"Dawn at Cave Creek Canyon"
Multi-media piece exhibited in the juried art exhibition of the 2003 Decatur Arts Festival.
Crazy quilt background of corduroy, linen, twill, upholstery fabrics and pleated rayon. The sky is a single piece of stone-washed denim painted with watercolor. The clouds are edged with tiny stitches.
Shadowbox and frame by Laura Abadie of Vista Gallery.
"Dawn at Cave Creek Canyon"
Another passion of mine is birdwatching. In 1998 I visited southeaast Arizona on a birdwatching trip. The final day of the trip we stayed in a hotel just outside Cave Creek Canyon. I slept fitfully in anticipation of the next morning's outing to see the beautiful and rare Elegant Trogon. Too excited to sleep, I dressed in the dark and began walking down the desert road. As the sun came up, this is what I saw. The Chiricahua mountains rose up around me on all sides from the desert floor.
The gully washes in the desert take on many rich colorations of reds, browns and purples as minerals are leached from the rocks into the surrounding soil. Cacti and scrubby desert plants spring up around these wash areas which I interpreted in coral and orange wool drizzle stitch. I learned this stitch from Judith Baker Montano in her "Floral Stitches" book, one of my favorites.
Detail, above. Desert plants are worked in Brazilian embroidery of coral and orange wool. Sown into the design are Arizona turquoise, Baltic amber, painted Jasper, antique buttons, pearls and beads. Worked in ribbon, antique lace, hand dyed silks, cottons and Persian wool.
Oh, and we did see the Elegant Trogons! They were resting in the tall sycamores that line the stream bed of the canyon. This beautiful red and green bird is only one of two trogons that appears in the US, so they are a very desirable species for birders to see.
I carried the memory of that wonderful day with me until two years later when I was finally able to capture it in the landscape above. Now when I pass this piece in my living room, I smile as I remember watching the sun rise over the Arizona desert.
"Underwater Garden" This multi-media composition was created in 2005 for entry into the Decatur Arts Festival. The background is three large panels of fabric: midnight velvet, a teal silk jacquard and moss green upholstery fabric. Over this ground, I superimposed a second layer of upholstery fabrics, hand-dyed and hand-painted antique lace, yards of densely couched chenille thread, and ruched rayon ribbons. The next layer is sea fans created with the finest tulle laid down with variegated feather stitch. The final layer and foreground is composed of beads, shells, starfish, glass fishes and pearls, all hand sewn into the coral bed. The movement of the water is suggested by undulating rayon ribbons laid down with tiny catch stitches and the soft drape of the silk.
