Currents Gallery Recycled Art Show Pt. II

Here is Maureen's second entry in the Currents Gallery Recycled Art Show.  It is a shoulder bag made from an automotive tire tube, a vinyl game board table cloth, two ladies' belts and some checkers.

Imagine Tom's surprise at seeing Maureen sewing binding onto rubber inner-tube on her standard sewing machine.  So much for her former statements about the machine being too underpowered to hem his jeans....  Anyway, the bag has garnered quite a bit of attention, prior to the show and during the show.  A big Thank you to Seattle-area graphic artist Amy Feree for photos of the bag and the antenna lamp!

Currents Gallery Recycled Art Show Pt. I

Maureen has a couple of her recent creations in the Recycled Art Show at Currents Gallery in McMinnville, Oregon.  The first is this lamp. Its base is a radio antenna from inside a 1930's console-radio. It is attached to a mango wood foundation. The reclaimed shade is decorated with a grade school film strip "Kree Finds His Way" circa 1964.  The lighting kit is the only new component.  Do you trust ancient electrical wiring?  Neither do we.

It's so cool how a creation like this comes together from disparate objects gathered over a period of years.  The console radio was given to Tom by his sister about 10 years ago, not in working order.  Maureen bought the film strip at a rummage sale 5 years ago.  Here's the really serendipitous part: before starting construction, Maureen made a sketch of the lamp on a 3X3 post it note.  She made the shade trapezoidal.  That afternoon, she dropped into a thrift shop and found the very shade she had drawn!

If you happen to be in McMinnville, stop by the Currents Gallery for an in-person viewing, now through the end of May.

Facelift for an Old Friend

In celebration of the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Dragon, Tom and Maureen have been busy clearing out the old and welcoming the new.  In the case of this chair, it's more a matter of making new from old.  This was Maureen's sewing chair for many years.  It's now being re-purposed as a guest room chair.

Several years ago, we met a guy who was marbling leather hides in a 10ft X 10ft vat in a large storage unit in south Salem.  This was long before we had taken a marbling class and we were quite impressed.  Now that we know more about marbling, we are even more impressed with what he was doing.  We bought quite a few pieces in various colors, planning to use them in artist's books. 

Maureen has been in a marbling mood for the last couple of weeks and is preparing to marble some fabric for the Fiber Explorations qroup she is a member of.  In between prepping the fabric,  making marbling brushes, mixing the size (the solution the paints float on) and the paints, and making new paint rakes, she squeezed in re-covering the seat of this chair.  All in a week's marbling!

Sunday Postcard Creations

What to create on a blustery winter's Sunday?  Whatever you are inspired to create!  Today, Maureen's inspiration was fabric postcards. This one is representative of a certain beach house in Santa Cruz where two incredibly cute and spunky little girls are soon to move with their Tata (that's Croation for Daddy) and their Mommy (what's Croation for Mommy?).

This one features before and after haircut pictures of cute spunky girl Maja (Croation spelling.  Say My-uh.)  She's the big sister and will be three years old in April 2012!!

Memory Quilts for Paula's Family

Beginning the weekend of Thanksgiving 2011, Chris and Paula Erhardt's daughters Jessica, Nicole and Danielle worked closely with Aunt Maureen to create memory quilts from their mom's old clothes.  Paula went to dance with the angels in December 2010 and this project was imagineered about a month later.
 
In photo one, Danielle is a quilt angel (similar to a snow angel) lolling about on her own quilt, one of two that she pieced and sewed the tops  for.  Photo two is Nicole's quilt. All three of the girls quilts have some fabrics in common, each chosen for the memories they bring back and for the comfort they bring.

Photo three is Jessica's quilt, pieced by Nicole, laid out by Jessica, and sewed by Nicole.  It was no small feat, and we were all impressed that Nicole sewed the tops for her own and Jessica's quilts all in one weekend.

The fourth quilt is Chris's, a surprise for him, pieced and sewn by Danielle.  All four quilts were machine quilted by my friend Mary Todd in Salem, Oregon.  Chris's quilt is guarded here by Danielle's puppy, Boone.  :-)