Artist Spotlight part 1: Jane LaFazio

Hello Friends. I'd like to introduce you to another artist whose work I admire and enjoy. I think you will come to love her artwork as well.

Jane LaFazio is a mixed-media artist working in San Diego California. She has degrees in Graphic Design and Asian Studies, worked for a bit as an international flight attendant, in marketing, and in graphic design. Her career as a full time artist began in watercolors and gradually morphed into collage, sewing, and cloth. I'm very glad it did. Her work with thread and fiber is fascinating, rich, and deep. I was so happy that she took the time out of her very busy schedule this month to answer some interview questions.

Lyric: You are a prolific artmaker - something I hope to become when my children are no longer consume most of my time. (years and years away!) Have you always been prolific?

Jane: I’ve been blessed with a lot of natural energy, and now I’m focusing it on making art. I LOVE making art. As I mentioned, I create a lot of artwork for my workshops and classes, and that act pushes me to finish a project, and work out the problems, rather than just walk away from it. If I’m scheduled to teach something the next day, I’d better figure it out!

L: Do you have to work to discipline yourself to create art?

J: No, I need the discipline for the household chores, not the art making! I have a wonderful, supportive husband who cooks, shops and even does the laundry. Yes, I appreciate him VERY much!

L: Do you have any great habits that help you produce?

J: I work small. I like to work small, but it also makes it easier to do many different projects or types of art. And I almost always have some project that I work on in the evenings, watching TV with my husband.

L: I love working small as well. You can always have something with you no matter where you are. You work in a broad range of media and a variety of styles. Do you think this is an advantage, a disadvantage?

J: Seen in the light of “professional artist” probably a disadvantage. What did Kelli Nina Perkins call herself, a “promiscuous art maker.” That would be me. I love all kinds of art, so I’m always switching media and beginning a new passion, for about a week, then I’m on to something else! My sketching and watercolor: journal style has stayed true and consistent for a number of years now. In the past year, I’ve begun creating heavily hand stitched needle-felted pieces that I intend to stay with—I love the work that’s coming out of me and want it to become some of my signature work. But I’ll still see something in a magazine or on line, and rush to my studio to create something I’ve never tried before. I do LOVE a new technique!

L: What inspires your work? Do you work from realistic sketches and try to reproduce them? Are you inspired by your materials?

J: I get inspiration from everywhere. Online, magazines, walks, museum visits, art fairs, shopping… I don’t plan any of my work. No sketches to work out the kinks for me! I just dive in. that’s where working small works for me. I’ll often create a number of small pieces, then assemble them into something larger. But always, with no real plan. I work intuitively, by starting with a material or a color usually. 

Ralph’s Letters, my ‘breakthrough’ piece was created using love letters from an old boyfriend, and I just began a page at a time. (Breakthrough because it was my largest piece to date, and got in many juried show AND was my first piece published in Cloth Paper Scissors, thanks to Lesley Riley.)

Ralph's Letters

L: What are your favorite materials?

J: Needle and thread. I started as a watercolor artist, and as I moved into collaging my watercolor paintings, I started sewing on the paper. Now I also sew on fabric.

I hope you have enjoyed getting to know Jane and her work a little better. She is a prolific blogger and I encourage you to head over and browse through her work. It's complex and rich and beautiful. Next week I'll tell you about some of the amazing work she does in teaching and sharing her creativity. At the end of the month I'll be giving away a copy of her DVD workshop "Small Art Quilts" to a lucky reader. The winner will be chosen from among the comments left on any one of the artist spotlight posts about Jane - including this one. How about telling me your favorite "creative habit." Tell me something that helps you get the work done. (Yes, I am struggling with that particular issue right now. Can you tell?)

Inspired by Alisa Burke

The door perked right up and said, "Really? Truly? For me!??"

Inspired by Alisa Burke's Butterfly Wreath Tutorial.

And SUE said, "Really? Truly? I won!?!"

And I said, "Yes you lucky girl you!

I have a copy of Alisa Burke's "Canvas Remix"ready to go.

I added up all the comments on both Artist Spotlight posts about Alisa
and plugged them in at Random.org. Sue who posted May 4, 2010 at 10:55 PM wins!

Art + Quilt: Quilter Beth - Color as Emotion

I had the great pleasure of meeting Beth in Paducah several weeks ago and now it is even more of a pleasure to follow her progress as she works through the exercises in my book, "Art + Quilt: design principles and creativity exercises."

In her own words, "In the Color as Emotion exercise, the instructions said to “Create a simple composition that evokes a feeling, using color as the dominant element. Choose any emotion as your inspiration.” This was a hard exercise for me. Trying to think of an original composition pushes my limits. The requirement to use color as the dominant element also added to the difficulty. This is what I came up with. My first picture represents sadness."

"We were asked if we could repeat the composition in a different color combination and change the mood. I thought I’d give it a try. My second picture represents excitement. The compositions are the same; the only change is color."

Pop on over to her blog and tell her that she's done an amazingly great job for being uncomfortable with original design. 

I hope this inspires you to take a few chances, to try a few things that you might not have tried before. Start out with a few small pieces of batting or muslin and simply layer other fabrics on them. Don't worry about perfection. Don't worry about wasting material. The point is to LEARN something - and that is always of great value.

Thanks Beth!!!

Color Relationships

I believe that color is the favorite element of most visual artists.

It seems to directly bypass our thought process and drill right into our emotions. 

It's interesting to me that I am intensely drawn to color

but especially so in their very subtle moods.

Three

I started out in textiles as a traditional quilter 

and used mostly saturated primaries and jewel tones.

I actually had adverse physical reactions to grayed down blues or all pastel quilts. 

