Fiber in Process

California Fibers’ artists never stop working…here’s an update from our January post:

Peggy Wiedemann is taking apart an old Japanese ledger book and weaving with the paper in the book. She says she’s never done this before and it is challenging!

Peggy also finished a piece in early February.

She’s considering calling it Disguise.

Polly Jacobs Giacchina started working on a piece in January; in this first picture, she was finishing up some knotless netted wire on rocks, for the base of a date-palm twined sculpture.

She finished it this last week.

Marilyn Chaffee is underway on her 2025 New Years Resolution to revisit her archives and improve labeling, photography, and her storage system.

Storing work is complicated no matter what kind of art you make.

Rebecca Smith has been taking an online course through Maiwa on natural dyeing. She plans to incorporate naturally dyed material into a series of weavings she has been working on, tentatively titled “The Generosity of Nature”. She chose this fragile structure to represent the increasing fragility of nature.

Carol Nilsen has been experimenting with sheers, expressing flow of moments through time.

Annette Heully recently finished a one-month residency at Taft Gardens and Nature Preserve in Ojai.

She played with eco printing and dying as well as making thread sculptures.

Everything in these photos is very much in process. There will be a show April 26th!

Michael Rohde has been setting up a new studio, after moving. In February, he had warped the loom and dyed some yarns with indigo and with cochineal. In these photos, the first sampling was underway.

Aneesa Shami has been volunteering at the Able ARTS Work center in Long Beach, a nonprofit organization that offers creative arts services and opportunities to individuals with developmental disabilities who are interested in inclusive art exploration. She has been collaborating on a couple of projects with their resident artists. The photos shows Nancy and Aneesa working on a rug weaving together, experimenting with wire for the warp.

Marty Ornish keeps receiving worn-out Grandmother’s Fan quilts, donated for repurposing, and she feels compelled to find a way to use them. Lately, she’s been experimenting with incorporating horsehair—collected by a friend who raises miniature Belgian ponies—into soft sculptures made from deconstructed Grandmother’s Fan quilts.

She began by shaping the quilt’s fan patterns into cones, covering the worst damage with tulle or mending them by hand-stitching. After combining two of the cones, she realized they needed something more. Adding horsehair to these three-dimensional forms transformed them, so she started stitching in one or two strands at a time, carefully tying each one off to prevent it from slipping out.

Through this process, she discovered that while some horsehair is brittle, much of it is strong and strangely wiry. She’s drawn to the unusual textures emerging from these pieces and plans to assemble them into a mobile—an evolving collection of these labor-intensive, intricate forms.

Kathy Nida finished one art quilt and started another, but in between, she hand embroidered some text for an upcoming show about banned books, while on a Spring Break road trip.

Keep your eyes open for the next batch of what our artists are doing out there in the wild.

Artists at Work...

Yes, we just opened a brand new exhibit in November at Citrus College (go see it if you haven’t), but we are also continuing to work on new pieces. Here are some of California Fibers’ artists with what’s currently in progress.

Debby Weiss has started working on small quilts in order to donate to families that lost everything in the Los Angeles fires. She started recently but hopefully can get herself on a roll to be able to at least get a few out there.

Elise Vazelakis is currently working on a series that rethinks what we throw away. She transforms Amazon packaging into plastic yarn and twines it into sculptural baskets, combining traditional techniques with modern materials. These pieces highlight the environmental impact of disposable culture and the possibilities for transformation and sustainability.

Gail Fraser has always loved twining; however, her work was always small. She is now playing with and creating larger works by adding shapes to each other.  It is exciting to see what comes out of larger pieces of works and to play with these ideas.

Cameron Taylor-Brown has two different projects in the works: First the weaving: She is continuing to create pieces for herseries Threads of Time: Lyon Weavers’ Staircase. This series is inspired by a former jacquard weaving live/work space in an old neighborhood of Lyon, France that was a center of silk weaving in times past. Here is a link to pieces completed thus far: https://www.camerontaylor-brown.com/portfolio/new-collection

And more background info here: https://www.camerontaylor-brown.com/journal/weavers-staircase-lyon-france

Taylor-Brown’s second project is a conference: Hosted by UCLA's Department of Design Media Arts, Thinking Through Textiles: Future Pedagogies will explore the intersections of aesthetics, textile technique, cross-disciplinary studies, and new material insights, while introducing opportunities for collaborative engagement. This half day conference will be held at UCLA on Friday, February 21.  Taylor-Brown is one of the conference organizers and will be moderating a panel discussion. Details are available here: https://materialencounters.art/thinking-through-textiles-symposium

Peggy Wiedemann is working on a wall piece called Think Outside the Box. It includes multiple materials like paper rush, rag cordage from India, Irish waxed linen, metals, bamboo, Pakistani grass, and found objects. She is using the basketry techniques of coiling, knotless netting, and weaving.

