Solutions in a Time of Change

Presenting our first collaborative online exhibit.

Please send inquiries about artists or their work via the Contact page.

The soft Monkey Tail cactus Hildewintera Colademononis is an iconic cacti from South America, a trailing version of Old Man cactus.  This realistic cactus is one of a series of “plants” I have made that are inspired by the botanical version. It has red bead “blossoms”, is spine-free, can easily live indoors and needs no care. 

It is made from a variety of natural and synthetic yarns using the twining basketry technique. The surface was teased to make it fuzzy, and then was planted in a terra cotta pot. It was photographed on the massive rock wall at Valle Verde retirement community.

This vibrant horoscope scarf is a personality related color exploration and is correlated with the 360-degree position of all the planets in the sky at the time and place of an individual’s birth. My project is the color representation of my sister’s horoscope on her birth day and at her birth location. When a color or colors appear predominately in one’s horoscope weaving, the traits in these explanations are usually exhibited in the wearer’s personality. These color interpretations and observations come from color research in Astrology, Aura Reading and Iridology.  Each degree of the astrological chart is represented by a thread group consisting of 3 threads or a planet group.  The horoscope is the width of the weaving. The 360-degree circle is broken between House 1 and House 12 to create a flat weaving.

I have been busy mastering my craft of weaving for over 25 years. I have lived in Santa Barbara for the past 5 years. Prior to living in Santa Barbara, I lived in Visalia, California, where I was introduced to weaving through a Porterville Community College class. I am a retired Civil Engineer and Mathematics teacher. 

Six woven pieces plus copy of postcard back. Colors extracted from Oak galls, Amaranth plumes, Indigo leaves, Oxalis flowers, and Cochineal beetles, Onion skins, Walnut hulls, Pomegranates, Madder roots, and many other plants.

Hearing about Woven Postcards in June, I knew that this would be a useful project during this time of isolation.  Since 1998 I have been experimenting with mordants and extracting dyes from more than 80 different plants, and had hundreds of little colored balls of wool and alpaca that I wanted to use up.   This was a good chance to do some Tapestry Weaving, where I learned a new technique of WEDGE WEAVING, and created my own designs. 

My husband got involved making decorative borders, drilling holes to make it easy and neat to sew the weavings onto the heavy watercolor postcards, and doing some photography and printing. This provided a unique way to keep in touch with family and special friends, and has indeed led to many long conversations during and after this weaving project.  Thanks, SBFAG, for the Challenge!

The colors in ‘Colorful Sails’ were extracted from Oak galls, Amaranth seed plumes, Indigo leaves, Oxalis flowers, and Cochineal beetles.  Colors in other weavings came also from Madder roots, Black Walnut shells, Yellow Onion skins, Avocado pits, whole Pomegranates, Coreopsis flowers, and Mushrooms.

“U.S. flag in honor of my father and his service to our country”.

These are samples from workshops or books from over the years. I crocheted around each  in order to stitch them together neatly, then a few rows of crochet around the edge.

All samples are woven with either cotton or wool. Because they are workshop samplers, the techniques and yarns vary even within one sample. Techniques include twill, Moorman inlay crackle, 2 tie techniques including summer/winter and color-and-weave, double weave, pick up designs, rosepath and plain weave.

“Pentangle” existed for only one week in the Nevada desert in 2013 as an art installation that my husband Bob and I created for the Burning Man Festival. We built a ten-foot geodesic dome from PVC pipe, then decorated it with over 100 colorful triangles which I had crocheted.  I used acrylic yarn, doubled, and the largest size hook that I could find, a size Q.  The intense desert sun created beautiful lacy shadows through the crochet.  At night, solar lights on the top of the dome did the same.  Many people were attracted to this magical little space, day and night.  Often people enjoyed it for meditation. This dome was a temporary installation, and was taken apart at the end of the week.  But during that week, it provided a joyful spot of color in the desert, and a refuge from the harsh sun.  After the Festival, I reused the crocheted triangles in various ways.  Some were used to cover a piano for Pianos on State Street.  Others were made into a heavy blanket for the homeless.  The rest provide a decorative banner for birthdays and holidays at our home. 

