Jessica Beels - Pulse: Art and Medicine show at Strathmore

I have spent much of the last 6 months working on pieces for a show now on exhibit (February 16 – April 13, 2013) at Strathmore Mansion in Bethesda, MD – Pulse: Art and Medicine.  

The show presents two-and three-dimensional art inspired by or addressing the subject of medicine, including work by graduates of the Johns Hopkins medical illustration program.

I was honored to be asked to be a part of this show, and even more excited when Harriet Lesser, the curator, offered me the opportunity to fill an entire room with my work.  I made all new work for the show – four pieces, each examining different medical afflictions, and described below.

Deconstructing HPV is a hanging piece, about 18” in diameter, made from handmade flax paper over steel, with a wooden plumb bob suspended in the center.

The form is a stylized replica of the icosahedral structure of the human papilloma virus (HPV). It is a commentary on how all US children aged 12 and older are now recommended to receive the vaccine for HPV, which is often transmitted through sexual contact. As we navigate the struggle to reconcile the beauty and strength of the virus and its destructive role in our lives, the plumb line is a reminder that we must be careful and precise as we deal with both the social and medical issues related to this invasive body.  The hollow core of the plumb bob contains a portion of Helena’s soliloquy in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;

Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.

And therefore is Love said to be a child,

Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. 

Clot is a three-part series made from handmade abaca paper shrunk over steel frames (each about 20” x 20” x 6”), with aluminum and bronze mesh forms representing blood cells.  Blood clots can kill us or save us.

The blood cells in this piece are made from wire mesh, similar in
structure to the niobium mesh used to evade clots that cause strokes
and heart attacks.  This life-saving material, when woven together as
it is here, catches on itself, much as one imagines blood cells do to
start a clot.  Here, the blood cells are triangular (rather than round) to
represent the Triple Horn of the Norse god Odin, made of three interlocking horns
representing the three draughts of mead Odin drank.  The mead was a source of power and strength, made from the god Kvasir's blood.

Daily Dose is an 8-foot-high corner installation made from handmade flax and abaca paper shrunk over steel wire, with metallic cord, wooden wheels, stainless steel nuts and bolts, a metal pulley, a lead weight, and a limestone rock.  The flexible yet brittle nature of paper shrunk over steel wire echoes our bone fibers’ tenuous strength.  Regular resistance training and a daily dose of calcium can help reverse osteoporosis, so the lead fishing weight (at the top) and the limestone rock (at the bottom) are connected by a golden cord sewing the broken fibers back together.

Pass It On is a 5-part mobile made from handmade flax paper shrunk over steel wire, pieces of glass mirror, copper wire, and metal leaf. The neurons are each about 3 feet in diameter, and they are hung to overlap slightly and collide, sparking each other, and passing energy along. The title of this piece also relates to the possibility that Alzheimer’s disease is hereditary. The mirrors at the nucleus of the cell body refer to memory/identity loss in people with degenerative neurological diseases.  

Maria Simonsson - Rusting

I am working on a project about and with iron. It has been developing in my mind for quite some time.
I come from a region of Sweden where there has been iron industry, or at least iron production for over a thousand years. You can say iron is in my blood.

Apart from loving rusty things, like old nails, I find iron fascinating. It's an important building block of our universe as well as our bodies. So far my explorations have resulted in a collection of rusty iron things and a pile of rusted fabrics. And some jotted notes to follow up on.

I will show you some of the fabrics for now.

Here is a piece of cotton fabric that was previously rusted with reebar in a grid pattern.

Now I have added washers and some nuts.

Here is a close up

And here is the result

Not very sharp rust marks. I didn't immerse the fabric in the vinegar/water mixture. Just spritzed it daily for about a week.

Here is another one

Before

and after

This piece of fabric was wrapped around a reebar rod and tied in place with thin wire that also rusted.

It gives a shibori effect.

And finally a piece where the washers on the fabric actually acted more like resist than rusting agent.

Always surprises.

Playing with Plastic - Jessica Beels

I work with a wide range of media.  Recently I have been trying to reuse materials in an effort to reduce the bulk of my own garbage as well as to give new life to things often overlooked.     

I have also been trying to make more two-dimensional pieces – adding more flexibility to a mostly 3D repertoire that usually requires pedestals for display – thereby expanding where and how I can show my work.   

painted plastic bags

So, for the past three years, I have been playing with fusing cut-up plastic bags into translucent pictures. I sometimes paint the flat bags with metallic acrylic paints, so that the final, layered surface contains transparent elements, colorful swatches, and reflective accents.  

fused layers (detail from Can't See the Forest for the Trees)

One of the first pieces I made with this technique was called "Can't See the Forest for the Trees," which is now part of the collection of the Union of Concerned Scientists and on view in their lobby in downtown DC. 

