I’ve stumbled across something I am rapidly growing to love; using fabrics as art. I’ve always loved painting with layers to add depth and visual texture, and now I am appreciating the vast amount of interest that a piece of fabric can bring. Obviously, I’ve explored using my trunk full of mismatched fabrics to sew something… a quilt maybe? Quilts are beautiful and useful but it wouldn’t show the raw beauty that already exists. Having plenty of “cut-off” jean shorts in my life, I knew that if I was to throw fabric in the washing machine without hemming the raw edge, it would fray. Great. So I tried it. I cut a bunch of my fabric in strips of all sizes and washed them. What came out was incredible. Everything tangled together and made this great mass of strings and thread. I wanted to just hang it on the wall from there, but decided to take it a couple steps further. I took a piece of pine (10″x30″x1″) and painted it black. Then wrapped the pieces of fabric around it until it created something more interesting. I uploaded the finished result under my portfolio page. Scroll down to “Fabric” and take a look. Next, I’m going to sew the pieces together first before wrapping them. I’m thinking this will create a more uniform look, without sacrificing the imperfect quality of the fabric. It’s all a mess and I love it.

Folk art is described as a wide range of objects that reflect the craft traditions and traditional social values of various social groups. Folk art is generally produced by people who have little or no academic artistic training, nor a desire to emulate “fine art”, and use established techniques and styles of a particular region or culture. Along with painting, sculpture, and other decorative art forms, some also consider utilitarian objects such as tools and costume as folk art.

Antique folk art is distinguished from traditional art in that while it is collected today based mostly on its artistic merit; it was never intended as a category to be art for art’s sake. Examples include: weathervanes, old store signs and carved figures, itinerant portraits, carousel horses, fire buckets, painted game boards, cast iron doorstops and many other similar lines of highly collectible “whimsical” antiques.

[Definition taken from www.wikipedia.org]

I guess as an amateur artist, I identify with folk art’s non-mainstream, non-mass produced nature (if that makes any sense at all). What you see is what you get. Imperfections and all. I’ve always loved the idea of creating something new from already existing materials… making the old new, making the useless useful, and the imperfect beautiful.

Oh my! The best split pea soup I’ve ever tasted. And super easy because you just through everything into a crock pot or slow cooker and leave.

Makes: Serves 8
Cooking Time: HIGH 5-6 hours or LOW 8-10 hours
Preparation Time: 30 minutes

What you need:
1 (16 oz.) package of dried green split peas, rinsed
1 meaty hambone, or 2 ham hocks, or 2 cups diced ham
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 ribs of celery plus leaves, chopped
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup of fresh parsley, chopped, or 2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
1 tbsp. seasoned salt (or to taste)
1/2 tsp. fresh pepper
1 1/2 qts. hot water

What to do:
Layer ingredients in slow cooker in the order given above. Pour in water. Do not stir ingredients. Cover and cook on HIGH 4-5 hours or on LOW 8-10 hours until peas are very soft and ham falls off the bone. Remove bones and bay leaf. Mach peas to thicken, if desired.

*Note: Great to freeze for later.

On Saturday, my husband, Steve and my sister-in-law, Shalina spent the morning in Martinez, California. Shalina takes awesome photos, so we went out there for a photo shoot. Our little Rosa dog came too. The pictures turned out amazing. Check out www.shalinalives.com to see more of Shalina’s work.