Baltimore Sonnets

Coloratura For this series, I was inspired by my lifelong admiration of the coloratura soprano  roles in Operas.   Monoprint, embroidery, and painting on textiles The coloratura soprano has a high range and is required to expertly execute songs with elaborate Monoprint and embroidery on textile   ornamentation and embellishment, including running passages,  staccati , and  trills . 

Creating Covers This week was about making wooden book covers so that they'll be dry and ready for the textiles in a few weeks. A Printmaker's Song Remnants of the printmaking process (excess ink from the linoleum blocks) are purposely left on the covers because they are specific to my hand, and are very difficult to replicate.

I have been taking morning walks in tranquil Maryland meadows.   Walking through clouds There is nothing more grounding than walking through clouds.

The beauty of vintage textiles. Trying different combinations I had less than a yard of this lovely vintage burgundy fabric and too many ideas of how I wanted to use it. detail of final design After experimenting with various designs, I felt a patch work design was best.  It allowed me to combine all the textiles and then print on them. Concertina Wire: Children's Thoughts as Heard by Birds This will be a center page of the textile book.

They Say I'm archiving my poems and book covers, and came across this one from 2013. They Say by Suzanne Coley

Asymmetrical Zeal:  Act I, scene i Printmaking on textiles

African Textiles: I have always loved beautifully embroidered fabrics and exquisite textiles, especially handwoven silks, cottons, and wools.  So when I was given luminous handwoven African textiles back in October and encouraged to turn them into mixed media fiber arts, it took me a few days to figure out how I was going to tell stories with them. I wrote a few blog posts about my experiences, but did not have time to follow up as much as I intended.  (I've been so busy researching the textiles and sewing.)  During the next 52 Weeks, I will blog about my experiences of printing on 70s, 80s and more contemporary African textiles and turning them into textile pages/fiber arts. This week I've been experimenting with traditional patchwork techniques and seeing how that looks.  I plan to try various techniques, using a different one on each book.  There will be 12 books total. This is a detail image of the patchwork.  This purple textile go...

One of my older designs I've been working on a new website and going through my old designs.  I will always love this one for its simplicity and truth.   Stay tuned to see my new designs.  Hoping you are having a wonderful New Year!

Beginning the New Year where it all started: New York City East 73rd Street Starry Night