“Using flowers from my garden, I captured the design by steaming the flowers directly onto the silk”.

This Folk hat is made from Merino wool, 19 micron.  The Lamellas and main hat have a total of 8 layers of wool.  It is made using many resists, prefelting at each stage.  The beads are strung on to a thin thread of wool and felted onto the edge of the hat.  Each lamella has sequin windows that are achieved by cutting pieces of sequin fabric, covering with a resist then two layers of prefelt and 2 more layers of wool and felted.  When nearing the final stages of felting and shaping, the windows are cut open to reveal the sequins.  The design is unique and shared by Judit Pocs, Hungarian Master Felter. 

Valerie McLean is a lifelong fiber artist, with a passion for crafting unique felted pieces in the form of vessels, wearables, wall art, and sculptures. Her work has been featured in renowned art shows, including the Faulkner Gallery in her hometown of Santa Barbara.  Valerie became intrigued by the versatility of wool after visiting a New Zealand art exhibit in 2000 and continues exploring exciting new techniques to this day. She even returned to NZ to participate in her first guild meeting, and now teaches local felting classes between her travels. After twenty years of study, the only thing she’s sure of is that there’s always something new to learn! You can see more of her work at www.sbfeltedfibers.com and also locally at Santa Barbara Arts in the La Arcada in Santa Barbara.

This blanket kept me busy in the early days of the Covid shut down this year.  It was woven on a 24″ table loom in 8′ panels and cross stitched together by hand.  I have been weaving for 1 and 1/2 years and this is my most ambitious project thus far.  The color combination of blues and purples and greens came about, somewhat at random, as I worked each panel.  It was a delightful way to weave.  The finished product is a light weight blanket with a bit of warmth from the wool.  

Capturing my thoughts during 2020. “Breathe…Shift…” is a moment in time, well, many moments in time, stitched during this point in history of my ever changing thoughts. Hand stitched, incorporating vintage fabrics woven to create the background, and anchored on a vintage handkerchief. The image of the girl is my stitched interpretation of a photo I took many years ago while riding the NYC Subway. Each letter stitched intentionally to capture the time spent “safe at home” during 2020 and represent how I shifted my thoughts away from worry to what I can do. 

During the past few months, I have taken comfort in home-based activities such as baking, weaving, and sewing. These towels are the most recent product of my efforts during quarantine. Using handmade domestic items helps make daily life more enjoyable in these difficult times, no matter how mundane the task.

Voting is the only solution (a beginning) that I can think of to solve/heal the challenges of our time.

I am a new member of your Guild. I live in Somis in Ventura County and also belong to the Ventura County Handweavers and Spinners Guild. I have had a lifelong love of making things. I weave (primarily on rigid heddle looms), embroider, dye, embellish with needle felting, wet felt, up-cycle felted wool sweaters and other vintage fabrics, Kumihimo, paper crafts, stamping on fabrics, stencil, do metal smithing, jewelry making, sewing, pottery/ceramics and create pieces of joy and whimsy from found objects…the list goes on and on and regularly gets added to.

Materials used are willow bark, peeled branches, copper and copper paint. “The addition of copper used in this basket is to add a natural element, a bit of  “bling” and variety, hopefully, adding to its earthy essence”.

This piece is an ode to my mother who raised two kids after my father died in 1962 at the young age of 36, and died herself of breast cancer 35 years ago this October.  When cleaning out her dresser after her death, I saved a box of her white dress gloves, so much a part of her that I never could let them go. I have cherished those gloves and have pondered what to do with them over the years each time they resurfaced in my cedar chest.  During this imposed quiet and time of reflection during Covid isolation, I finally came to my solution. 

The resulting wall-hung textile piece includes my poem, “I See Her Hands in Mine,” typed on the old portable Corona typewriter, printed on cotton, and embroidered onto a tea-dyed canvas fabric.  Using the basketry technique of twining, I sculpted life-sized hands using linen and hemp cord. The hands are mounted, along with a pair of mother’s well-worn gloves, to a 14” wooden hoop.

