

This is also a stitched piece  - black on plain canvas.  It's title is "Who Will Take Care of Me When I'm Old?"

For a previous exhibit, each member of FINE made a piece in a cigar box.  This piece is made up of body sections embroidered on canvas and glued to small blocks.  The paint in acrylic.  The blocks fit into the box which has assembly instructions on the lid which tell you how to stack the blocks on top of the box.  It's called "Some Assembly Required."  Here's a version with all the blocks inside the box.

(Note - Anne Buchal's "Curly Top" in the previous blog was also one of the FINE box pieces.)

Anne Buchal

South of the Mason-Dixon Line, Winter has us still firmly in its grip. It should be a time to stay indoors and get some work done.When warm sweaters and fuzzy socks come into fashion, I think of wool and needle felting. Somehow this craft activity seems very suited to the season.

Needle felted sculpture is fairly new to me. Some subjects really don’t lend themselves to a medium like wool fleece, but it is fun to see how far one can go and see what happens.

Adam and Eve

Curly Top

Maria Simonsson intro

I am the sixth member of this Fine group of fiber artists. Right now I am blogging from the Caribbean island of St. Croix, where I am escaping winter. It takes some getting used to, but all in all this is pretty much paradise.
I am trying to keep up with my artwork. I am preparing for a show in DC in June at Gallery A in the Dupont Circle area. Also thinking about mapping, as the theme for the next collaborative Fine exhibit. It is a very engaging topic and mostly I find it hard, right now, to limit myself to some area that I find especially rich in ideas. There are a lot of angles to Mapping.
A quick introduction of myself is perhaps appropriate:
I was born and raised in Sweden, but have now lived half my life in the US. In the same little house in Maryland. I have always been drawn to fabrics, so becoming a fiber artist, I feel, was my destiny, but it took a while. I traveled the windy road past studying business and languages, meeting my husband in Amsterdam and moving to the US, working for various companies doing numbers stuff for about ten years, until I finally had to admit to myself that it really was not fulfilling at all. Corner office and steady pay notwithstanding. So I was lucky enough to be able to quit my regular job, for the very irregular occupation of taking care of two children, family stuff and developing my artistic dreams at the same time. That was about 14 years ago.
It was thanks to taking a class in Fiber Sculpture at The Art League, taught by the wonderful Elsabe Dixon, that I first started doing three dimensional work. That is when I really felt that I could find my own voice and take off. And I am still on that path, discovering what I can do with fiber in three dimensions. I make figures (as well and birds) and vessels mainly.  Such as this:

I start with a wire armature, cover it with batting and fabric and then stitch it a lot. I love the stitching part. It is a very meditative activity. I ofter listen to audio books while I stitch, if there are no serious artistic decisions to be made. After a piece is finished, it is forever connected to that book, in my mind.

Recently, I have become interested in expanding my work to include dyeing and working more on wall pieces, 2-D as well as 3-D. Sculptures that require pedestals or table space seem to be harder for people to relate to, at least in the way of wanting to take them home. Not that I am making my art just to sell, but  it is nice when others also love your work and want to own it. Plus, storing things in my studio will eventually become a problem. I don't have much to show in the way of wall work, but stay tuned.