The Belle Glade Saga Continues

Dr. Gallon, President of Palm Beach State College asked me
to come back to the college for a short while.

 

  How exciting was that. 

Of course I said yes. 

That was in July.
I am back...........

Nothing like Wellington to enjoy the beautiful sky and great weather.

This is the Pahokee marina on the 500,000 acre Lake Okeechobee.

In almost every canal there lurks the great Florida alligator.
Some can get as big as 13 feet long and weigh over600 pounds. 
At night you can see shining eyes eerily looking at you from the side of the road.

 In the olden days everyone would come by boat  to this trading store. 

 These are beautiful art pieces that are outside the prison in Belle Glade.

 Another great mosaic made by the children in Belle Glade. 

Stay tuned for the visit to Lion County Safari.

I'm Back

I have been gone since July 15- December 19, 2012 on a special assignment with Palm Beach State College as their Interim Provost for the Belle Glade Campus. 

The View from my home in Wellington

The Sugar Shack

Sugar is king in Belle Glade.  They started harvesting the cane around the end of October. 

Subsidence Post

Belle Glade has a sign that says "Her Soil Is Her Fortune".
Her soil is disappearing at a rate of 1 inch per year.  When dirt is exposed to air it disappears.  One of the management practices is to cover the soil with water, hence the use of rice patties when the land is fallow.  Many homes have lost so much dirt that their foundation is exposed and it looks the home was built on tall concrete pilings.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Flags Mixed Media

After taking the Mark Making class and Be Free, Be Free Class
I have moved on to making flags. 

 These are garden flags that have been sewn and then painted.

May the sun shine upon you daily.

Be Present

FOCUS

 I was inspired by Tracy Verdugo's painting and her choice of colors. 

 She is also on facebook and is an amazing painter. 

NAMASTE

Merri made this great flag.  The spirit in me see the spirit in you!!!

Mark Making with Mixed Media

Bring out the paints, glue, brushes, stencils, spay bottles, markers and pens, OH MY!!.

 These are the surface design tools needed to make FAB art.  Instruction was fiven to be sure and collect inspirational pieces along the way as color and pattern is so important in the scheme of things.

I took a class from ruthie Miller from the Fabric Art Shop in Lake City, Florida in exploring surface design techniques.  She showed us how to transform  plain old fabric into quite funky designs. 

 Ruthie our teacher is scratching her head wondering just what do with us!!!!

She said we were her most creative students!!!  I am sure that is what she said.

Joyce wants to know who wants this stencil?

 Merri, my sister always has the best ideas and is creating up a storm.

Joyce still wants to know... who wants this stencil?

These are some of my pieces.
Do you just love the roach on the yellow fabric?  I did all these. 
The blue one is done with a bleach gel pen. 

Joyce finally gave up on the stencil and began to create using a credit card.

  That is all she talked about was how wonderful art was with a credit card. 

I thought shopping was wonderful with a credit card also.

These are my fabric pieces all lined up.  I plan to use them in a fabric journal.

 Merri finished her pieces.  See the little beetle bug stamped fabric.

Love the JUJU in the middle and guess who used the stencil.  Way to go Merri!!!

A week later we came and did a class on using the sewing machine to add embellishments to our already painted fabrics.  Free motion stitching.  Ruthie kept say be free, be free.


I felt so free I made  flags using all that I learned in her class.  Stay tuned for the unveiling of the flags.

Stamping on Rust Fabric

Ready to show off our Rit dyed rusted fabric. Each person in our group was to stamp their squares of fabric.  They could all be one design or they could do a variety of things.

Exchange of rusted /stamped squares happened at the May meeting.  Our next task is to create something from these pieces.  We will display all pieces as a group in some art/quilt show.

My Goatfeathers studio is set for the event.

As part of our Fiber Muse group in Lake City we are now stamping our fabric that was rust dyed.

Use Rit Dye and put it in a tin pan over top of a folded paper towel.  We later found that just painting your stamp with a foam brush was equally as effective if not better.

Full Instructions are available here.  How to Block Print Fabric (stamping)

Use stamps that have fairly large details. 

Rubber stamps, foam stamps and block wood stamps can be used.

Clean up is a breeze if you use hand sanitizer. 

 It cleans the stamps and gets all the dye off your hands.

Using material from nature makes wonderful stamps.  This is a bamboo leaf.

The fish on this was cut from very thin foam and scored with a pencil for the scale detail.

 Joyce liked using those computer parts.  Very Techie!!!

This was done with a plastic doily.

This work belongs to Joyce Ross.

Merri was creating an African look.

 

After awhile you could see that each person had their own style.  This is Merri McKenzie's art work.

Un-tail-it challenge

Recently I entered a quilting challenge sponsored by the Fabric Art Shoppe in Lake City, Florida.

This was my first piece that I ever entered in a contest.

The rules were to use the fabric that was given to you in at least 25 % of the project, must have batting and some type of quilting. It could not be larger than 18" x 24".

This was the fabric called cat tails that was to be used. I looked at this fabric and I could see alligator eyes, frog eyes but could not figure out how to execute such a grand design.

  I opted for the female figure that has the title Retail Theoay

Look I won a prize for the Most Original.  I was shocked.  My sister won also for Best Use of Color.

What a fun project.  I just love the corn.  That is my favorite.  If you could see it in person you would see that the fabric had been textured to resemble corn kernels.