Handmade hemp, cotton, dryer lint & cannabis papers; machine quilted and embellished with hemp rope and a miniature handmade book.

Working with mostly found or recycled materials an employing small batch production techniques, Barbara crafts each item with care and has a genesis in her love of nature, repurposing and recycling. Barbara works with shredded paper, shredded Kimono fabric, cotton rag, flowers, seeds, herbs, weeds, tree bark, vintage patterns and maps and whatever else she can get her hands on. Often, she will embellish her paper with original block prints, watercolor illustration or her vintage sewing machine. “I let the materials inspire me and turn over the reins to the creative process. “Find more at  http://www.pedalingpaper.com/ * Follow me on Instagram @Pedalingpaper * Facebook @ Pedaling Paper & Art.

Handwoven in an uneven tied overshot weave structure. The bamboo and cotton alternate in the weaving and work perfectly together. The bamboo creates a lovely sheen in this reversable runner.

This Uneven Tied Overshot woven table runner in silver, grays and yellow adorns a coffee table in the desert. The yellow highlights are a daily reminder of the shimmering night sky.

Exploring the traditional rag rug technique using the Swedish halvdräll pattern, this rug is made from 100% cotton “upcycled” sheets and Swedish seine twine warp woven with a 12/6 seine twine warp and repurposed cotton sheet weft.

I love taking something no longer used and turning it into a new and useful object.  Before the modern era, cotton or linen cloth was a precious commodity since the plants needed to be grown and harvested, processed and spun, woven into material which could finally be sewn into a finished object. When clothing wore out, this precious material could then be cut into strips and woven into rugs. 
It is a pleasure to follow in the footsteps of my grandmother and turn something  old into new.

Proceeds from the sale of this rug will be donated to Los Padres ForestWatch, a local group which serves to protect our backyard, Los Padres National Forest and the Carrizo Plain National Monument. 

Casting my prayers to the wind, as the unhemmed flags flutter, seemed a reasonable solution as I lay awake during another sleepless night.

However, using the katazome method with a fructose indigo vat proved difficult to get a deep blue; I reduced the pre-wetting time (resulting in uneven dyeing) and kept the vat cold in order to preserve the resist. I like the color even if it is not the deep blue I yearned for. More photos on Instagram @Suzuo.no1.

Because the world of fiber was, from the beginning, fascinating to me, I learned to sew, embroider, knit and crochet at an early age.  I also learned the value of being able to mend and alter clothes. I remember watching my mother and grandmother darning socks by inserting a class or cup into them to use as sort of a hoop.  With a needle they would carefully attach the threads or yarn to the edges of the hole and created a mini warp which they would use to weave in order to fill the hole.  The same was done with stockings. 

Sweaters were mended, dresses were taken in, or out, depending on the changes in our physique.  Hems on dresses and coats were made too big because they soon had to be taken down as my sister and I grew taller.  Dresses and blouses were embellished with embroidery, cording or lace. Tablecloths and napkins were embroidered to be used on special occasions.  Nothing was just thrown away.    

These last few months having spent so much time indoors, I found comfort in reflecting on the satisfaction I get from fiber, textiles, patterns and color and the simple pleasure of patching a hole or embroidering a bug or a flower to hide a stain!

This blanket was woven from over 20 different warp threads of cotton, linen, acrylic and blended fibers in a range of blues and greys. I used two different materials to weave in a rose path pattern. One a variegated acrylic and the other a textured yarn on the ends and to create bands. The piece was finished with knotted fringe.

I love knitting while relaxing with friends or watching TV. I had begun this Fair Isle project, which was my first try at Fair Isle color knitting and a gift from my mother, but put it down for decades as it required so much concentration that it the usual knitting settings were the times when I made big mistakes and had to rip back. Then, the pandemic arrived and the solitude eventually was the ideal time to finish the sweater. It’s far from perfect but I am happy to have finished it in memory of my mother.