Ellen Lindner: Art & Creativity

Since my art flags generated so much interest, I’m reposting about something similar:  fabric bombing!

Repost from April 30, 2013

I’ve been bombed!  And it’s a good thing.  That is, I’ve been fabric bombed.  Or more accurately, my yard has.

What is fabric bombing?  It’s a very new thing, following the example of yarn bombing.  With either, a venue is surprised to find their trees, fire hydrants, and other outdoor features have been covered with fabric (or knitting and crocheting.) Often, the installation occured overnight.

Ever since learning about yarn bombing, I’ve been suggesting fabric bombing to my fiber art friends.  They seemed excited about it and we’ve been loosely looking for an opportunity to do it.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I came home and found my yard had been bombed!  Not only that, but several friends pulled into the driveway as I did, there to enjoy “the reveal.”

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Isn’t it awesome?  Can you see that it wraps around and back on the left?  And the sheer panels hanging from the far tree on the right?  Plus, there’s more obscured by the foreground tree.  Oh my!

I was floored!  How absolutely fantastic!  Things have been challenging for my family lately, and I immediately recognized the fabric bombing as a show of caring and support.  I was so touched!

The entire installation is sorta U shaped, but I’ve created a wonky compilation photo, so you can see the whole thing, below.  (Definitely click on this one, for a better view.  If you have a large window open it will show pretty big.)

My friends really put a lot of effort into this.  Not just in the preparation and hanging of the pieces, but also in the planning.  They solicited fabric from friends who’ve moved away, and scouted out the number of trees in my yard.  I’m completely amazed and touched by all of this.  I feel loved!

All of this looks especially wonderful when a light breeze catches the fabrics, causing them to wave and flair.

There are many stunning details in these pieces, which I’ll share with you in the next post.

Ellen Lindner – who hopes you’re feeling loved today, too!

Oh, I’ve been having fun making art flags!  Mine are very simple:  orange nylon fabric with orange grosgrain ribbon glued on.  (Which is hard to see in a photo.)

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I was inspired by pojagi, which is Korean patchwork made with translucent fabrics.  Their beauty appears when they’re backlit, and the pattern of the seams becomes evident.  To see if I was achieving the desired effect,  I auditioned them on my kitchen window.  Awesome!  It seemed to be working.

I joined the five flags a to a long narrow sleeve.  A wire will be threaded through it for hanging.  Next, it was time to try them out in the yard.

 Ooh, me likey.  What about the backlit view?

Yes!  I’m loving this!

Why am I making art flags?  To go here.

This covered walking bridge is on the campus of Florida Institute of Technology, in Melbourne, FL.  It leads from the parking lot to the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts, which will be hosting an art quilt exhibit this summer.  So, about a dozen regional SAQA artists will be decking the bridge with art flags.  Won’t that be cool?  I can’t wait to see it!

I know you’ll want to see it, too, so mark your calendar for May 15 – August 22, 2015.  Those are the dates for the Southern Accents quilt exhibit and the flags will be up for the entire time.

BTW, I intended to make these in white, but the white nylon wasn’t quite sheer enough.  Besides, this orange was calling my name for some reason.  (Maybe because of the Central Park Gates from a few years ago?)

Also, I experimented with adding color to the individual sections of the flags, but this made them more opaque.  Not what I wanted.

Ellen Lindner

It’s always fun to show my fabric collages locally.  This past weekend, I got to do it in two different venues.

At the Titusville Art League spring show my Summer in the South won a sponsor award.  How nice!

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I also got to attend the opening reception for Art Gallery of Viera’s “Text and Textures” show, where I had two pieces on display.  Caring got a prime spot in a well-lit niche.  It was sorta floating away from the wall, which I thought was very effective.

The stained glass piece was made by Eileen Farrell.

My second piece, Rhapsody in Blue Berries, was hung in the opposite niche, (at the bottom.)

The painting above it was created by Bobbi Q. Brown.

I really enjoyed visiting with the other artists, talking with art enthusiasts, and meeting new people.

This exhibit is on display through April 5th.

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  Caring is part of a series I made called “Body Language.”  You can see more of these pieces near the bottom of my gallery page.

Is Key West “going to the birds?”  Well, yes, sorta.  There were lots of them!

There were the tropical birds you’d expect.

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Isn’t this pelican magnificent?  He was very tame and let me get quite close for this shot.  (I did kick up the saturation a bit on this image, but as you’ll see from the others, the water really IS this beautiful aqua color.)

Not all the birds were of the tropical variety, however.  These domestic chickens roam freely all over the island.

A law protects “free range” birds on Key West and that includes a large number of chickens which have been there for years.  (Click this image to fully appreciate the colors of his plumage.)

Of course, we did see some things besides birds.  Most notable was the lovely turquoise water.  Like that at Bahia Honda State Park.

