Elbow Grease

This is the way we felt our wool, felt our wool, felt our wool. This
is the way felt our wool, so early in the morning...

How True

Getting there...

Wow, felting takes awhile! Got my pieces handstitched together and
started felting the first layers to the base layers. It's 3:20
am...I've been in the studio working on this since 8 am (yesterday).
My only breaks were to go to an art history class for an hour, and eat
dinner for an hour. Egads I'm tired and sore...hoping to get back at
it in a few hours. I think I'll have another 8 hours to go. Taking all
the stitches back out takes just as long as putting them in.

Making Progress

Fall

American Craft Week

Like many other states and cities throughout the nation, Wilmington is participating in American Craft Week from October 1 - 10.
A schedule of local activities and events is listed on 360Wilmington.com. Please take advantage of this opportunity to view and buy locally-produced art and craft from many Wilmington-area artists.


"High Fiber Content" - aMuse: artisanal finery will host local textile group, Fiber Arts Collective, featuring handmade fiber arts - contemporary to traditional. The show, entitled "High Fiber Content" will hang at aMuse, Sept. 28 - Oct. 16. The official opening is Thursday, Oct. 7 at 6:30pm. The event is free and open to the public. You are all invited!

Participating Artists: Joyce Bragg, Louise Giordano, September Krueger, Maitri Libellule, Nancy Miller, Leslie Pearson, Barbara Snyder, Ginny Thompson, Diane Torgersen, Jan Wutkowski, and Rebecca Yeomans.


aMuse: artisanal finery, 19 S. Second St. 910.397.9099

Flat Felting - Positive/Negative

Drew out my design, prefelted three layers of wool in four colors, cut
out the shapes and pinned them to the prefelt and cut out, then
started stitching the shapes together like a puzzle. I have a meager
beginning here since the design is a large one. Stay tuned...

Girls night out

Out with my Boo Peeps!

Silk Painting

My students are really getting into their silk paintings. Two
finished, steamed, cleaned, and ironed due Tuesday for a crit!

Pulp Culture - Award

I was in Wilmington attending the opening reception of the "Women's Work" exhibition at UNCW on Thursday night...which was going on at the same time as the opening of the "Pulp Culture" exhibition at ECU in Greenville. I was bummed that I couldn't be at both but was so excited to hear that the event was well attended and I received a cash award for my piece "Source 1".
On a side note...we also closed on our new house on Thursday!! Demo started this morning...stay tuned for some photos.

Women's Work Photos

A couple pics of the Women's Work exhibition at UNCW. I was happy to
find out that my peice "Caged" was selected for the promotional
posters and postcards.

Pulp Culture Opening Today

August 15th through September 15th 2010

Pulp Culture: Innovative Works in Paper!

East Carolina University’s First exhibition in paper art, at Mendenhall Student Gallery located on the second floor of the Mendenhall Student Center. This exhibition will showcase emerging artists using paper as the primary material working in sculpture, printmaking, jewelry, textiles, books, papermaking, and creative writing. This Exhibition is in conjunction with Print Summit, a symposium celebrating the diversity of contemporary printmaking media. A catalog will accompany the exhibition.

The Exhibition will host a reception preceding lectures given by visiting artists Karen Stahlecker and Amy Jacobs.

September 9th
4:30 p.m. Artist Lecture Amy Jacobs
5:15 p.m. Artist Lecture Karen Stahlecker
6:00 p.m. Reception and Award Announcements in gallery
Pulp Culture Opens
Schedule of Events:
August 15th -Pulp Culture Opens
August 31st -Closing Day

If you are in Greenville today please stop by the reception and check out my work in this awesome exhibition!

Women's Work - Opening Tonight

I have two pieces in the Women's Work juried exhibition at UNCW. The opening is tonight. The show will be up Sept 1-30 at the Warwick Center Lobby Gallery. Hope to see you there.


Reception-Thurs., September 9, 6-7:30 pm


The exhibition is a meditation on what “Women’s Work” traditionally
was, what it is now and what that term is coming to mean. Sometimes the importance of the female role has been diminished and yet in other situations a woman’s presence is irrefutably what it is needed. Sometimes “women’s work” and “women’s worth” can be misconstrued as the same. Does the barometer we use to measure need to be retro-fi tted as our understanding of the female expertise expands?

Multiple perspectives will address this pertinent topic. This exhibit is a part of WILD (Women in Labor Daze), a week-long event celebrating motherhood through music, art, theater, comedy and more.

New Felting

Acid dyed roving... Yellow color blocks added...plastic resists sewn
in...wool carded and prepared for gradation layers...more to come....

"Gift from the Sea"

"Gift from the Sea" by Leslie Pearson
Interactive Sound Sculpture
Approx. 10" x 30" x 30", 2010
Hand dyed and screenprinted fabric, birdseed, wire, audio component











An excerpt from Gift from the Sea
by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach — waiting for a gift from the sea.

Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid. And my shells? I can sweep them all into my pocket. They are only there to remind me that the sea recedes and returns eternally.

The passage from Lindbergh's book is so poetic and ripe with metaphor. In Greek and Roman mythology shells were the mystic symbol of prosperity and regeneration and, in their association with the sea, the source of fertility.

As I wrestle with my own issues of infertility, it continues to come out in my work from time to time. It's in this light that I made these fabric sculptures and say to the Creator of the sea, haven't I been patient? Haven't I had faith? I know each cycle of the tide and each cycle of the wave is part of your plan. How long can I lie here, empty and open - waiting for a gift from the sea?


Listen to the embedded audio clip:

Photos by Justin Pearson Photography

Schwa 2010 Pics