Carrie Burckle is currently twining a life-size abstract figurative form using a paper cord commonly found in  Danish seating. Here is her work in progress.

Kathy Nida is working on her next big piece…hopefully to be fully ironed together in the next few days.

Stay tuned for more artist updates.

Over Under Over: Work from California Fibers

Citrus College Art Gallery in Glendora, CA, presents Over Under Over: Work from California Fibers from November 5, 2024 – March 5, 2025. The opening reception will be Wednesday, November 20, from 11 AM-1 PM.

Brecia Kralovic-Logan, Lunar Lullaby

Lunar Lullaby is a collage of hand dyed silk fabric pieces that evoke the play of sunlight on water. While manipulating the fabrics in the dyeing process, I am creating areas of graduated depth of color to layer onto the canvas in undulating waves. The fabric creates texture on the canvas and a sense of movement that draws the viewer into a memory of moonlit nights at the shore.

Over Under Over features the work of twenty-two members of California Fibers, including Sandy Abrams, Charlotte Bird, Ashley V. Blalock, Carrie Burckle, Marilyn McKenzie Chaffee, Doshi, Polly Jacobs Giacchina, Susan Henry, Lydia Tjioe Hall, Annette Heully, Brittany Kiertzner, Brecia Kralovic-Logan, Kathy Nida, Carol Nilsen, Liz Oliver, Marty Ornish, Michael F. Rohde, Rebecca Smith, Cameron Taylor-Brown, Elise Vazelakis, Debby Weiss and Peggy Wiedemann.

Peggy Wiedemann, Exploring Too

As a contemporary fiber artist, I have a strong preference for natural fibers and materials. Their shapes, designs and colors inspire the artwork. The wonderful thing about using organic materials, such as pine needles, Irish waxed linen thread and cordage is that they have a life and character of their own. I sometimes like to combine these naturally-derived elements with found objects.

I start with pine needles using the basketry technique of coiling. The stitching over and under the pine needles forms the shape of the pieces. The play among mind and materials continually stimulates the creative process and leads my work in new directions. Using traditional materials in sometimes unorthodox ways, I want to create designs, shapes and styles that stretch the imagination and react with the senses.

Over Under Over explores the wide variety of materials that California Fibers’ members use, especially regarding their expert manipulation of mixed media. Juried by the Citrus College Visual Arts faculty and curated by Dyane Duffy, the works on view were selected in relation to their current visual arts curriculum, aiming to inspire students and present diverse methods of creation.

Lydia Tjioe Hall, House With Window

I create meaning and narrative through form using wire. By exploring resonances between a single line and densely packed wire, my pieces become metaphors evoking themes of time, change, balance, tension, and fragility. These sculptural objects are created through repetitive and time intensive processes such as weaving, netting, and looping. In my house series I am currently exploring the theme of ‘liminal space’. I am interested in the ‘space between’- how stacked layers of woven wire are denser, therefore allow less light to passthrough versus a single woven layer. Juxtaposing layers of different densities gives the houses an unexpected ethereal lightness.

“We chose work that we think can connect with some concepts or use of materials in our classes – for example, the use of photography, the use of wire that students manipulate in 3D design, and the use of thread as a line drawn on fabric. By making these connections to some aspect of the students’ current work, we hope this exhibit will take them to a new place, where they can consider pushing their use of media somewhere new!”

Brittany Kiertzner, Eniohrhen:ne/ Tomorrow.

I am a mixed media and textile fine artist from Southern California and a member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe. With a fine art background from California State University Fullerton, I incorporate traditional Mohawk Iroquois techniques and works with repurposed materials, wire, textiles, and paint. My intricate stitching forms tangent lines and wampum circles, exploring themes of regeneration, authenticity, and subversion while reframing my personal history. This exhibition showcases my innovative work alongside other California Fibers members, highlighting diverse approaches to mixed media artistry.

