ArtCloth Demonstration

Last Saturday, I conducted a demonstration of some of the techniques I use to create artcloth. The demonstration was held at a gallery in Ft. Worth that carries my work. Weiler House Gallery is located in the historic Handley district. It is in a beautiful old house and features artwork in a variety of styles and media.

It was a beautiful day, nice breeze, not too hot. I had no idea how many people would show up, but I expected they would only watch for about 10 minutes before moving on. What ended up happening is that people sat and watched for 45 minutes to an hour or more. It was a lot of fun, we even had audience participation. One of the observers took the challenge and tried screenprinting.

I demonstrated a number of techniques including flour paste resist, deconstructed screenprinting, screenprinting with an interfacing stencil, oatmeal resist, thermofax printing, stamping and discharge. My objective was to focus on how I add layer upon layer of printing and imagery to create a rich, complex surface. It was a great opportunity to educate people about artcloth. Most people who came to the demo had never seen artcloth and were amazed at the transformation that occurred on the cloth with each layer. Below are a few pictures from the demo, along with some of the samples I created that day. I've got a lot of fabric to create some new small works!

This piece started with flour paste resist, then I added a layer of textile medium as a resist. It was handpainted, overdyed, and finally discharged with a thermofax.

This piece was created by screening with an oatmeal resist on top of dyed fabric.

This piece had a flour paste resist for the first layer, then it was screened with the deconstructed silkscreen. The colors from the deconstructed screen are very subtle, but it has some great patterning.

This was from another deconstructed screen. I placed silk organza on top of silk noil and screened through both layers. The organza came out very pale, but with more texture from the screen.

This piece has a flour paste resist and soy wax resist. Then it was screenprinted with an interfacing stencil, and then stamped. This piece was the big hit of the day! It is spoken for - all I have to do is turn it into a completed work of art.

This piece had two layers of printing with a flour paste screen and was then overdyed. Finally, it has two layers of discharge.