What's happening in the Studio?

So what have I been up to in the first half of 2017? For starters I took some time off to relax, be with family, and enjoy the sunshine in Florida. I've realized that the sun energizes me and so my time in Florida is alway a wonderful time to be inspired.

To help that process I enrolled in an on-line class called "Creative Strength Training" led by Jane Dunnewold and her daughter, Zenna. This course is jam packed full of ideas, processes, fun, and serious contemplation. I am enjoying it to the "nth" degree! Since I've been going through serious re-evaluation of where my work is going, this is exactly what I need. Questions like, do I want to continue doing shows, do I want to continue making production items to sell, what will give me satisfaction in the work I do, how will I continue creating with physical ailments increasing, and most of all am I having fun and enjoying what I do, have been an on-going conversation with myself for a couple of years.

 So as that process continues, I am discovering some things.

1. My work needs to change. I work at a slower pace and am excited about creating new work that challenges me.

2. Learning and playing with new techniques is energizing.

3. Production work is not satisfying any more. It was a good run but it is time to move on.

4. I need to connect with artists of all mediums to explore and discuss new possibilities. The CST class has a wonderful Facebook Group with which to share insights, discoveries, and new learnings.

As I explore and move through this process I'd like to share some new work I'm developing. I've been working with this technique for about a year and I am enjoying the fact that it is an off loom technique. That has given my body some time to heal from all the years of weaving on a loom to produce for sales. It also gives me a sense of excitement to see how each piece turns out.

detail of 4" scarves

I started working with the technique by making silk scarves, both infinity and loose hanging. I just recently worked on a narrow version. I am selling these but they are limited in production. Each one, since the dye patterns are not duplicated, is truly one of a kind. As I explore I try to create new ways of weaving them.

4'' scarves

5" scarves

My CST on-line course is definitely an influence as I work on who I am as an artist and what I am meant to do and be. I have new ideas running around my head. Hopefully the ideas will emerge into something new, exciting, and wonderful. It's a challenge but, oh, am I having fun! Stay tuned!

The End and The Beginning

Happy Labor Day to all in the US who celebrate this day in honor of our work force. Hopefully you are getting a break from your labor. For me, having been a Jr High teacher, Labor Day always signified the end of summer and the beginning of the new school year. It was and still is a chance for new beginnings and fresh starts!

While I no longer teach, Labor Day is both an ending and a beginning for me. The days of summer with it's travel and fun give way to the more serious task of getting ready for fall shows. Oh drats!  I really have to work hard now to have inventory for my fall and holiday commitments to Galleries and Art Centers! So while you all are celebrating, I'm making lists, checking current inventory, and marking deadlines on my calendar. Deadlines are beginning to loom! (Pun intended)

So here's my ambitious schedule for the fall and holiday season:

Artistry 2016
November 3, 2016 - January 8, 2017
Guilford Art Center
Guilford, CT
www.guilfordartcenter.org

Weavers' Guild of Boston Exhibit and Sale
November 3 - 6, 2016
Josiah Smith Barn
Weston, MA
www.weaversguildofboston.org

Artists' Market
November 11 - December 3, 2016
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
Lincoln, MA
www.decordova.org

Handmade Holiday 7
November 26 - December 23, 2016
Some Things Looming
Reading, PA
www.somethingslooming.com
(work will also be in the boutique starting the end of September)

Along with these shows, I will continue to have work in the Elizabeth Stevens Gallery, Towles Court  in Sarasota Fl.

For those of you who are local, there is a possibility I may have a Studio Open House sometime in November. Stay tuned for info on that. If you want to make sure you know when the Pop Up Open House may happen, please sign up for my e-mail newsletter at http://bit.ly/1uMQqyr. I promise not to flood your inbox. I only send out a newsletter occasionally to let you know what is happening at Judy Connor Jones (no more than once a month and more likely only 3 or 4 times a year).

I leave you with a preview of my newest work.  Selected galleries will be carrying the newer work. All others will have a selection of my other work which is shown on my website, www.JudyConnorJones.com.

Where in the World is Judy Connor Jones?

