Charlotte Bird joined California Fibers somewhere around 1989 or 1990. When I juried in, I was making one-of-a-kind women’s clothing and selling on the craft show circuit around the country. When I made Tightrope (below), I had finished writing the manuscript for a how-to book and was waiting for the editor's comments. I felt as if I was standing balanced on a tightrope waiting for the show to begin. This piece represents the transition from clothing to art work. The pieces are quilted, lined with hardware cloth to make them stiff, and mounted on curved plexiglass hangers that I bent in my oven. Air moving around the pieces causes them to bob and quiver like standing on a tightrope.
Tightrope: 1996, 6 fiber tile pieces, each mounted on curved plexiglass hangers. It was in the 1997 California Fibers "Boundaries" exhibit at Riverside Museum of Art.
California Fibers gave me the platform to change my work and get shown. It also gave me a circle of friends and colleagues for support and critique.
Microbes 19 Shelter In Place, 14" x 14", hand-dyed and commercial cotton, polyester thread, hand-dyed perle cotton thread; hand-cut and fused applique, machine stitched, machine quilted, hand embroidered with lots of french knots.
Bird has been working on a microbes series since 2017. Often the images in the "microscope's" eye are actual microbes. Several of the early pieces were inhabited by the plants and animals found in lake water from Toolik Lake, Alaska. After that, she started making up microbes, often using Ernst Haeckel's drawings as starting points. And then came Covid 19. Unfortunately, it is pretty. Since it has directed my life for over 6 weeks now, I thought it should be memorialized in the series.