Grandma's Butterflies
Today I want to take you through how I conceived the idea behind my award-winning piece Grandma’s Butterflies. To my shock on opening night, it won Best Felt Item at The Golden Web Show hosted by the Weaver’s Guild of Buffalo. It was a piece that started with the idea that my grandmother, a master fiber artist, would be able to see it at the show. The show was being held on the same campus as her nursing home. But, tragically, she passed away a few months before the show opened so I turned the piece into a tribute to her. On opening night, to my surprise, I had already won the novice award for my Brown Marble Bag (post on that piece coming in a few weeks). My mother had to push me to go up and get the award for Grandma’s Butterflies because, in disbelief, I miss heard my name.
Exhibit guest viewing Grandma’s Butterflies at The Golden Web Show
How could I have started felting just two years before this show and walked away with two awards?!?! They say an artist is the harshest critic of their own work. When I look at my pieces, I can only see the parts that turned out differently than the picture in my head, transforming the way I see myself in the work. I needed others to find the beauty and recognize my skill to give me the push to further pursue this talent. I thank my mother for giving me the shove to enter these pieces. She saw something in me, and it wasn’t just “mom eyes.” I had been telling myself that mom always loves whatever art project you bring home. But this time it truly was something more. Let’s dive into the piece!
Sample Options 1: Double Butterfly
Sample Options 2: Two Single Butterflies
For my online class on Surface Design with Fiona Duthie, a fiber artist from British Columbia, I needed to have a final project. As I wrote last week, my final project for that class was a wall hanging that consisted of four squares. Each square had a trio of butterflies that were formed through different surface designs. I am going to go through each square in the next four posts. Each square incorporates many different surface design techniques and alterations that forms a beautifully complex part of a larger piece. Each of them individually was challenging, stressful, exhausting, but also extremely fun and a great creative outlet. I was in the middle of an election year here in Washington, DC and working in the evenings and weekends to meet the deadline for the show. But it was also liberating to have an outlet for the artistic side of my brain. It was an exhausting but exciting time to say the least. But thankfully last year’s elections turned out better than the previous cycle and I made some award-winning pieces!
The Inspiration
My grandmother’s Moorman technique wall hanging was her own exploration of a woven technique used to form a butterfly wing. Her wall hanging has a black background with white, pink, purple, and two shades of blue that form the wing. The blue and pink are contrasting colors causing the pink, a warm color, to pop when it is next to the blue cool color. What is truly remarkable about the piece is how the Moorman technique creates isolated shapes inlaid with the background creating a visual shape on top of its backdrop. She made the color pattern of a butterfly wing as the isolated shape inlaid into a black background. The wing itself is both the inlaid background and the isolated shapes that starkly stand out because of color and texture.
Grandma’s Woven Butterfly Wing using Moorman technique.
Taking this incredibly complex woven masterpiece as my inspiration caused challenges in and of itself in my design process. I really struggled with how to define my concept for this piece. I knew I wanted it to be centered around the shape of a butterfly, but it needed to highlight my development of surface design techniques. I am also a novice and in the middle of an election year, so I needed to not make it overly complicated so I could complete it in time for the show. As I pondered how to accomplish this mission I thought of Andy Warhol’s photo-silkscreens. He used a template of a photograph as the stencil for his silkscreen and then he would use different colors in his designs but always having the same photo in various pieces. Using that concept, I bought a butterfly stencil, one-inch grid paper and used that to lay out my design. You see the three butterflies are always in the same space on each square. That was my metaphorical photo-silkscreen. What varied with each square was the technique. Giving me a great way for the technique to stand out. I used the same fiber materials across all the pieces to form an additional linkage. My intent was that the technique to form the shape of a butterfly would be what stands out to the viewer.
Butterfly Grid Layout - displayed in my studio when I was creating the squares.
Design Fundamentals
Each square’s sizing is 12x12 inches when finished. Because wool shrinks, normally by 40 percent, I needed the starting size to be 20x20 inches. With a small felting studio, it was a challenge to work with that size. I will admit I hit my head on the chandelier above my felting/dining room table many times when working on these pieces. These squares are also nuno felted, having other fiber materials added that do not shrink, so the finished square may not shrink down as calculated because of the different materials. Each square started with a grey wool background that the butterflies would be formed on top of through different techniques. One problem I had was I ran out of the commercially mixed gray merino wool because I did so many squares. For the last square, I had to hand card black and white wool together with dog brushes. Don’t worry, they weren’t my dog’s brushes! This was frustrating because it was very time consuming but was faster than having it shipped to me.
I kept a similar color scheme to my grandmothers hanging but that did prove to be quite challenging. Getting wool, tussah silk, wool fingerling yarn, wool pencil rovings, silk gauze, dupioni and china silk from vendors around the world meant the colors would vary. Plus, I was only able to view them through a picture on my computer and most of you know that will not be the exact color. I would say the squares’ color scheme is in the same color family but not always the same. Not a problem for organic pieces made from what materials were available and it gives the finished piece a little character.
I am so incredibly proud of this piece. It has a special meaning to me, a sense of accomplishment, and is truly a unique piece. I’m so happy others saw its beauty and skill. Check back next week to take a deep dive with me on the first square and its unique characteristics.
Blue Cotton Butterflies
Using cutouts from blue cotton quilting squares, this square created the butterflies through the nuno quilting surface design. Glass gems were added under a layer of wool and cutout to add some adornment to the background. The butterflies and glass gems were encircled by wool pencil rovings to add contrast and define shape.
Darkened Butterflies
This square uses the surface design of nuno inclusion with black nylon gauze. The black mesh traps the inclusions - three pink dupioni silk butterfly cutouts, pink sequins, silver butterfly sequins, and silver seed beads. The black coloring of the mesh darkens and subdues the pinks and silver coloring throughout this piece.
Pink Silk Butterflies
Using nuno inclusion with pink china silk, this square created a unique textile. Three cutout butterflies from cotton batting were enclosed under pink china silk. Using an alteration technique of surface stitching with blue non superwash wool fingering weight yarn I embroidered French knots in the background for contrast.
Flapping their Wings
The technique for this square is prefelt-raised, giving the dramatic feel of butterflies flying out of the square. Using prefelts created from tussah silk on top of wool, six butterflies were cut out. To add pattern to the wings, surface stitching alterations were made with the same type of yarn as Pink Butterflies.