If you have been following my Facebook business page, www.facebook.com/JCJonesFiberArt, you know that sometimes I post a little game called "Where in the World" is Judy Connor Jones. I recently was on a 3 week trip to Scandinavia and challenged readers to figure out where I was. Here are the answers. See if you figured them out......................

August 2
Modern building across the street from Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, Denmark. The old columns by the gate to Tivoli are mimicked in the design of the new building. This city is rich with design inspiration.

 

August 3
Illum Exclusive Department Store, Copenhagen, Denmark. Well planned design happens here too!

August 4

Lunch at the cafe at the Design Museum Danmark, Copenhagen, Denmark. Even the food is presented with design in mind.   poached egg on avocado, lettuce and brown bread

August 6

Hanging lamps at the Hilton Strand Hotel in Helsinki, Finland. What a grand statement these made!

August 7

City walk around Helsinki, Finland. Birch trees are everywhere!

August 9

"Course of Time" Sculpture, Oulu City Hall, Oulu, Finland. These sculptures are about 18" high and represent every type of person who has lived in Oulu from King Charles IX to pastor, wife, merchant, farmer, craftsman, beggar, society lady, shopkeeper, female doctor, student, and many more to Martti, Child of the Future. There are 32 figures in all. 

August 10

Birches in the small parks in the city of Oulu, Finland. I LOVE the birches!

 







August 12
Train station to the airport in Helsinki, Finland. Textiles painted on the walls depict lace, satin, and  pattern designs.

August 13

Wall print of a Swedish Weaving Technique called Dukagang in the Sheraton Hotel, Stockholm, Sweden. I tried to find a shop where they might sell some textiles with this handwoven technique but was unsuccessful. Very little hand weaving to be found. Sad since this is part of Sweden's rich heritage. 

August 14

Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. This was fascinating and a little dizzying! But oh so interesting!!! Dots everywhere! 

August 15

Back in my studio in Plymouth, MA after having a wonderful time traveling around Scandinavia. So much more I didn't show in my brief posts Around the World. I'll leave those for another blog post.

Hope you enjoyed playing "Where in the World" is Judy Connor Jones. Be on the look out.  You never know where she will turn up! Make sure you Like 👍🏼my Facebook business page, www.facebook.com/JCJonesFiberArt so you won't miss a minute of the next adventure.

"There's No Business like Show Business"!

Getting ready to do a show this weekend in Wilmington, DE. As a Master Artisan in the PA Guild of Craftsmen, I will be exhibiting my work at the PA Guild Fine Craft Show at the Chase Center on the Riverfront in Wilmington Delaware.  This is a beautiful air conditioned facility with plenty of parking  and plenty of artists!

Come see me at booth, #316, on July 25 & 26.  Hours are Saturday, 10 - 6 and Sunday, 10 - 5. You can get directions and admission coupons for $1.00 off at the guild's website, www.PACrafts.org.

Hope to see you there........................................Remember, fall is just around the corner! I can help with those cool breezes that begin to blow!

              Jessica says Hi and is wearing my Ripple Scarves which are made of silk and wool.

Mad River Valley Craft Fair

It's been over a year since I've done a craft fair.  I've had to deal with repetitive motion pain issues for the last two years.  I finally had to cut back on my work and then learn how to redirect the way I work and how I sell.  After physical therapy, a chiropractor, exercises, and being kind to my body I am able to return to the Mad River Valley Craft Fair this weekend.

This is one of my favorite places to go for a show.  The valley is always beautiful, no matter what the weather. Although I'm hoping for gorgeous days! The show is a fund raiser for the Valley Theater Players of Waitsfield.  It has a down home kind of feel, a throw back to the early days of craft shows. The quality of work is very good with many accomplished artists.

So if you are traveling in VT this weekend, stop by and visit the show.  I know you'll have a good time.  Visit me at booth T. See what new items I have, spice up your wardrobe for fall and winter, and get an early start on holiday shopping.  I promise you won't be disappointed.

See you at the Fair! I'll be outside enjoying the VT air!

