Artist Profile: Orange Iron Fabrications

Lately I have been asked to document some artists' work. What a pleasure for me! So for the next few posts, I'd like to introduce you to some of these very special, creative people.

You may remember my friend Kate, from Orange Iron Fabrications, who I have blogged about here. Kate has also sculpted in metal, but her current work is felt-based forms, some of which are wearable. The ones you see here are currently being shown in Small Point, Maine.

So these wall pieces are all wet-felted first, then machine stitched as you can see in the detail from the first picture. The stitching sort of boosts up the forms, and to enhance that further, Kate stuffs them a bit, resulting in these lovely luscious bumpy parts that make you want to run your hands on them. Kate has mounted them on custom-cut wood-backings, then tacked down at the edges.

This piece here is a top view of Small Point itself---brilliant! Check out the Google map, here, and zoom out so you can see what she has based it on.

So swirly and ocean-y.

This one was one of my favorites. I love how the reds and oranges progress in saturation like bubbles; the overall form is very pleasing to me. The fleece Kate uses comes from lots of places and one of them is the groovy, wind-powered, Hope Spinnery, which specializes in natural dyes.

And how about this sweet little scene with the Small Point One sailboat design, a boat specifically made to race the Small Point waters! Colorful and so quintessentially Maine. I like that little purple-sailed boat hustling to catch up with the fleet.

Thanks for letting me spend time with these colorful pieces, Kate. They are gorgeous!

...and we're out...

Last night of summer vacay. Am I ready to go back to school? 

 Well. I love being on vacation as much as the next librarian, but I've just had so much summer, it's been so rich, we've been so lucky, had so much time together as a family and with a lot of people we love. It would be greedy of me to say no.

 The answer is yes, I'm ready to head into my new adventure.

  I'm full of summer.

It's been enough; perfect, really.

I've seen my share of discarded silver sandals and plenty of flipflops at the various ponds, beaches, docks, and parties we've frequented. And taken portraits of them when I could.

And I have one more Artist Profile for you in the works. But Urchin Goddess needs her etsy site set up first. Now she has the photos to do it! In the above photo, I am modeling one of her gorgeous necklaces. In fact we did a partial trade for it, for the pics. I can't wait to show you more.

~Lucky, lucky me~

Artist Profile: 101 Bedsheets

Lately I have been asked to document some artists' work. What a pleasure for me! So for the next few posts, I'd like to introduce you to some of these very special, creative people.

 this is Barbara, the dress form

Today I feature the work of a 13 year-old sewist and designer, Ella Simon, who has been teaching herself to sew. She may have used a pattern once. As in, one time in her life. (Um, friends, do I need to say that this boggles my mind?!)

 note the cute keyhole detail on the back

Ella has lots of old bedsheets to play around with, so many of her garments are white, but sometimes she dyes them. Or embellishes them with fabric scraps or a jaunty colored zipper or a fabric bow.

 princess waist, slightly dropped hem in the back

 sweet criss-crossing and pleats on the back

Barbara the dress form needed to suck in a bit for this next one. Particularly in Barbara's rear. There was a bit of pulling and tugging. 

and in this photo, it looks like hugging

This lovely light green number has a zipper that some might say was sewn inside out, with the dingle dangly bit on the inside of the fabric. But this was a deliberate choice by the designer, who liked the more industrial look of the zipper on the reverse side.

 I love the use of zipper here on the front of the bodice, as a completely decorative accent.

 A little overstitching, in the photo below.

Some have wondered whether Ella should be finishing every hem and seam. My humble opinion is a definite no. That part can come later, when she cares, when she wants a finished hem. Or maybe she'll end up with a team of sewists who will do this for her.

This is a young person who takes joy in her creative work, who is making her own visions manifest through exploring the limitations of fabric and the three-dimensional form of the human body. Hooray for the next generation of creative problem-solvers! Thanks, Ella, for suggesting the impromptu photo shoot of you, Barbara, and a few of your pieces.

Food for Thought

Some books to get your hands on for inspiration.

1. Apples for Jam: A Colorful Cookbook by Tessa Kiros.
Our friend Hannah has a phrase for those amazing cookbooks that have stunning photographs and great recipes: "food porn." Yes, this from a woman who is usually off and on with sugar, has been on plenty of elimination diets for allergies, and sometimes eats marshmallow Fluff by the tubful. I love to read cookbooks, literally cover-to-cover. This one is organized by color and is full of these wonderfully Mediterranean recipes, really comfort food stuff. And not all of it is like WOW, amazingly difficult. Sometimes simple is best. Last night we had pasta with tomato sauce and shrimp and it was perfectly lovely. On the cover are a pair of child's red buckle shoes, and if you know me and red shoes, you will know that I fell in love with this book on sight.

2. A Year of Mornings: 3191 Miles Apart by Vettese and Barnes.
How tacky is it to not even thank the gift-giver yet, but make a blog post about their amazing and perfect gift? This book. Oh, this book! The authors found each other in the blogosphere and realized they shared a similar aesthetic and decided to collaborate on posting a diptych of one photo from each of them throughout a year. Check out their webpage and if you scroll down you can see some of these shots to get a flavor (Mary Nanna, this book might be some more inspiration for you!). To the gift-giver, who knows me like a sister even though we are 1158 miles apart...You are still my girl.

3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.
OK, yeah, so you read it here first...Remember when I told you about this book? And now it seems like everyone is reading this?! Ha. Well, I called it. And fine, if you'll recall it was a total impulse buy, purchased purely on the title, but no matter. I am here to report that it really was an amazing novel whose story unfolds like a delicate flower. The story is about two female main characters who are outrageously intelligent, but for their own reasons they choose to keep a low profile about their rich inner lives. At times funny and poignant, I was truly astonished many times over by the rich story and excellent translation from the French, often stopping in my tracks to digest a luscious sentence.

A few other things of note:
These tattoos posted by helloyarn (who has recently suffered a canine loss)
This and this lady who often have me laughing at my keyboard
This amazing artist of wearable art
These lovely photos
The Alewives Girl blogged about my reusable shopping totes!

A much-needed home day without company is coming my way tomorrow and I hope to have some pictures to show you soon!