a collar of earth

A completed piece that had been in mind for a while, a collar of earth. Part of a larger project percolating in my brain. I'm feeling very proud of myself for finishing this and I'm  even more motivated to get the whole project rolling.

As modeled by my 11 year old.

More to come.

but they're cute helpers

Home from work a little late, trying to take some photos outside in an effort to catch the light before the sun goes down completely. Not ideal, but I needed a photo of this piece in order to apply for a show.

I got a couple done and then...

Reality.

Reality comes with helpers.

(claw claw claw on my thigh to get my attention)

I had to bribe them with a piece of lunch meat so I could finish taking pics.

They've trained me well.

first, some stitching

Last day of vacation for me, back to work tomorrow.

But first, some stitching.

my 8x8 piece

We're having a fundraiser where I work in which almost 50 of our artists have created artwork on 8"x8" canvases that will be sold starting Sat. Oct. 10th. We were to make a piece that was representative of our "style" and this is what I came up with.

The first thing I did was to take the canvas off and use just the frame. I needled my scene and, in wanting to keep the 8"x8" size, "framed" my piece with leather belt pieces.

It looks at home on the forest floor but it's actually meant to hang on the wall.

Those ants found their way into my piece, I'm sure, because of this encounter.

For those of you that are local, please join us on Oct. 10th from 10-2 in the Crossing Arts Gift Shop in the Franklin Arts Center for this fun sale, mingling, and snacks. Each of the pieces will be available for sale for $50 or you can take your chances and place a bid at $25. If no one outbids you by the end of the month, the piece is yours. There are some beauties to be had, and it's for a great cause.

Happy Sunday, all.

me in Rug Hooking Magazine

I was contacted by Rug Hooking Magazine a few months ago to write an article for their Beyond Our Borders feature where they share the work of fellow fiber-lovers who don't work in rug hooking, and I got my copy in the mail this week. I think it's a cool concept, introducing people to forms of art that complement their own.

My friend Lynn mentioned that she thought it was interesting how many artists she knows who are known to work in one medium, and migrate into other areas of art. Artists are often dabblers, aren't we? More than that though, I think that when we migrate (or dabble) we bring those other skills and techniques from other mediums with us, and it gives our work more dimension.

So there you go. When you need to justify why you're taking up a new art when you have already immersed yourself in another...you're just adding dimension to your work. (I plan to use this to justify my stash of wool when I take up pottery one day. Dimension, baby, DIMENSION.)

Anyway, back to the point, the feature turned out lovely and I'm just thrilled that they had me. If you see this most recent issue on newsstands, give it a look, won't you?

a felted needle book

I made myself a little somethin' this weekend that I have wanted to make for years and years. A needle book. My needles tend to end up stuck in odd bits of fabric or shoved in the side of a felting mat and I often lose them which makes for dicey barefoot travels in the Jordan home.

I wet-felted a cover and stitched in some wool pages. In between each page is a used dryer sheet that in my theory, will help keep my needles conditioned. Or at least keep them smelling spring fresh.

I added some knots to the cover and a felted cord for a closure.

The whole thing bundles up nice and neat. Long overdue.

Now maybe I'll find time to work on that vest I've been wanting...

Happy Monday, all.

weekend nest-making

My hands are nest-making. Hoping to lure in Spring.

I have plans for these wee nests and hope to be finished before Spring arrives for real.

Hope you've had a lovely weekend. Here's to a good week ahead.

a new vest for E

Some felting happened last night and end bits of roving became a vest for E.

It's been a couple of years since I made her first, photographed by this very same tree.

I can't believe how she's grown.

Kindergarten this year.

Wow. 

She made the flower detail herself, and dictated where it should be on the vest.

She has an opinion about things.

About all things.

Which I hope will serve her well as she grows, even if it drives me batty in the meantime.

Have a great week, everyone.

good fun at the felting workshop

I taught a felting class last night.  A group of really receptive and fun women sat together and needled wool into bird shapes for a good long time.