A Different Vision

For the last 8 months I've had the pleasure of working on an exhibit called "A Different Vision".  It is sponsored by the Plymouth Art Guild in Plymouth, MA, www.plymouthguild.org. The guild sponsored this exhibit in 2010 and then decided to do it again in 2013. A Different Vision is a tactile, innovative, and exciting art exhibit where the blind and the visually impaired as well as the sighted can enjoy the art.  Everything is touchable. Really, it's all touchable!  No please do not touch the art signs here, only Please Touch!

So my job was to help publicize this event by starting A Different Vision Face Book page.  You can find it at www.facebook.com/ADifferentVision.  It's been fun to connect with a whole new group of people on the page.  As administrator I am trying to get the word out to people who might not have heard of this event, artists and folks who would enjoy the show.  My goal is to have 100 Likes on the page by the opening which is May 11 at 7pm.  So stop by the page and give us a "Thumbs Up".

As an artist I was challenged by this exhibit to make something in my medium.  My normal wearables, while they feel very soft to the touch, were not going to be the thing that got them accepted into the show.  So I looked at the yarn on my shelves, put my weaver's thinking cap on, and decided to do something totally different than what I normally do. I knew I was going to create a scarf but it had to have a lot of texture and something special about it that a visually impaired person could see with their hands.

Yarns used to sample

I remembered taking a workshop one year at Convergence (Handweavers' Guild of America's biennial conference) on Shibori.  Normally Shibori is used as a resist dying technique.  But this workshop used it as a resist technique for texturizing cloth!  (find out more about Shibori at http://shibori.org) So when I was thinking about ways to texturize my woven piece for the exhibit, I thought about creating bubbles in handwoven wool cloth by using the Shibori technique. Wool shrinks and fulls (felts) so the resist would cause the bubbles to form. Then my mind took it one step further.  What if I made the bubbles spell out the colors of the scarf in Braille!  Oh sometimes the creative mind gets us into all kinds of trouble!  After trying several methods (round marbles, flat marbles, thread) for creating the bubbles, I settled on a method which used very tight elasticized bands. This proved to be the best tool to use. 

After much sampling (several 1 yard samplers) I realized that making the bubbles spell out the Braille words was just not going to work effectively in a scarf.  It was hard to scrunch up the fabric in the correct line that it needed to be in order to be read. Each time I applied the band to one area it threw the cloth out of line and I couldn't see if the next bubble was going to be in the right place. So scratch that!  Back to the drawing board.  I thought I had a good idea using the Braille but how was I going to make it happen?

Ah Ha! BEADS! Oh those wonderful glorious beads that come in all sorts of colors! That would do it.  So I wove beads into the scarf at the beginning and end to spell out the main color of the scarf.  It worked beautifully.  I was able to line the beads up in the correct place for each letter. One scarf was Blue and the other was Purple.  I decided to put the Shibori bubbles throughout the scarf which gave it a funky very textural feel.

Drawing up a pattern guide for placement of the beads. This spells purple.

Weaving the beads in place.

I added beads to the fringe and twisted the ends together to form a loop scarf.

I have to say creating these scarves took me out of my "box" and comfort zone but I love the chunky, funky look of these scarves!  

"Bubble Wrap" - blue

If you live near Plymouth, make sure you stop by the Plymouth Center for the Arts and visit the show.  Let me know what you think of my "Bubble Wrap" Scarves. 

"Bubble Wrap" - purple

Gallery Exhibit - Cranberry Country Weavers

Yesterday I spent the day helping to hang an exhibit of weaving done by the Cranberry Country Weaver's Guild members. The exhibit is at the West Bridgewater Library in West Bridgewater, MA where our guild meets once a month. www.cranberrycountryweavers.com.

It was a great collaborative effort to arrange and display the work so that no matter what the level of weaving each piece was presented with it's own special attention to detail and given it's own space.  This is the first time the CCW Guild has put on an exhibit. It was not juried which is a great tribute to how this guild works.  Everyone is treated equally and all weaving is appreciated. It's one of the things that makes this guild so special to me.  We are there to help and learn from each other and have fun along the way.

So here are some pictures of the exhibit. Of course if you live near W.Bridgewater, Ma I encourage you to go see this exhibit.  The work is great!

          Enjoy the exhibit!