Lao Hats

www.laohats.com

Heather Daveno of  Lao Hats

I am a self taught, American born textile artist who has been making hats from recycled textiles for over 20 years.  Please visit my shop for both custom made and 'off the rack' handmade hats.

Artist's statement:  Inspired by art forms from a variety of cultures and time periods, my hats are handcrafted from recycled textiles and found objects.  Lao Hats are limited editions, unique, warm and wearable artworks for your head!

Lao, the Chinese word for Old, is a play on words and a reference to the recycled / reclaimed / repurposed nature of my work.

I am in the process of rebranding and I am looking for a new name.  Please see my Facebook page or website for details...

Location:  Seattle, Washington, USA

Membership:  Northwest Art Alliance

Social Media:

   Deviant Art

   Twitter

Languages spoken:   English with smatterings of German and Turkish

Lao Hats:  Recycled and handmade!

Tags:   Heather Daveno, Lao Hats, recycled, handcraft, handmade, wearable art, handmade hats, wool hats, art to wear

Candy Meacham - Fiber Art

www.candymeacham.com

Stories in wool.  I create handwoven, narrative blankets drawing inspiration from my dreams, my childhood, the season, stories of my students and collaboration with the customer as well as the spirit of the project as it progresses.  I love color and handling the fibers themselves, and I use needle felting to physically apply color and design to the finished weaving.

Artist's statement:  My mission is just an extension of what I have described above.  It is to continue to create these stories and to find the audience who truly wants to listen to each one or who would like to create with me their own tall tale told in fiber.

Location:  Bellingham, Washington, USA

Blog:  Blanket Stories

Social Media:  Facebook

Languages spoken:  English, Spanish

"Spirit Rising"  Narrative Woven Blanket by Candy Meacham

Tags:  weaving, needle felting, fiber art, blankets, handwoven, art, color, design, narrative, collaboration

Meg Hannan - Rag Sky Art Studio

 

www.meghannan.com

My journey into the microcosmic world of Fabric Jewels, coincided with my arrival at Artwood Studios in Seattle in 1985. I have made my home and studio here in two former school classrooms since then. Every bit of it is used in the course of this little rodeo. I share my life with my princely cat, Mister Mustafa, and the other artists, and their families, who work and dwell in the school with me. I have been assisted in the studio by a chain of spectacular young interns who help me grow and keep me focused. It’s a lively and fertile ground for shared art inspiration, lessons in community and opening of hearts.

Making and selling my original fiber millefiori jewelry has been my full time profession for over twenty-five years. To create my Fabric Jewels, I fully saturate fabrics and fibers with glue, roll them up and when dry, slice the roll cross-section. It’s about getting inside the heart of the fabric through the window on the edge and painting little paintings inside that view. Color is key. And fiber, well, what’s not to love? The process is ever challenging and evolving. I investigate, contemplate, and intend. There are surprises and rewards. You can learn much more about it on my website.

I sell my work nationally at Quilt, Fiber and Bead Shows and through Museums, Galleries and Shops. The link between the creator that flows through me and the audience who appreciates my work is crucial. I am truly grateful for all the energetic support given me over all these years. This connection brings value and meaning to what I do, that greatly enhances my personal joy in the work’s creation.

As I circle the building’s property on my late night 2 am walks, I fall deeper and deeper into this plot of earth. I do not own it, but it is mine. The dark edge of the treetops sways with spirits and calls me to wake and feel this earth, which with all its woes, still astoundingly continues to be paradise here and now.

And so it is too, that as I circle and rustle through the vast and verdant fabric heap I have amassed, even with the struggles to manage all the pieces of my business, my soul finds stillness and peace diving deeper every year into the mystery of the simple and complex act of spinning fabric into jewels.

Artist's statement:  My mission in life is to be and see the Bhudda everywhere, to ever grow in kindness and love and make the passages of whining less and less frequent. Also, I really like it when I can make others laugh and jiminy cricket, I love to laugh too.

