Pink House 5th Anniversary Celebration

Here is my invitation to each wonderful person who has been a part of the success of my business during the past 5 years. Thank you!!!

If you have:

• taken a Pink House class or workshop and have a piece you made here or made later from the techniques you learned, please submit it!
• shown your work at the Pink House in one of my early exhibits, please submit a piece you showed or something similar!
• bought art at the Pink House made by me or another artist, please submit it for temporary display!

This exhibit will not be juried and there are no fees - all submissions will be accepted. For that reason, please submit one piece only. I would like to have an image of the piece you plan to submit, so I can start planning the space. And also let me know if you want to try selling your piece or if it will not be for sale. I'm requesting a 15% commission on work that is sold. Plan on bringing or shipping your piece to me between August 24 and 28.

I plan to have this exhibit up for the month of September, with appropriate social distancing and face masks for visitors. There will not be a formal opening but I will choose a date on which I will open an online view of the exhibit and will post the hours when my gallery will be open.

If you can participate, please call (518-524-0533) or send an email (PinkHouseGallery@gmail.com)

Avocado Dye Tutorial - AUGUST 2020

Here is a fun project for you to try as you stay home cooking, exploring, and entertaining yourself and your family. Did you know you can dye fabric with non-toxic avocado skins and pits?!

When I use an avocado, I scrape out all the pulp and save the skins and the pit. After making my guacamole, I scrub the skins and pits lightly with a kitchen sponge and put them in a plastic bag, which I then leave in my freezer. When I have saved at least 6 or more avocado skins and pits, I make some avocado dye. In this tutorial, I used the skins and pits of 8 avocados.

I put the frozen skins and pits into a large pot and cover them with water. I bring the water to a simmer and let it stay on the heat for about 1 hour. You can use the dye right away, but I usually let the pot sit overnight.

Strain out the skins and pits (which can go into your compost) and then in a colander with a cloth or towel to strain once more to remove any of the avocado flesh that is left in the liquid.

In this case, you can see that there was not very much flesh. I added my wetted fabric to the dye and added enough water to cover the cotton napkins I wanted to dye. You want to be sure the fabric can move freely in the dye.

At this point the dye is a rusty color but it will dye the fabric a pinky peach color in the end. Simmer the fabric in the dye  for about 1 hour and again leave it to sit overnight.

Next I drain the fabric and put it in the washing machine or a basin to rinse out the dye I and then spin it before putting it into the dryer. You can do all of this without the washer and dryer if you have a small amount of fabric.

Here are the finished dyed napkins, a nice pink color. You can get a deeper color by using more avocado skins and pits and/or leaving the fabric in the dye longer. Some dyers use the pits and skins separately and find the resulting colors are different. And because the skins and pits have high levels of tannin, the colors are fairly permanent and you can try other interesting experiments with resulting dyed fabrics. I'll expand on this in a future post.

Enjoy your projects with this lovely, easy dye. Please send photos to show me what you made! I'll share them here.

A Lovely, Quiet Holiday Gift Gallery

The annual Pink House Holiday Gift Gallery is open on Fridays from 11am to 8pm and Saturdays from 11am to 5pm through December 23rd, as well as when the Open signs are out or by appointment. Lots of "doing" for friends in need this year, so call me when you can make it to the Pink House. I'd love to see you. 

And so many wonderful gifts! Many by talented artist friends, some made by me, all carefully selected to help you find the Special Something for your Special Someone! And I am happy to ship to you or your dear ones!

Pilllows and Plant Prints 

The Eco Prints Department

The Gift Solution - a Gift Certificate for a workshop or scarf or tiny birdhouse or .....

Wool Hats by Ann Clarke I

Wool Hats by Ann Clarke II

Crepe de Chine Silk Scarves by Pat Pauly

Colorful Linen Pillows by Pat Pauly

Rustic Pillows by Cris

Fragrant Candles

Little Framed Eco Prints

Zen Rocks by Chad Pattison

Lots more for Heart and Home.  Hope to see you soon! 

Botanica Exhibit

This month I'll be showing my own work in the Pink House Gallery, all on the botanical theme, with an opening on Friday, June 3rd from 5 to 7 pm. I've been enjoying using plants as partners in my art making for several months and it will be fun to hang some of that experimentation on the walls. Below are a few examples of both finished works and of those in progress. For more information, see my page "In the Pink House Gallery." I'll have quite few new fun gifts this summer too. I hope you can check it out.

"Findings - Live Oak Leaves" - leaves embroidered on paper with watercolor

"Beech Leaves" - deconstructed screen print on paper

"April Remains I" - screen print on fabric

"Purple Grape Iris" collage - fabric and thread

April in My Studio and Beyond

To say that April is quiet month where I live is an understatement. Which means that it is a great month for travel, writing, and art making with few interruptions. So this post will be a bit of a diary of my projects and whereabouts over the past 3 weeks.

The colorful photo above is the catalog cover of the gorgeous art quilt exhibit at the Wayne Art Center a bit northwest of Philadelphia. I went there as part of the Studio Art Quilt Associates annual conference, held in downtown Philadelphia. The conference included great talks, lots of interaction with terrific artists, and renewed energy for the whole field of art quilting. If you want to see the art made and promoted by SAQA, click here. Lots of diversity and skill to be seen.

In addition to the conference itself, it was wonderful to see some of Philadelphia's attractions, including the quite astonishing Magic Garden, located on and around South Street.

Me, taking those Too Many Photos

 

As an added bonus, it was SPRING there! I drove home in a blizzard, and we still haven't see much green. Good thing the summer is glorious here.

The other big project this month is my turn as the month of April artist-in-virtual-residence on the fabric surface design blog "... And Then We Set It on Fire." I am so honored to be part of this group of accomplished fabric artists. If you are interested in fabric surface design, you might want to join and follow.

For the "Fire" blog, I'm writing about and showing images of fiber art with plants as both part of the media used to make the art and as subject matter. Here is one of my deconstructed screen printing projects, using an overwintered wood fern and some dried grasses from the Bloomingdale Bog Trail (to ground you locals).

 

There are several classes going on in the Pink House studio too. I'm especially enjoying the "Learn Drawing (and Some Botany)" and our monthly drawing group. And you haven't really seen the world until you look at box elder flowers under the dissecting microscope!!!

Can't help myself - I'm such a botany geek!

Sophisticated Tie Dye

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A couple of weeks ago, my friend Susan taught a wonderful Shibori dyeing class at the Pink House. Those beautiful dots up above were made by folding the cotton into nine squares then places three acrylic disks on top, bottom, and inside. Then the fabric-acrylic sandwich was placed between two pieces of thin wood, clamped, and dropped into bucket of blue fiber reactive dye.

Susan showing us how to make a honey comb Shibori by wrapping the fabric around a cord, which is then pulled up tight before dyeing.

Pleating and tying a fabric square.

Pulling the pleated and tied fabric out of the dye.

Laura with her beautiful honey comb Shibori.

Susan adding the soda ash to the dye bath.

The finished products with Kelly hiding in the background.