While visiting the Clinton Presidential library in Little Rock I was studying the textile gifts to the President and First Lady. My eyes popped out when I saw this case and fabric. I have that fabric in my African textile collection! How cool is this? Sorry the color is a bit off from photographing through the museum glass and lighting but the fabrics match!
Fun Alexander Henry fabric seemed perfect for Halloween candy bags for Miss P and Nayan. I used a Japanese knot bag pattern in a large tote size. I think they are so fun and can see the grands using them as totes past candy night.
Inside of the bags feature spiders and geraniums
One of my quilts for HERstory, an exhibit and book curated by Susanne Miller Jones, appears in the Quilting Arts Magazine story about the exhibit. It is always an honor to have work featured in a major quilting magazine. But just a note: I don’t live in Arizona, I live in Arkansas. There is a Lakeview, AZ but at the time I created this piece I lived in Lakeview, AR. It’s a mistake often made, or sometimes I get mail addressed in AK. Maybe I need to adopt some of these cities? Road Trip!!
Essential art supplies from the bottom of purse. Can’t wait to use them.
When I explore surface design I want to go beyond commercial products. There are some great commercial ones out there and you can do some amazing things with them. But just like commercially produced fabric designs there is a limit to creativity. I like to dye and paint and print my own fabrics for one of a kind art work. Sometimes I start with a commercial fabric because I don’t ever want to waste something. But what do I use for printing and stenciling?
Here are a few new tools in my tool box for this. These things all were destined for the trash or the recycle bin, depending on their number. When you think of surface design you see these as tools rather than trash. Oh, that black wooden piece I picked up at a sale and I am anxious to see the design from it. The blue container is from mushrooms, of course an empty spool, the clear plastic is from cookies and the other piece is from bottles of fizzy water.
Here is a close up of the fizzy water plastic. I know this is going to be a favorite. It will produce both positive and negative prints depending on whether I use it to stamp or stencil.
I haven’t had time to play with all these yet. I have some deadlines for exhibitions coming up. I wanted to share since it has been a really long time since I posted. Here is a finished piece going to Carol Jones Frank for our small art exchange group on Facebook. I used the empty spool in gold ink for some subtle stamping. It gave just the right amount of another layer of complexity. 
JP Dawes Contemporary Artist 