Location:  Seattle, Washington, USA

Online shop:  MegHannan

Blog:  meghannan

Languages spoken:  English

Carnival Night Beaded Diamond Pin by Meg Hannan

Tags:  fiber jewelry, millefiori, fabric jewelry, fiber art, wearable art, hearts, recycled art, Meg Hannan, Fabric Jewels, Rag Sky Art Studio, textiles, unique jewelry

Botanical Colors, LLC

Botanical Colors: your source for natural dyes.

www.botanicalcolors.com

I am a textile craftswoman with 25 years experience in creating beautiful color from plants and other natural materials. I sell premium natural dyes and supplies through my online store, Botanical Colors. I have traveled to Africa, Turkey, Southeast Asia, India, Central America and Europe in search of the historic and traditional colorants of these cultures.

I love color.  I am happy every day that I have my hands in a dye pot and never tire of the magic of  indigo.  I abandoned a corporate position in Silicon Valley to relocate to Seattle and follow my dream of a life in the textile arts.  I worked for over 6 years at Earthues in Seattle and honed my skills in color, design and production dyeing in one of the most beautiful and inspirational textile arts studios and the epicenter of natural dyeing in North America.  In addition to dyeing, I spin, weave, knit and felt and am busily making sample swatch books of the hundreds of colors that I have dyed over the years.

I live in a small cottage in Seattle with a huge organic vegetable garden and share life's adventures with my heart's delight, Richard, and our sweet rough collie, Rio. We support community endeavors including the Coalition of Refugees from Burma and share our bounty by providing fresh, organic food to our local food banks.

Artist's statement:  I strive to provide natural dyes that are beautiful, sustainable, environmentally friendly and support farming communities and small producers.  I have personally visited a number of my major suppliers to ensure that their working environments and processing methods are humane and economically and socially responsible.  All of the dyes that I sell are personally tested for quality, light and washfastness and are the historic dyes that have been used for centuries by textile artisans all over the world.

I hope someday to create a sustainable enterprise that leverages the textile skills of my Burmese friends so that they can thrive and prosper in their new home.  I am optimistic that the success of Botanical Colors will help establish this new enterprise in the near future.

Location:  Seattle, Washington, USA

Online shop:  botanicalcolors

Blog:  botanicalcolors

Memberships:

   Natural Dyes International
   Coalition of Refugees from Burma

Languages spoken:  English, Spanish, Japanese

Naturally dyed yarns with Botanical Colors extracts.

Tags:  Color and Culture, Fair Trade, Textile arts, weaving, embroidery, knitting, crocheting, dyeing, printing, quilting

LUKE Haynes

www.LUKEHaynes.com

I am a quilter working to push fabric and textile art into the forefront of fine arts consciousness. I have shows across the country and make commission quilts for families and businesses and museums the world over. I am wanting to work with stores and quilters and exhibition spaces to promote Quilting and blow the roof off the industry. I am living in Seattle and working all over the country. I have shows coming up and coming down all the time. I want to do more. Lets talk Quilts.

Artist's statement: My background in architecture led to an interest in the idea that form followed function, and quilts have both form and function implicit in their historical past and utilitarian design.

I have been experimenting with the ways that fabric can be used to create images while still maintaining its foundation of use and function.

I construct works by piecing together colors, images and textures with the intention of a final product that has implicit process as well as contextual imagery. A quilt is the product of a tactile and additive process. An internal layer of batting retains heat; quilted stitches maintain its structure through use and wear; patterns of thread and fabric reference a long tradition of craft and construction. I use these notations of an existing process to ground my work in a traditional practice.

Working in series, my quilts engage the binary views of intensely layered issues within American culture, exploring figural images referencing gender roles, nostalgia and iconography through the constructed quilted fields. I am inspired by the dialogue between audience and artist.

The imagery for my work often comes from the communities they are shown in, ideas from my experience or questionnaires I create to inquire after a specific response to a query. These subjects act as a means of reflecting the dueling public and private nature of nostalgia, utility, or notions of comfort. My current work engages ideas of green practice and sustainability by working with used clothes and donated materials as my palette.

My goal is to engage the seams between art and craft, form and function, space and materiality, while advancing the art of quilt making in contemporary culture.

Location: Seattle, Washington, USA

Blog: lukehaynes

Memberships:

Alliance for American Quilts [.org]
BurdaStyle [.com]
MrXstitch[.com]

Languages spoken: English

"On My Bed #3" Self Portrait Quilt by LUKE Haynes

Tags: Quilts, Recycle, textile, art, sew, exhibition, museum, famous, gallery, lecture

Margaret C. Wheeler

"Silk Fusion" by Margaret C. Wheeler
www.margaretcwheeler.com

Nothing is more pleasing than to find someone who connects with my work, is moved by it and wants to take it home. Creating is only half of the equation. It must be seen and appreciated to complete the process. My misson is to find ways to connect with a bigger and bigger audience. 

