Building the Bird's Nest Dress, progress notes 2: Do, undo, redo

Because the process of the Bird's Nest Dress is free-form, I've had to rework the structure of certain parts several times. Here are some pics of the uninterrupted progress:

Fig Leaf Loincloth

I just finished this piece yesterday:


Fig Leaf Loincloth
off-loom tapestry woven with bamboo and cotton fibers

It only took a little over a year to finish. See previous post.

Of course, I was working on other projects as well and would set it aside for months at a time. Still… what a labor-intensive process… and what a feeling of accomplishment to finally have it completed.

Here are a couple of process pics from the recent stage of work:


Front view, with second cardboard loom
See first cardboard loom / cartoon for the leaf from previous process post.


Back view

yarn p0rn, free-weaving, dyeing and painting

I have an aunt who has been thinning her fiber / fabric stash, which made me the lucky recipient of these colorful yarns:


and some white ones for dyeing:

Similar to what I've done here (though this is a much smaller scale), I'll be "free-weaving," as I call it, these yarns into 3' x 4' aerials. Right now I'm dyeing strips of canvas and stretching them onto canvas stretchers to create the main structures of the weaving. Dendridic forms in leaves, trees and aerials really lend themselves to this process.

I've also been painting again, working mostly on a 4 1/2' by 5' aerial that I started in Los Angeles. This painting has sucked months from my life and I'm still struggling with the way it reflects light and creates hot spots. Lighting this thing evenly is near impossible because the surface has so many different planes. I've draped fabric and paper over wood panel and then dripped and rubbed it with paint. The textures are great and like the free-weaving appropiate to the subject matter, but the viewer has to be in constant motion around the painting to see all of it... curious effect I could use to other ends, I suppose.

Joanna Staniszkis wearable art: The Linen Project

some beautiful pieces of wearable art

Click through the gallery to see all these great pieces... more interesting things on the rest of her website.

Woven Glass and my absence in December's First Friday

On Friday and Saturday, the Emporium Building, where my studio is located, hosted an event for local artists and artisans to sell their wares. I didn’t make it for Friday’s Events, which was reported to be lovely with members of the Symphony Orchestra playing in the wings.

However, I did make it on Saturday and saw some remarkable fused glass by Paula Mealka. Paula takes pieces of glass, heats them in a kiln and then manipulates the molten glass with long tools she specially designed for this process.

check out this vessel woven from tiny glass rods

and another of her more brilliantly colored and typically massive pieces

Fig Leaf / free-weaving process

I used my own free-weaving process that I sort of make up as I go along. I've laid out the steps I went through below. (Forgive the poor quality of the pics.)

I first drew a cartoon on cardboard from a composite of found photo images – the cardboard cartoon was both loom and a loose color / value guide

Then I cut around the cartoon

Next, I stitched in the main structures (in this case veining) with strong cotton yarn sewn directly to the cardboard

And then stitched it to another piece of slightly larger cardboard and outlined the whole leaf with heavy wool yarn that I secured with thread

I trimmed the base cardboard and cut notches in the edges to hold loose threads… then began free-weaving

I just kept filling in more areas and changing threads often

At this point, I’ve woven to the density I want. This is weeks worth of work for something not much bigger than my extended hand, but is exactly what I want as far as size and structure

…the back side with all the loose threads tucked in their respective notches… and here you can see the source of cardboard – a pizza box from The Red Onion, a fine mom and pop pizzeria with great pizza.

Then I separated the two cardboards with the seam ripper

The two pieces of cardboard

This is the tricky part: I had to cut away the structural yarns from the original cartoon being careful not to pull them out of the weaving

The freed form… looks like a sea creature

I wove the ends back into the weaving as I would with a tapestry… and again, a very long process… only half-way done at this point

The front side

Hairshirt (Work in Progress)

Here's the process for my Hairshirt, the first piece in the Wardrobe for Paradise series:

This is how it began a few years ago (yep, a few years). It was something of a drawing/painting using my hair, handstitched between 2 layers of tulle. I was thinking of aerials and meandering.


a (fuzzy) detail


and some cufflinks coiled from dreadlocks of my own hair (I decided not to use these)


front view on Freida the dressform


back view