Encompassed

1998

Borders created from center to outer edge by: Lyric Kinard, Karen Zeher, Barbara Molnar, Jan Beasley, Amy Winsor, Mary Stone.  Quilted and embellished by Lyric Kinard

A few years into my learning process as a fine artist I went through a "brown" phase. Everything I made seemed to come out in earth tones with metallics thrown in. I haven't figured out why yet.

Three Rings

2003

Perhaps it was a factor of living in Chicago at that time

or perhaps that year's dye run just had some really great browns.

Out of the Box

2003

As I've grown as an artist I better understand my fascination with color interactions.

Masterful use of value, in any hue, attracts me as much as color by itself.

I'm still learning. Still working on stepping out of my box.

Perhaps I'm even still learning and exploring what the box is.

It is such a fascinating world, so full of wonder. 

Trying to capture those feelings, those visions, those emotions.

What an amazing life-long venture.

For Your Inspiration: Crows

Studio Ariegaw

Moonflight by Linda Kemshall

lines - letters - layers

ingrid art studio

Middleburg Folk Art Studio

Blue Fingers Studios

Artist Spotlight part 3: Canvas Remix GIVEAWAY!

Do you remember way back at the beginning of the month when I promised you more about the wonderful artists Alisa Burke? I hope you have been following her adventures on her blog - she is fresh and creative and her photography and whimsical nature lifts my soul.

Today I'd like to introduce you to two of her wonderful creations - a book titled Canvas Remix and her on-line classes.

Canvas Remix is a delightful primer on how to create a number of projects with Alisa's signature layered graffiti and messy paint on canvas style. I absolutely love the way she uses canvas with abandon as a beginning for her art, rather than the end in itself. She begins the book with a great cheerleading "you can do it!" essay then digs right into the nitty gritty of how to apply the paint to the canvas. The pictures are easy to follow for those of us who seem unable to pay attention long enough to follow written instructions. The written instructions are also well done and clearly explained.

But that is just the beginning! With Alisa, a painted canvas is not a sacred thing. She's not afraid to rip, layer, encrust, sew, and restructure her paintings into many a delightful object d'Art! She shows you how to create magnets, cards, monsters, and memoirs. She'll lead you through the construction of art to wear jewelry, totes, and show you how to create boxes, pillows and tapestries.

My two favorites are the MESSY MONSTERS and the BITS and PIECES ORNAMENTS.

From now until Friday, if you leave a comment on this post or the first Artist Spotlight I wrote to introduce you to Alisa, you will have a chance to WIN a copy of this deliciously charming book. 

Now, I had the great pleasure of taking a couple of Alisa's on-line workshops. I'm always curious about how other people run their on-line courses in comparison to how things work over at QuiltUniversity.com where I teach. There things are structured and follow a simple format that hasn't changed in a long time. It's easy to follow and use. (Can you tell I like it?)

Guess what? I LOVED the way Alisa has things set up. She has great introductions to her work on her website so that you can clearly see what you will be learning in class. You can register any time and then have access to the course materials for pretty much as long as you need it. Unless it is a brand new course, in which she gives you one set of lessons per week, you have access to the entire course immediately through a password protected blog. You cannot download the videos or material but there is no need to - you can see it any time.

boards are collaged and paint is applied

This is the part I love - the lessons are written out, but the main teaching method is a long, long, list of video clips where you can SEE exactly how she does what she does. The prices are reasonable and I feel you get a plethora of information for what you pay. I took a class called Graffiti Chic. It did cover some of the same basics as her book but because of the video format I felt it was able to delve more deeply into the subject matter. It teaches you some of the same basics of applying paint to canvas. And knowing me, who chooses not to follow instructions too closely, I immediately pulled out artists boards instead.

words are written

Yes I'm a textile artist but there are times when I long for the almost instant gratification of applying paint to a surface and seeing a thing bloom into being in a fast and furious fraction of the time it takes to meditatively hand stitch my usual work. (boy am I into run-on sentences this morning or what!?) Anyway - Alisa gives you the feeling of permissive freedom to experiment with absolutely anything.

hand carved stamps and drippy paint were my next layer of choice

Alisa is so enthusiastic in her videos that it encourages you to simply play and experiment. My favorite thing to do. With paint, the fun thing is that you can just cover it up with yet another layer of paint if you don't like exactly how things are turning out.

a toothbrush adds a splattering of black paint

So the fun thing about this project is - that this is just the background. You can keep going as far as you'd like to go. Alisa teaches you how to adhere embellishments to your painting, how to write graffiti letters, how to add photographs, etc. I've set this project aside for the moment as I ruminate on where to go next. I'm thinking of adding photographs of my ancestors and some vintage lace bits I have laying about. You can see that compared to Alisa's work mine is monochromatic and practically subdued - but that's one of the fun things. I don't have to make my work look just like hers to learn these techniques. You can keep your own voice and learn from other artists. 

So - I encourage you to head over to Alisa Burke's site to check out the classes she has to offer. Perhaps stop by her blog to follow her many creative adventures. Be sure to leave a comment here for a chance to win a copy of Canvas Remixa. Please do check back on Friday to see if you've won - or make sure that I have a way to contact you.

Quilting Arts FREE e-book

Over at QuiltingArts.com - an art quilter's social networking resource, they put out a free e-book every few months or so. This month's book features an article of mine titled: Picture It Framed along with a number of other great articles on the subject of finishing your textile art.

It's free, easy to download, and as with all of QA's stuff - looks great. I love their graphic design team - talented folks over there. So pop on over and pick it up at http://quiltingarts.com/media/p/17544.aspx. I do believe you need to register on the site to have access.

I also have more picture tutorials on mounting and framing methods over on my website: 

http://www.lyrickinard.com/tutorials.html