Last night I attended an art exhibit for Susan Lewis Storey at my friend David Sackmary’s Quattro Gallery in Austin, Texas. I had never met Susan before or seen her work, but I wanted to see what David had been up to. He’d cut his hair to a very flattering look since I last saw him. And I laughed when he introduced me to others as ‘the artist who strapped his arms up to the ceiling as he posed nude’ for my bronze sculpture “Warrior Spirit.” All I can say in my defense is that it seemed unkind to ask someone to hold his arms straight out in airplane position for hours at a time!
Ok, I am digressing again. Everything is connected, is it not? Susan had several beautiful and interesting art quilts on exhibit. She showed her “American Family Album Series” which I loved, having had a serious interest in vintage photographs myself. Last night I photographed this artist with one of her fabric works that depicts images of her mother as a young woman. It is quite charming and was one of my favorites of the evening.
Like many immigrating Americans, the ethnic family name was changed to help assimilate the family into the New World. Susan discovered that her Italian family name was Maffei which was changed to Murphy. (She created another fabric art piece to honor this heritage.) Rediscovering her Italian roots led her to create an image of hanging laundry in a small Italian villa – so typical of Italy and nostalgic to many people, including me. (I was always a bit warped, I suppose: I think that hanging laundry outside on a spring day is sexy.)
I also include here a close-up image of her fabric art piece depicting Italian laundry. Her process is unlike anything that I had heard of, but then I am not that familiar with the newer art processes. I may be wrong about this, but here is what I remember of her description of her process: She first scans images that move her into her computer. Then she plays in Photoshop to make those images into something artistic – exploring colors, effects, textures, etc. Then she treats her fabrics with some chemical that allows them to accept ink. Afterwards she sprays something on the fabric (and irons it?) to stiffen the fabric so that it will pass through her printer. And then she prints her images onto her fabrics. After that, she pieces the fabric together and creates the quilted stitching throughout the artwork and sometimes adds beads or varies the stitching for the home grown look of a real quilt.
Hurry to see this interesting work – I am not sure when the exhibit closes, but contact information follows:
David Sackmary at the Quattro Gallery:
quattrogallery.com
Susan Lewis Storey’s site:
susanstorey.com
Kelly Borsheim’s bronze sculpture:
“Warrior Spirit”
No comments:
Post a Comment