Special Event City Part 2

Continued from Special Event City Part 1...

The second special event came about because of an organization I recently joined: Austin Songwriters Group, which celebrated its 25th anniversary  on April  6, in conjunction with the 7th annual Merle Haggard Birthday Party. ASG's executive director mentioned the need for donations of items for the silent auction so I volunteered some of my fiber art. My original thought was to simply raid my inventory, but then it occurred to me that here was a chance to custom-design something specifically for this organization and event, something with a musical tie-in.

I set myself the task of using my own photographs as fabric transfers, which meant searching through all my digital photo files for just the right ones. I ended up with two images that sparked ideas (see photos, below), but I couldn't really envision combining them. So that meant creating two pieces. I only found out about the silent auction on a  Saturday and I needed to hand the pieces over by the following Tuesday, so I was boxing myself in with regard to time--but what else is new?

Here are the photos I selected:

Musical Instruments photo by Nita Lou Bryant

Open Door photo by Nita Lou Bryant

I began with the "Open Door" photo. The first thing I made was a wall hanging with a fabric transfer of this image appliqued onto a piece of green and blue and yellow floral upholstery fabric. I liked it, but it wasn't in any way...musical. So I turned my attention to the photo of the musical instruments. I loved the way the light shone on the curve of the guitar, so I cropped the picture (see photo 1, below), made a fabric transfer of it, and began the process of combining machine quilting and applique to build up a few layers on an upholstery-fabric background. (I do so love to take sewing three-dimensional.) I decided to call the piece "Let Your Light Shine" (see photos 2 and 3 below).

Photo 1
Cropped photo of guitar by Nita Lou Bryant

Photo 2 (front)

"Let Your Light Shine"                  Photo and fiber art wall hanging by Nita Lou Bryant

Photo 3 (back)
"Let Your LIght Shine"
 Photo and fiber art wall hanging by Nita Lou Bryant

When I came back to the "Open Door" piece, I started by thinking about the kind of song the photo suggested and I came up with what I can imagine as the first line of a first verse:

Write a song to walk me through an open doorway

That was all it took to get me re-started. Using a fabric marker, I wrote those words on the velvet-ribbon portions of some sheer curtain material I bought in Santa Barbara, sewed them onto woven strips of  Guatemalan fabric I bought in San Antonio, and in that way formed a kind of frame around the fabric tranfser image (see photos 1-3, below).

Photo 1 "Write a Song"
by Nita Lou Bryant

Photo 2 "...to walk me through..."
by Nita Lou Bryant

Photo 3 "...an open doorway"
by Nita Lou Bryant

The rest was just a matter of sewing the fabric-framed image onto a solid blue backing sheet, machine-embroidering the bejabbers out it, then attaching the whole thing to a wooden canvas stretcher frame using a staple gun (see photos 4 and 5, below).

"Write a song to walk me through an open doorway"
(front)
fiber art wall hanging
by
Nita Lou Bryant

Photo 5 (back)

And here's how it looks from the back, which is a rather anti-climactic way to end this post--so I won't!

I will go on to tell you that my biggest fear was that neither of these donated pieces would receive a single scribbly bid in the silent auction to benefit the Austin Songwriters' Group and in order to save face (as well as come through with some cash for the ASG) I'd end up having to buy them myself!  Fortunately that didn't happen. Both pieces sold: one to someone I know  (and I so love her for buying it) and the other to someone I don't know. Both buyers got a bargain--after seeing the prices on the fiber art pieces displayed at the Wesley Gallery the other evening (aha!  see how I've cleverly brought us back full circle to Part 1 of this post?) I realize that I could have set a much higher starting bid on these silent-auction items. 

Good to know for next year...

Happy sewing and singing and songwriting and

doing whatever else brings your heart joy.

Special Event City Part 1

My, my, my. It's been Special Event City around here lately.


First, an opportunity to display some of my fiber art at a gallery, then a chance  to create a couple of pieces to donate to the silent auction being held as part of a fund-raiser.

The gallery show is the very first such thing in which I've participated.  My first time out, I figured it was best to submit pieces that could be hung rather than those requiring some other method of display, so I borrowed two of my wall hangings from private collections to submit to the show. Private collections  has such a nice ring, does it not?  By private collections I mean, of course, the homes of friends to whom I'd given these pieces. But I like to imagine that they're merely the first installments of what will become full-fledged collections of Nita Lou Bryant's art.


Below are photos of the pieces that are on display at the Wesley Gallery in Dripping Springs, Texas  from April 14 to 21. If you're in the area, please stop in.

"Keith Lovin Rages with Trout"

photograph and fiber art by Nita Lou Bryant

"Stronger Every Day (Believe It"

photograph and fiber art by Nita Lou Bryant

Well. I'd intended to go on and tell you about the other special event but I'm suddenly being called away by my resident tax preparer  in order to help locate some crucial forms required for him to complete a little project he's working on that has an April 17th deadline. Thus does Art yield to Government.

To be continued inPart 2