And the rocks and sand bars that could be climbed at John Pennekamp state part in Key Largo.

Lots of visual stimulation!

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  I think there’s a bird quilt in my future.

You know how it is when you get a new hobby, right?  You’re crazy passionate about it and want to do it every minute?  Well, that’s what has happened to me.  I’ve been SERIOUSLY bitten by the digital scrap booking bug.  And it IS fun!  There are digital papers, stickers, 3D effects, shadows, transparent effects, and tons more.  Oh my!

I’ve been creating lots of scrap book pages and have seriously neglected my quilt making.  Which is why this piece is STILL on the design wall.

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But, I did manage to do some quilting.  The original fabric reminded me of viewing a sunset through bare tree branches, so I referenced that with the quilting design.

And I added some seed stitches (by hand) to imply little twigs.

Soon, I’ll get back to this piece and FINISH it!

Ellen Lindner

Of course, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden featured not only art glass, but many beautiful and exotic plants throughout its 83 acres.  Here are a few favorite shots from our visit.

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Isn’t this orchid gorgeous?

Don’t tropical plants have a lot of attitude?  Just look at the shape of this colorful plant.

(I don’t know what it is.  Do you?)

And just one more Chihuly photo to wrap things up.

The garden and the art were all spectacular!  If you’re in the Miami area this spring be sure to check it out.

Ellen Lindner

More photos from our visit to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, in Coral Gables, FL, featuring the art glass of Dale Chihuly.  This sculpture is called “Citron.”  Partially hidden by trees, it was hard to get a clear shot of it.  This one is looking up the hill.

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And some closer views.

ALL of the art glass in the garden was amazing.  And it was made even more so by the sense of discovery generated when rounding a curve in the path and finding something new.

Ellen Lindner

What’s round and colorful and messy?  The tables at a recent color class.

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The participants spent no time at all covering their tables in multiple layers of colorful papers.

We used magazine pages and paint chips.  They’re easy to work worth and not precious like our fabric.  Pretty soon everyone was tearing paper, gluing squares and having fun.  After all, what’s not to like about gluing little colorful bits of paper?

The students created glued collages about each concept we learned.  Here’s  Faith’s “similar” page.  (Analagous is the artistic term, but I like to simplify.)  These colors would make a rocking quilt, wouldn’t they?

A similar color scheme uses 3-5 colors that are adjacent on the color wheel.  Nancy chose orange, red-orange, red, and red-violet.

With each exercise, we remembered to include a variety of values.  Can you see how important those darker bits are?

Triads can be tricky, but Nancy’s blue-green, yellow-orange, and red-violet collage was beautifully balanced.

Each student went home with a workbook with lots of valuable information and examples.  But, as I told them, the greatest value of the book was the skill they gained as they composed it.

Learning about color is not only fun, but VERY useful!  You can have your own color adventure with my ebook.  It’s set up in the same workbook format.  (But, sorry, I only have 6 left!)

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  I’ve written several articles about color.  Find them here.

The Art Quilters Unlimited group needed very little encouragement when it came to working loosely on their quilts.

Nancy limited herself to working only with scraps.  Some of them were seamed together so she used these to her advantage.  Have you ever seen such high energy coconuts?

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Sue was inspired by the landscape of Tuscany.  She mimiced the colors of her photo and enlarged the trees for emphasis.  It’s going to be very striking.

A photo of bright fall leaves inspired Mary Ann.  She selected her fabrics wisely and was well on the way to a successful quilt.

I had great fun teaching the talented quilters from Art Quilters Unlimited, at their annual retreat.  The first class was “Design Your Own Nature Quilt,” which these go-getters fully embraced.

Sally used a wonderful photo she had taken at a botanical garden.  She came to class with it already cropped, but sent me the full photo for your reference.  I’ve drawn in the approximate crop.

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In class Sally kicked up the colors and contrast.  Very dramatic!

Faith’s photo is shown below.

She improved the composition and cropped it.  Then, working loosely, she  exaggerated her favorite parts.  It’s going to be great.

Barbara’s inspiration photo showed masses of tulips in a wooded setting.  Flower groupings can be very challenging, but she was getting nice results with her foreground red tulips.  (These will be the most difficult.)  She’ll apply similar techniques to the other flowers and will have a very colorful and beautiful piece.

Linda worked from a photo of pumpkins.  She spent a lot of time deciding on her fabrics.  Very wise, since they all need to contrast with one another.  She’s going to have fabulous results.

An Irish landscape with blooming heather inspired Candie.  She worked loosely to depict the rolling scenery.  When this photo was taken she was working on creating a sense of depth, and was making good progress.

It was fun to watch all of this come together.   I’ll show you more photos in the next post.

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  I teach Design Your Own Nature Quilt both live and online.