The Next Meeting of the Guild will be its annual picnic on Wednesday, June 6, 2012. This is the final meeting of the year before summer break. Regular monthly meetings will resume in September. The first will be on
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
at the Luther Burbank Art & Garden Center
2050 Yulupa Ave, Santa Rosa, 9:30 AM
Rag weaving from students in Judy Fisher's class
Summer alert: Come visit us at the Sonoma County Fair! The Guild will have a booth in Garrett Building at the Fair–dates July 25-August 12. There will be demonstrations of the various fiber arts and examples of the beautiful work created by the county’s fiber artists during the past year.
Any fiber artist in the county, whether a member of the Guild or not, is encouraged to enter items in the Fair. Note that there are new categories this year for entries. Entries close on June 8 (June 22 for on-line entries). Information can be found at www.SonomaCountyFair.com
Details of categories and awards are shown in the “Open Home Art” link.
Recent Meetings:
The May program was a presentation by the Guild’s natural dye study group:
Madder in progress
WHY WE DYE
As a natural dye study group, a loosely organized bunch of us have met for almost 3 years. In the beginning, we just wanted to see what happened when we used locally sourced plant material to dye our yarns and fiber. We found agreement about methods we like, for instance, using only potassium aluminum sulfate and cream of tartar for the ”mordants” – the mineral salts which lead dye into fiber so the color will stay there – because they are safe for us and for the environment. Martha Cant returned from the 2010 Convergence in New Mexico to share with us a method of sampling which we can use to predict what color we will achieve; we now have fat notebooks for reference. Pooling our talents has increased our knowledge.
For our presentation we’ll provide background information about the widespread importance of natural dyes in history, a description of how we go about what we do and why, the sample notebooks, a collection of books which have helped us, some tools, some stories, and lots of fabulously dyed wool yarn.
April presenter was Nadine Curtis, families founder of “Be Sweet” yarns based in Sausalito, CA. She created the Be Sweet Company in 2003 while living in Cape Town, South Africa where she started by wholesaling handmade items to boutiques in Northern California and upstate New York. She now works with several job creation programs in South Africa as a means for women in these programs to support themselves and their. The South African women make mohair, bamboo and organic cotton yarns as well as accessories and home goods. For more information on Be Sweet products and their mission check out the web site: www.besweetproducts.com
Robert Freund, historian and founder of the Mexican Indigenous Textile Project was the speaker at our March meeting. The purpose of the Mexican Indigenous Textile Project is the preservation of the textile memory of Mexico. Since 2001 he has been working on an effort to photograph and document the disappearing textiles of Mexico and has traveled to numerous villages through out Mexico to find the men and women who still wear the traditional costumes of these regions. Robert gave us a brief look into these beautiful historical clothing and textiles. You can check out his web site: www.mexicantextiles.com for more information.
Judy Fisher, one of our very gifted guild members, was the speaker at our February meeting. Her presentation was on weaving rag rugs, just one of her many talents. She also gave a brief overview on the history of rag rugs, which have been very popular in this country since our ancestors brought the craft here from various countries. Judy will conduct a workshop on rag rugs at a later date as well. The workshop details are in progress.
One of Judy's rag woven shirts
Rag woven vest
Carole Beadle was speaker for the January meeting. She is one of the pioneers of the fiber sculpture and has been teaching at the California College of the Arts and the College of Marin. Her groundbreaking work in the field of fiber sculpture has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
Most recently, Beadle participated in two artist-in-residences in France, accompanied by three major exhibitions. She studied in Swedish Lapland with the Scandinavian Seminar for Cultural Studies and was a Fulbright Scholar to Norway.
Some of her work can be viewed at //www.fiberdimensions.com/beadle/