Article about Margaret on Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles

Artist's statement:  I work in fiber. I have been doing things with fiber of some form for the last 45 or more years. My love of fabric/fiber was nurtured by my Mother who made all our clothes and had at one time aspired to be a designer. The opportunity never came. I think I decided I would try to do what she could not. I first started by making my clothes wearing them a short time and then selling them so I could buy fabric for the next garment. Soon I was sewing for friends. I was given the opportunity to design costumes for a play and ended up spending the next 25 years designing and sewing costumes. I worked alone and loved the experience. It was very hard work but I found I had a natural understanding of design, color, and construction. I had no trouble getting work.

We moved from the area I was working in to a more rural area and I decided I was not a gypsy so I retired. During the years of costuming I had been studying weaving. I had purchased several looms and thought I would spend my time creating new fabrics and designing wearable art. I sadly developed severe allergies to most of the fibers so started looking for other ways to express myself. I have always taken lots of classes in things like color study, embellishment, and of course weaving but one day at a conference I saw a short seminar on Silk Fusion by Karen Selk from Salt Spring Island, BC. I took it and fell in love with the technique of making sheets of silk by bonding them together. I have combined my weaving and embellishments knowledge with the silk fusion to create one of a kind art pieces.

I also love paper and a friend convinced me to join the NorthWest Collage Society and I now also work in collage. As a child I always loved paper but did not know that I could create art with it other than drawing. Imagine how excited I get now when I am working with it. That same friend got me to join the Contemporary QuiltArt Association even though I had only made one small wall quilt for my granddaughter. I have found that they are all much related in the way I approach them. It doesn’t matter if it is fabric or silk fiber or paper. When I am working in one of these three mediums I always think “Oh, this is the one I love most.” But I actually love all three and will continue to explore all of them. I now made four more small art quilts. Quilt making uses all those years at the sewing machine. I think I could sew blindfolded.

My studio is next to my house so it is a short walk to my haven. I never get tired of working there. It seems the rest of life gets in the way of my work but that is okay. I have been married for 50 years; have 4 sons and 4 daughter-in-laws and 7 grandchildren and one great grandson. All these things influence my work and why I work. I want to leave something more than the usual for my descendants. I want to leave a legacy of a creative spirit. On my web-site I have written “Creating is not an option, for me it is a passion, it is my life." 

Location:  Leavenworth, Washington, USA

Memberships: 

   NorthWest Collage Society

   Seattle Weavers Guild

   Contemporary QuiltArt Association

Languages spoken: English

"Desert Rhapsody" by Margaret C. Wheeler

Tags: weaving, beading, bowls, silk, paper, yarn, ribbon, quilt, paints, dolls

Blueprints On Fabric

www.BlueprintsOnFabric.com

We hand treat natural fiber fabrics - cotton, silk, bamboo, rayon and watercolor paper for a nineteeth century photographic technique called cyanotype. This process is also known as blueprinting or sunprinting. Each print created is unique and is archival.  (Photo on the left is cyanotype over batik by Linda Stemer.)

Each piece is individually hand-treated, dried  and sealed in a light proof bag - ready to print!  Full instructions are included with every order.

Mission:  The cyanotype process is one of the earliest photographic processes discovered.  The first book ever published with photographs was "Photographs of British Algea - Cyanotype Impressions"  by Anna Atkins - She is widely recognized as the first woman photographer. Examples of her cyanotype prints from the 1850's are in museums today and they are as clear and blue as the day they were printed!

We are dedicated to preserving this unique historical process and keeping the magic of cyanotype available for children, contemporary artists and educators of history, photography and surface design.

-Linda Stemer

Location: Vashon Island, Washington, USA

Online Shops:   Blueprints on Fabric
Memberships:

   Surface Design Organization
   Alternative Photography

Languages Spoken: English

 Anna Atkins picture from around 1850 

called "cystoseira granulata"

 

Tags: cyanotype, photography, surface design, sunprinting, blueprinting, nature