Wichita Community Super STAR

Back in April I was tagged in a post by Kate Van Steenhuyse. Little did I know that that post would land me where I am today:

Do you have a friend or neighbor who has been quietly working away on a creative pursuit for years but not had the chance, resources, or opportunity to really shine? Harvester Arts and Fisch Haus are teaming up once again for the Neighborhood Superstar Award. Our two organizations can provide exhibition and work space, promotional and marketing platforms, assistance and support, and a $1000 equipment purchase award. In addition, the recipient will receive a scholarship to participate in Harvester Art’s professional development program Artist INC launching this summer.

The Neighborhood Superstar program is specifically intended to benefit an individual who may not have had access or pursued these sorts of resources in the past. The award is meant to assist with realizing the creative project (of any discipline) of someone working in our local Wichita community. 

You can see the full article here.

I received my fabrics today.

The Words Project

Upcycled Cloth Collective is a Facebook group started by Melaine Brummer . Last November she asked us to put to words to what upcycling meant to us and The Words Project was born. The project intrigued me but the words I would put to my work alluded me.

In February, I recived notice from GoDaddy that one of my websites needed to be renewed. Remnants of Therapy is the name my husband and I came up with for a fabric/craft store, also know as creative reuse, that would keep those items out of landfills. At that point I knew those would be my words, but I not entirely sure how I was going to incorporate them in a piece no bigger than 30cm x30cm.

I'm fascinated with denim right now and it's many uses and my recent discovery that leather is not that hard to sew. So I knew those 2 elements would have to be worked into my piece. I also love hexagons and have drawers and drawers of small pieces of scrap fabric, so a hex quilt was another definite I wanted to include. I find many, many pieces of lace and trim in thrift and that was the last part that came into play to finish out my 4 corners. On top if that, my brain insisted that much of that had to be hand stitched. 

With the May 1st deadline looming and the constant buz that my life is, I set out to get this done over the final weekend. At last, with 3 hours to go I set about hand stitching all the elements that had not been previously machine stitched on the denim. In all I have 8-9 hours of physical work in this piece and countless mental hours.

Free Art Friday in the ICT

I participated in #freeartfriday when I was in Austin, but weekly was just to much. I decided to try to start something monthly here to coincide with Final Friday ICT. Since, I just got over my leather block and the title of MakeICT's gallery show is Making A Silver Lining . So,  I decided to incorporate elements of the show and leather work into my free art. Thanks, to sojochick for sharing the piece she found at the Keeper.

Learning to production sew

The training cell is right next to the prototype cell at work. They produce large amounts of practice work that is just destine for the landfill. I've started collecting those pieces, in hopes of creating something artistic out of them. 

Here's some images closer up with details of the stitches.

Battling my enemy

I was recently diagnosed with cervical adenocenomia, a rare form of cervical cancer that effects 12-13,000 women a year in the US. I've decided to battle my enemy by stitching it.