I think people shy away from fiber art at times, because it isn't like "typical" art. You know what I mean. Art that you frame, stick a nail in the wall and hang it up. In the past, at my exhibitions, I have been asked by people, "How would I hang that in my home?" I always show them the hanging sleeve and the aluminum rod that I provide and I can tell that some "get it," while others still don't. And that's okay. Fiber art is different. That's one of the things I enjoy about it. :) Lately, I have started wondering about alternative hanging methods and I stumbled across some other SAQA members that attach their smaller fiber art pieces to stretched artist canvases. Intrigued, I decided to try it out for myself... I went to my local hobby store and purchased a variety of small, stretched canvases. It was fun to walk some different isles of the store! In this picture, I have unwrapped one and started playing around with some ideas. You can see the bright white of the canvas, some hand-dyed blue fabric and some leaf shapes I cut out of paper. This particular canvas only measures 5 x 7". You can see in the picture on the right, that I have flipped it over to see where the stretcher bars actually end. For this process, it is easier to attach the piece of fiber art to the canvas if its perimeter is a hair smaller than the exposed canvas. That way, when you go to sew on the art by hand, you won't hit the stretcher bars. I decided that the 5 x 7" inch was too small to work with for the first attempt and bumped it up to an 8 x 10". I painted the background with some acrylic: a lime green and a metallic periwinkle. I used a stencil with some of it to add some interest. Next, I started digging through my scraps of hand-dyed fabrics and my threads. I decided to use some Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy and do some hand embroidery for this piece. After layering a piece of celery colored fabric on a scrap of 80/20 batting, I used the stem stitch and some of the Sulky Petites, to stitch it out. I incorporated some applique and beading as well as a tiny bit of machine stitching. When I was satisfied with the look, I trimmed it down and made an invisible facing using Cut-Away Plus. The picture on the left shows the piece centered on the painted canvas. In this picture you can see that I used some french knots to attach the fiber art securely to the canvas. I incorporated the knots into the design, so they add to it, rather than distract. I really enjoyed this technique and my brain
is spilling over with ideas for the future! I can see how someone who is not familiar with "traditional" fiber art would be more likely to purchase a piece like this for their home and call it "mixed media" art and that's okay too! Now I also know what to do with some of those smaller pieces that hanging sleeves and rods just don't work for! ;)
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About MeFiber artist, wife to a wonderful husband and mom to 2 awesome, grown kids Archives
July 2023
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