Art in Idyllwild

 

Idyllwild. Idyllic. Idle. Wait! we were anything but idle last weekend in Idyllwild. For 3 glorious days we painted fabric, integrated image and text, made discoveries and friends. The classroom was amazing – huge windows, light, a deck with room to roam and create, a clothesline (bonus!), and a sink. My little Studio A. It has helped me define what I really want in a studio when that day comes to create one.

Not in this particular classroom, but on this trip I discovered that both Ansel Adams and Benny Goodman had been summer teachers there at the school in years past. I always feel blessed to be invited to teach there, but joining the ranks of the likes of those guys (and many other known & talented artists) just made it all the more delicious. I felt part of a larger continuum of art & creativity.

I also felt the earth move – literally. If you didn’t hear it on Facebook or Twitter , we had an earthquake there on Saturday night. 3.5 on the Richter scale. Not that big a deal, especially to Californians, but it was to my husband and I – lifelong DC, east coast,  mid-atlantic dwellers. One of those natural phenomenons that you (I) might only experience once in a lifetime, like Haley’s Comet or a total eclipse of the sun. Way cool it was. Apparently there had been little quakes epicentered in Idyllwild all weekend – .8s and 1.0s, that we never noticed. The one we felt had an epicenter about 6 miles SE.

 

 

Rachel Druten had a smashing time, making new discoveries. She created this delicate, haunting piece (above).

 

 

Rachel’s friend and partner in crime play, Cher Thomas, created beautiful color and pattern and exploded an image transfer into a unique piece. Other “partner” teams included mother and daughter, Carol and Meredith. Meredith is off to grad school at Cranbook next month to study textile design…armed with my books and this class, no less. That’s makes me feel good.

 

 

You might call these two real partners in crime. They collaborated on this whimsical piece where the text Believe is the smoke coming out of this cigar smokin’ babe photo. Both Jennifer and Cindi did some inventive and beautiful work on their on as well. here is Cindi picking out the threads from a recycled piece of embroidered text. The embroidery acted as a wonderful resist to the paint.

 

and Jennifer shows off her silk scarf with transferred image~

 

Lori Zimmerman during show and tell Sunday morning. We watched the pieces progress as the days went by. Each day I demonstrated a few techniques and like horses in the starting gate they took off. Everyone was in the zone.

 

There was also a lot of talent in this class  (Clockwise from top left) – textile designer, Anne Bray, graphic designers, Robin Brandes and Dolinda Rioseco and retired teacher, Karen  Smith.

Other partners in painting included retired visual design teacher, Stan Book and his wife, Judy, a retired librarian. Stan was probably the most productive and created pieces that gave me fabric envy.

 

 

Including this layered piece which Stan worked on until he turn it from something he hated into something we all coveted ~

 

For the curious, we used ProChemical’s Color Concentrates and mixed our own colors. I am loving this stuff as it doesn’t change the hand of the fabric and is an inexpensive way to have a wide array of color to paint with. It works like dye but the set up, process, spontaneity and and fabric finishing is so much easier -something those of us who are limited in time and space can appreciate. I’ll be teaching this class again in February 2010 at An Artful Journey, in a similar idyllic setting in Los Gatos, CA and in July at Quilting by The Lake in upstate NY. Maybe I’ll see you there.