The Citrus College Art Gallery is located in VA120 in the Visual Arts Building at 1000 W Foothill Blvd, Glendora, CA. Gallery hours are usually M-F 9 AM-2 PM, but are subject to change, so please email artgallery@citruscollege.edu to confirm prior to visiting. Admission is free. A paid parking pass is required to park in student lots. Events are being planned that could include an artists’ panel and a mending workshop. Check their website and subscribe to their newsletter for details.

Liz Oliver, Secret Garden

When you break it down, the very act of doing shibori is Over and Under. Wrapping string around a pipe, going over and under, creates these undulations that mimic universal patterns in nature.

Everything I do is based on intuition. There are innumerable opportunities for experimentation, as the results within this medium are quite often unpredictable, or fluid. Much of my sculptural work utilizes the Arashi Shibori technique, otherwise know as “pole wrapping”. Because these pieces are bound on the bias, I am able to create sculpture that is inherently twisting. There is an organic fluidity that is also inherent within me. The resolution of a piece typically requires multiple attempts until the form visually sings. I aim to focus less on creating a recognizable shibori pattern, but to have more intention and abstraction. I do not strive for perfection, I prefer what is authentic.

Pleats can be seen as a visual representation of fluidity: a ripple, a wave, a fingerprint, woodgrain, windblown sand. Life is fluid, and we all have our ups and downs. A woven beauty of hopes, loves, losses, dreams, realities, visions, past, present and future.

The Citrus College Art Gallery is part of the Visual and Performing Arts program at Citrus College. The gallery’s mission is to engage students and community through diverse exhibitions featuring student, faculty, and visiting art exhibitions.

Michael F. Rohde, re:Lament

Recent works have taken photographs as the primary image sources. The photos are reduced to a set of large pixels that are then woven by hand. This produces an image that can hardly be considered a realistic portrayal of the original, but that hints at shapes and reflects colors of the original image. The piece in this exhibition, “re: Lament”, came out of a collaborative exhibition at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, CA, with ceramic sculptor Cheryl Ann Thomas. This tapestry is a response to her porcelain sculpture “Lament.”

Watch this space for announcements of workshops and/or artist panels coming up in the next few months.

Charlotte Bird, Gyre

The Great Pacific Gyre garbage patch is estimated to cover 620,000 square miles. It consists primarily of thousands of tons of mixed plastic debris ranging from plastic bags and water bottles to fragments of micro plastics.

I constructed this artist book from a quilt about the Pacific gyre. The quilt never resolved and rested in a drawer until this solution emerged. The materials used are melted plastic bags, recycled plastic and fabric bits, fly fishing leader, and commercial cotton.

Repair, reuse, recycle

Introducing Brittany Kiertzner, New Member

California Fibers would like to introduce our new member, Brittany Kiertzner, a mixed media and textile fine artist from Southern California. Kiertzner is an enrolled member of the St Regis Mohawk Tribe and studied fine art at California State University Fullerton. Kiertzner explores critical materials that reframe her personal history into a contemporary context. Through a dynamic interplay of woven and stitched threads, her work is influenced by traditional Mohawk Iroquois splint basket making, embroidery, and raised beadwork.

She investigates themes of regeneration, authenticity, and subversion of materials through synthesizing the past. Kiertzner has shown her mixed media and textile-based work extensively in solo and juried exhibitions in California since 2007. Her work is in the permanent collection at Sasse Museum of Art. She manages her studio in Claremont, California.

I Am Alive Konhnhe

Brittany Kiertzner’s work makes connections within loss and insecurity. It unravels the intrinsic vulnerability encapsulated within the dichotomy of life and death, particularly focusing on the subsequent generations of Indigenous women. The narrative navigates through the artist's endeavor to embody the inevitable social pressures that catalyze disintegration and impermanence.

They Give Us Life Kiohehkwen

In her body of work, the color red emerges as a potent symbol, signifying the prevailing silence and indifference that shrouds Indigenous women. A significant number of these women find themselves either missing or succumbing to violence. Kiertzner manifests abstract figurative depictions within her sculptural works. These bodies serve as both a commemoration of those who have been lost, capturing the essence of their absence, while also portraying the resilience of those who persist, navigating dysphoric conditions.

Hide Yourself Satahseht

Panels on display at Sasse Museum of Art

You can see her work at her website or on Instagram. Keep an eye out for Kiertzner’s work in future California Fibers’ shows.