Can't See the Forest for the Trees

My most recent foray has included small (about 6" x 6") botanical studies. These are the first two of a series I am working on this winter:

Waterlily

 

 

 

 

And a black-eyed susan:

Black-eyed Susan

These images don’t quite feel fully realized, but with a few more layers I think they could be quite intriguing.  I also plan to mount the pieces about 1/2" above the surface of the white board (shown here resting right on top of the surface) in order to add colored shadows (cast by the translucent portions) to the mix of layers.

New Direction - Ann Liddle

Last time I wrote, I was trying to figure out what to do for my featured artist show at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, VA in December.  I had de-stuffed the crocheted bodies I made years ago and thought I'd work with them.  But inspiration was not forthcoming.  I decided on a new direction - stripes.

I was interested in trying spray paint on canvas and then working with that as cloth.  I sprayed 11 yards of canvas, each a different color.  Then I worked out stripe designs on paper with colored pencil, cut the canvas, sewed the stripes.  This resulted in rectangular striped pieces each about 22" x 30".  I then cut each piece up and reassembled it in very different ways.  (I worked these out on paper as well before cutting.)  Sometimes, I added striped inserts.  I wish I would have taken pictures of the rectangular version before I cut them up.  But I didn't so all I have are the final results.  Here they are.  The show is called Stripes Reinterpreted.

Forest Stream.

Morning 

 Nightfall

On Balance

Fall

Rock Face

Spring

FINE logo - Anne Buchal

Some time ago, at one of our meetings, the group thought we should have a logo to “brand” our shows. This would take the form of a fiber piece bearing the letters F I N E. After some discussion, we planned a wall piece in the form of a quilt. I made some sketches which we looked at and then I went on to make the piece.

I wasn’t very happy with result, which as you see was 4 squares alternating back and white fabric.  No one else was satisfied; the design was too severe, rather old fashioned. Now I am in the process of trying again, aiming for a design with less classic lettering, keeping the black and white which has the effect of carrying power: it needs to be seen across the room.

This is a project for a typographer, not a fiber artist. The pictures show the present quandary, the last of which is in paper. Suggestions welcome. Upper case?  Lower case? Serifs ? Color? 

Slow progress - Maria Simonsson

I continue to work on my map quilts for our show in Pennsylvania next year. It is such slow going! I am now at the quilting stage for the first quilt, the winter scene. I have not quilted in years, so it feels like I am re-inventing the technique, and possibly I am inventing my own version of it. Experienced quilters may cringe when they see me do it. I like the results, however. I am considering taking a basic quilting class, to brush up on technique. Why go through the agony of re-inventing if you can learn from the truly experienced? I am also thinking of joining a couple of quilting guilds. I feel more quilts in my future!

Here is a picture of the quilt, almost finished.

I imagine this image as a birds-eye view of a small Russian village after a heavy snow fall. There is a frozen stream running to the left of the village in the image and a couple of carriage paths crossing through the village.

Outside the village there is a hill (upper right), fields (upper left and lower right) and a meadow with trees (lower left).

Here are some closeups:

The village

Village detail

Plowed fields and some snowy trees

Trees between the stream and the meadow.

They are not beads but French knots, lots and lots.

Takes forever.

Good thing I have some interesting audio books to listen to.

When I started this project I was listening to a couple of classic Russian novels. First Anna Karenina and then The Brothers Karamazov, hence the Russian village imagery.

Painting on the Porch -- Beth Latture

When the weather is nice I love to work on the screened porch.  Over the past couple of months I've been working on a painting for the Mapping theme that FINE is working on.

I started with a large canvas with a yellow underpainting, then created a "beltway-like" map by masking and sponging over with a magenta paint.

Once I had the structure in place I started filling in the map with color blocks

and then began some patterning within the blocks.

Since I am painting, I'm definitely in the "Nearly" category of our group name - Fiber in Nearly Everything.  However, I find that the techniques that I use - either in painting or fiber - are usually very similar in that they consist of a meditative repetition of stitches or marks.

This is a work in progress with the goal of creating a map-like image from familiar forms and patterns.  The other goal is to enjoy the pleasant days on the porch, painting and listening to music, with my loyal companion Daisy.