It's a cool thing to witness a group of mostly strangers sit, each working on their project, bonding through the shared experience.  Chatting, laughing, learning, occasionally "ouch!"ing.  We snacked on rhubarb curd in graham cracker crusts and discussed ducks in the bathtub and what peculiar creatures cats are.  It was a good night.

And just look how cute their birds turned out.  I love the worm in the mouth.

These are just a few of the fantastic wee birds made last night. 

Thank you, ladies, for the fun night and for allowing me to share the craft with you.  It was good fun.

classes and kits

I taught my 2d felting class on Thursday night and had such a wonderful time.  It was so much fun that I forgot to take any pictures.  Not a one.  But believe me when I say that the ladies who joined me were such good company, asked such good questions, and made such great pieces.  It was a real pleasure for me.

I like teaching, and I hope to do more of it in the future.  In fact, I will be doing it in the future as I will be teaching a Tiny Toadstool Terrarium class on the 24th of May for FACRAG (Franklin Arts Center Resident Artists Gallery).  If you're at all interested in receiving an email when I have classes upcoming, you can sign up HERE.

If you'd like to have a go at felting on your own I have put a few little sheep kits in my shop.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

arts-filled

 What an arts-filled week I've had.

  Aside from my day job with an arts non-profit, and my usual stone-making, I had the opportunity to take a felting workshop from the Textile Center, attend a wonderful event at Great River Arts in Little Falls, and celebrate local artist Greg Rosenberg, whose amazing agate lamps and stained glass now grace our local library.

Next week I'll help hang the artwork of schoolchildren in our gallery, attend a class with my kids where they'll paint cool fish, and then attend a block printing class by Carla Benjamin.

Whew!  There'll be hardly any time to do laundry!  (she says, not at all sad)

My life is not all art, of course, but it certainly is a wonderful part of it.

Have a great weekend all.  I hope art finds you too.

Quadrat piece completed

Yay!  It's completed!

This is the needle-felted piece I've been working on.  Inspired by a call for art at the resident's gallery in the Franklin Arts Center where I work.  The theme is work that is exactly 12" x 12", and since mine is not an exacting nature, I had to ponder how I might be able to fit that requirement.  It wasn't until I started poking at some wool that I decided that I wanted to do a piece reflecting a portion of the landscape in my mind.  Like a quadrat, a tool scientists use to isolate a standard unit for study.

Though this scene is plucked from my imagination, it definitely has its roots in reality.  For example, my fungus here is influenced by the orange peel fungus by the duck pond in my backyard.

A sprouting plant with downy leaves is similar to the mullein by the driveway.

Waxed thread becomes my take on sporophytes that dot our back woods.

Pebbles and sprouting grasses atop mounds of moss and earth.

And pebbles, plucked from lakeshores, naturally.

This was a really satisfying piece to work on, especially since it allowed me to conjure up images of greenness in this otherwise winter-white landscape.

The frame was made from some planks I had in my workshop.  This piece hangs on the wall and I could see myself doing a whole series of these.  Hmm...

'Quadrat'

2014

12" x 12"

needle-felted wool, cotton thread

by Lisa Jordan

a nuno scarf for Molly

Yesterday my friend Molly had a crash course in nuno felting and natural dyeing.

She came over with that Starbuck's pumpkin spice latte in her hand and an eagerness to learn, and though I thought the PSL was only so-so, I think her scarf turned out wonderfully.

Wanting to make a shade of grey, we looked for tannin-rich materials that we could afterdip with iron.  A walk in the woods yielded oak leaves, acorns, twigs, barks, and a smattering of different leaves that went in the dye pot to simmer.  We dyed her scarf at the pre-felt stage, that is the fibers started to hold together but weren't completely felted yet.  That allowed her to add a few little undyed locks and some lines of fiber I had previously dyed before finishing the felting process.  The leaf-like shapes were small pieces of silk that had been felted in.  I love how they took up a different color than the scarf itself.

And I especially love how happy she was with the end result.

Didn't she do a great job?