Coleyism 52!

Turning textiles into books This week I am using traditional book boards to make an Asymmetrical book for an Instagram online book challenge. I want the book to unfold in a non-traditional way.   I am still working out the details and want to share the process with readers.  (I am not sure how it will finally come out.) While I was experimenting with design ideas, I created this patchwork art using mixed media.  I liked it so much that I will incorporate it with one of the textile pages.  Stay tuned for more details . . .

Tanzania Textile: Kanga Cloth It has been very difficult for me to cut this brightly colored rectangular cotton cloth from Tanzania.   Printed sometime in the 1990's this Kanga cloth is the youngest piece of textile I am using for a handmade textile book. It is also the only textile from East Africa.  There is so much history embedded into this textile.

Like most Kanga cloth, this one is composed of 3 parts.  
1.  The pindo (the border)
2. The miji (the central design)
3. Ujumbe or jina (the message or proverb written in Swahili)
The proverb on this cloth is Raha Ya Dunia Ni Watoto(The happiness of the world is children)
I tried several different ways to design (or re-design) the cloth so that it would become a book page.   I really wanted to play with the patterns along the borders and the within the miji.  Knowing that I only had a limited amount of fabric, with no way of getting more, I decided to use one of my favorite quilting patterns, the log cabin.   Overall, I am happ…

Textile Museum, Washington, DC On Saturday, September 16, over 60 fiber and textile artists in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area were invited to attend a meeting at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC.  
Camille Brewer, Curator of Contemporary Art, gave us an introduction to the new contemporary art programming at the museum.  The upcoming exhibitions, workshops, and lectures will focus on textile art created by international and local (DC, Maryland, Virginia) artists.  I really like the direction she is taking: It will offer both global and local perspectives of what is going on.
The above image is of Lori Kartchner, Education Program Coordinator, explaining what the Educational component of the museum will be.  Lynora Williams, the museum's librarian, discussed some of the rare and out of print books in the museum's 20,000 volume library collection.  Their multilingual collection offers cultural, historical, artistic, and technical information related to textiles, costum…

KING The story of a girl who wants to be King: When I grow up I want to be king
with body guards dressed in red
on horses with royal names,
shielding me from these bullies.
No more broken bones.
When I grow up I want to be king
like the one on postcards my teacher 
sent me: King George VI.  I don't care
about castles, a mud-brick house will do.
I don't need electricity, I see in the dark.
*excerpt and images from my one-of-a-kind handmade textile book King.

Teaching Art One of the greatest joys of being an artist is teaching art to the public.
My classes are free and open to everyone, young and old.
The greatest feedback is when someone says: "Look Suzanne, I made this masterpiece.  And, I am going to hang it on my wall."

Beading
Beading is a nice way to add texture and a little glitter to fabric.  Here is a view of the backside of one of the beaded designs in my handmade textile book Goats.

100,000 Forbidden and Banned Books Banned books donated from all over the world were used to create the Parthenon of Books in Kassel, Germany. The installation was constructed at the same site (Friedrichsplatz Park) where Nazi sympathizers burned books on May 19, 1933 during the "Campaign against the Un-German Spirit."
The brainchild of this installation, Argentinian artist Marta Minujin, established a list of banned books for her project with the assistance of students at Kassel University. With donations from the public, 100,000 copies of the banned books were gathered to create the  structure.  Parthenon of Books has the same dimensions of the real-life Parthenon in Athens.

*** Note: This is a temporary installation and will will run until September 17, 2017.  When it ends, the Parthenon of Books will be dismantled and the books will be distributed around the world.