Meet this years team

From Judith DeMilo Brown's blog post November 1, 2010

"And Then We Set It On Fire"

I think that will be the name of a new blog dedicated to mastering different surface design techniques. That is the motto that Rosalita and Beth have for their play dates.  In other words, anything goes in their experiments for surface design.  First they dye, overdye, paint, stitch, glue resist, paint again, flour resist, dye again, silk screen, stamp, thermafax, bejewel, stretch, shrink, sprinkle, Smooch, and fuse, then they set it on fire using a variety of heat tools.  Magnificent!-

And now.....

First it was all about quilting and then dyeing and then I started making books and zentangling and drawing. Now I have given up on limiting myself and this is all about my creative journey....

                                      Judith DeMilo Brown

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Kelly Hendrickson

As with most artists, I'm often asked what inspires me. The list is long and ever evolving. The beauty of nature, the turn of a phrase, my family, titles of poems or books, music - just to name a few.  But n all of these inspirations, it is the story that calls to me. And it is the story I want to re-tell in my art. The story is sometimes in the subject matter and at other times the story is in using the actual articles themselves in my art. My desire is to bring honor of place and belonging back to them. While I might not know their actual story, I do feel there is a story they can help tell. One story can be very individual and another be more of a general story of a place or group of persons. 
As I work on a piece, I become absorbed in the story. Often the story takes directions I did not notice at the beginning and the whole process is one of discovery and exploration. In the end, the finished work is layers of the story revealing different aspects to the individual viewer. I prefer to leave the story rather open-ended so the viewer can resonate with the part of the story most clearly revealed to them. Shakespeare said, "the play's the thing". For me, it is the story. As you see my art, I hope you will engage with the story. Perhaps you will find bits of your own story in the process.

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Diane Franklin

I am a fiber artist and dyer living in Boston and working out of a studio in an historic chocolate factory. Using fabrics that I dye or print myself, I make large wall pieces that I show in group and solo exhibitions throughout the U.S.

I have worked with fiber in some form for as long as I can remember. Since my retirement from another more left-brained career, I have been happily experimenting with fabrics and papers that I dye or print myself. For awhile, I was focusing on shibori dyeing techniques and making art quilts from the fabric I dyed. In the past couple of years, I've branched out and begun to experiment with other surface design techniques including snow dyeing, printing, painting on fabric and paper, silk screening, and the incorporation of photographic imagery. In the past year, I tried rust dyeing, a technique that I like a lot except for the possible health concerns associated with it. I have also been experimenting with adding dimensionality and texture to my work. 

In 2014, I published Dyeing Alchemy, an e-book primer and workbook that focuses exclusively on Procion MX dyeing and does all the dyeing math associated with dyeing by weight. 

I will be doing 3 guest posts on the FIRE blog in 2016, on dyeing by weight vs. volume, and in November I will be posting all month about shibori dyeing using either snow dyeing or rust dyeing techniques, or maybe both.

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Diane, the yarn goddess

a weaver, a mother, a sister, a wife,
trying to live a well balanced life.
a grandma, an artist, a collector of frogs,
someone like you reading too many blogs.

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My name is Laura McGrath and I live in the Hudson Valley region of New York State, about 70 miles north of New York City.  My favorite thing to do with fabric is to dye it, with arashi shibori and snow/ice dyeing being my current obsessions. I've been dyeing, painting, printing, and stitching for about 8 years now, and have tried just about every technique there is.  I used to be a resident artist here for a few years, but it's really hard to do those month-long posts, so I'll just be doing some short ones in July.

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I'm Angie Knowles, an aspiring textile artist and make. I focus primarily on creating fabric using a variety of surface design techniques. I am more interested in the how and why than the actual making of a finished product. Guess you could say the fabric is my finished project. I love exploring a process,
twisting it, and turning it inside out to see where it takes me.
For October I will share my explorations of Natural Dyeing with Rust.

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I am Helen Howes. I live in the Far East of England, and I have always sewn for a living. I have been a kite-maker, quilter, dressmaker and tailor, soft-furnisher, and bookbinder amongst other things. If you can stick a needle in it, I do. I also love and repair Old Sewing Machines. My work is much involved with Trees, and I am basically a piecer - I like to cut it up and sew it back together and I love texture.

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Cris Winters – Art at the Pink House, Saranac Lake, NY

I love to make art from that place where known skills and unpredictable processes come together on fabric (and sometime paper). Eco printing, deconstructed screen printing, monoprinting, collage, free motion stitching, and hand embroidery are among my favorite techniques. My time is spread between running my art gallery, teaching classes in my studio, and exploring through my own artwork.

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 Wil Opio Oguta

My name is Wil Opio Oguta and I live in the Netherlands. I make art quilts and get my inspiration from a lot of different sources. This can be nature, a word, a color, as you see a variety of sources :-). For most of my art quilts I use my own hand dyed fabrics, but other material can be there as well. In 2016 I am hosting the month of May and will focus on stamps and stamping. 

 I have attached a photo of a quilt I made in November inspired by the orange gates Christo created in New York. In honor of this inspiration I called  it Christo's Gates.

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Beth Berman

“From the minute we are born until the day we die, we are wrapped in fabric. We have an intimate relationship with fiber. It is our comfort, our protection and in it we present ourselves to the world"

I was always interested in art but was discouraged from pursuing it as a major in college because my parents told me, “You can’t support yourself with art”. I minored in art and learned how to use many media for self-expression like pottery, acrylics, pen and ink, jewelry making, photography, watercolors, and sculpture.

I sewed clothing throughout my life and in the 80’s my friend told me she had made a quilt in a day. I bought the book and started making traditional quilts. In 2005, I took two classes at my state’s guild conference from Pamela Allen and experienced an artistic epiphany. I have been an avid art quilter and surface designer since then.

What drives me creatively is color and texture. I love fibers for their textural sense: soft, coarse, thick, and open weaved. I love colors for the way they elicit such strong feelings in me and I find the excitement of unexpected outcomes, the serendipity of creation, in surface design. I get inspiration from the coast of Maine and daily contact with the world around me. I enjoy “making” art and teaching classes in surface design. I have been in the New England Quilt Museum, juried and regional shows and have pieces in private collections. I live in Searsport, Maine.