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Completion of the primary Hooking on Urban Icons

11/24/2019

Urban Icons is intended to be a thought provoking look at mental illness and homelessness — hopefully encouraging another way of viewing this ubiquitous yet marginalized segment of society. Completion of the initial hooking of this 60" x 50" piece is followed by intensive tweaking of the faces. This may consist of some reverse hooking and re-hooking. Most certainly a lot of trimming away of stray loops and ends takes place during this part of the process. I will work and re-work areas of the rug from the right to the left. Photos of one of the areas that I found in need of a major overhaul follow.

I will continue to trim and begin embellishing at this point in the completion of this project. I still have a LOT to do!

I stitched on little metal Milagros of angels and saints to the halo around this urban icon. Milagro means miracle in Spanish, and in Mexican folk tradition often small metal votive offerings.

At this stage of the creation of Urban Icons, I am re-energized as I begin to add layers of interest to the piece by stitching elements on top of the hooking. I will work this piece much like a collage and just add layers of metal, fabric and found objects to the surface.

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Getting Back to Work on Urban Icons

11/24/2019

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Urban Icons has been languishing unattended or amended for many months while I was otherwise busy with teaching, the ATHA Biennial and the 20th anniversary of the McGown Workshop that I direct. NOW, that all of those things are completed I am able to get down to some serious business on this fiber art piece. It has been on my mind and I have been able to mentally try out some of the changes I needed to make. The first photo below will show the rug as I left it nearly a year ago.

IN the next rendition you can see that I had begun to hook and sculpt the faces around the perimeter.

You can see the progression of sculpting from the initial hooking long loops then cutting away to reveal a face in relief.
The next photos show more of that technique.

The loops are SO long you are unable to distinguish the facial features until I begin trimming the excess away.

Once the trimming begins then the features flesh out of that subtractive process.

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Hubcap Icon

11/25/2018

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This Hub Cap Icon is just another portrayal of a homeless person. This one is larger than life and will be finished as a cutout backed by a large hub cap. Look closely and you will notice the use of dyed nylons in her hair and above and below her eye and brow. I pulled the strip high and clipped it off. Look at what an interesting technique is achieved by the way the material curls in on itself. I have used them all through her face and hair. Her eyes are even hooked with the nylons. What I especially love about this fiber is the fact that it is so dimensional and easy to work with. This entire piece is sculpted out of wool and nylons .

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Hit and miss - A Challenge rug

9/19/2018

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A group of rug hookers that I meet with monthly decided to have a hit or miss challenge. I love to have a large cut rug on one of my rug hooking frames to go to when I am wanting to just hook. I often have projects going that require a lot of thought and planning. Sometimes I want to hook for the sheer joy of hooking and so I keep this type of rug going just for that.

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The Landscape of my life. . .

9/19/2018

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I had a rug in the Sauder show this year and the theme was "Landscape of my life." Well for sure the landscape of my life has had many twists and turns. It has been thrilling and not so much — just like any other life on the planet. But, one constant in my life has been my furry canine friends. So the rug that I decided to depict my life is titled
"The Landscape of My Life in Dogs and One Good Man." See it below.

The first vignette of of me as a 5 year old with a neighbor's puppies. It is depicted in sepia tones to show that it is in my past. The second vignette is in grey tones shows me about 11 years old with Scooter. He was the best dog and learned to do a lot of tricks. . . for carrots. And Dog Yummies. Remember those?

Then there is a quartet of dogs that were great friends and company to me in my early adult years. They are depicted in black and white tones. My husband, Bruce came along later in my life and everything depicted in that part of my life is in color. We rescued a little Schipperke that we named Senorita Rosita Conchita. (after a tv Spanish teacher that I watched every week back in the 60s.) Rosie loved to wear a glittery tiara and a purple feather boa when we went on walks through the neighborhood. She loved all the attention it garnered. After her life was over we adopted two more adult Schipperkes. . . Smidgen Louise and Kachina Marie. That duo is depicted in the rug below.

Then our current pups - all Schipperkes - Shine, Ivy and Dare are shown on Bruce's lap in the last vignette. This little pack of dogs are related with one coming to us from Amarillo, TX and two from Ogden, Utah. And, they run the house, and we are their lucky servants.

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More Hooking!

2/19/2018

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It is a very cold snowy day in Denver! A grand day to stay home and hook. I have another project that i am working on, but this is where I am at on Urban Icons. The area under the shopping cart is going to be adjusted to a SHADOW color. On this project, I have been going back and forth between the background stitching and needle felting to the foreground hooking. It has made it more exciting for me to create in this way. I still have lots to do on this big project.

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Urban Icons

1/29/2018

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There will be one central figure and several portraits on this work. The figure is hooked high so that the person has dimension. You can see the blue quilt is also dimensional. In the photo below I have placed netting over the hooked contents of the bag just to see how it was going to look. I have now "filled" the bag and sewn the netting in place.

Moving on beyond the sculpted elephant, I have hooked a flat bag and then a dimensional one. For the dimensional bag I actually hooked just the contents of the bag making certain that the elements were hooked to differing heights. I wanted the netting to go over the contents and give the impression that the bag was stuffed with objects. I am working on other aspects of this project and will come back to revisit the way the bag will appear to hang on the cart.

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January 29th, 2018

1/29/2018

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I have been doing a lot of hooking on this project! I want to add a stuffed elephant to the side of the shopping cart and I wanted it to be dimensional rather than just flat. In the first photo it shows what a wild mess the high hooking looks like when you begin a sculpted form.

In this second photo I have begun to do a little clipping to stay in control of the form.

In the third photo at the left I added a bow of old ribbon and will continue to refine the shape of the elephant as I hook on other elements of this project.

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Urban Icons

1/12/2018

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Urban Icons is a rug that has been floating around in my head for several years. It is about homeless people, the lack of mental health services and the fact that so many that are in desperate need for these services are living on the streets. Their presence is ubiquitous. . . they are indeed urban icons.

The entire background of this rug is appliqued hand-dyed bricks, graffiti, and splashes of wool paint. I purchased a large 1 yard piece of hand dyed wool from Rae Harrell many years ago. I have just kept it all this time and discovered how fantastic it was to use as the graffiti on the brick wall. Most of the remainder of the rug will be a hooked/mixed media piece.

In this detail of the woman pushing the cart, I have used transistors beads and metal washers to add the bling details to her halo.

Here is a closer shot of the electronic components. I am hooking high and most of this will be sculpted to give a 3-D look to the elements within the rug. I am using fabrics other than wool to create some really cool textures in this rug. These fabrics include gauze mosquito netting from the 40s.

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January 12th, 2018

1/12/2018

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Yahoo! I began the new year by finishing a mat that I began in Vivily Powers' class in November. Her class was wonderful and we use transition dyed wool for the floral elements in this rug. Her dyed transition wools were gorgeous. The pattern is available through Honey Bee Hive and you can see it HERE.

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Completion of the primary Hooking on Urban Icons

Getting Back to Work on Urban Icons

Hubcap Icon

Hit and miss - A Challenge rug

The Landscape of my life. . .

More Hooking!

Urban Icons

January 29th, 2018

Urban Icons

January 12th, 2018

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