Page 15 - the NOISE June 2013

Bat Dance at Hance by Robert Dalegowski took nearly 30 years in the
making, and is featured at the Artists’ Gallery this First Friday.
dyes and prints on many of the fabrics she uses.
“The jurying process was an enjoyable one,” Ms. Garrison says. “The staff at Co- conino Center for the Arts had organized the entries well. There were both strong representational and abstract approaches to design among the entries. The most inter- esting thing to me about the quilts entered and the ones I selected was the wide variety of surface design techniques represented.”
Ms. Garrison will be teaching a soy wax dye workshop Saturday, June 16, as a part of the exhibition. She tells me a little about the process, “Wax-resist dyeing has been used for thousands of years, but the use of soy wax is fairly recent. Unlike bees wax, soy wax can be washed out of fabric in hot water, making its use much more practical for the home dyer.
“Melted wax is applied with any metal object, with brushes, or with traditional wax application tools like Indonesian cop- per stamps or Indian wooden stamps. Then when the fabric is dyed, the waxed areas re- sist the dye, leaving the waxed images in the original fabric color. I usually repeat this pro- cess two or three times or combine it with screen printing, creating more complex im- agery. I have used many surface design tech- niques for my quilt fabrics — dyeing, screen printing, stamping, direct painting. Soy wax resist dyeing is my new favorite.”
On Friday, June 14, at 7PM Flagstaff Cul- tural Partners presents Cathy Miller: The Singing Quilter in conjunction with Four Corners. This concert is presented in part- nership by Flagstaff Cultural Partners and the Celebrate Quilts Camp.
The Four Corners Quilt Exhibition at Coconino Center for the Arts will be open June 11 through July 20, 2013.
CulturalPartners.org
DRAWINGS ON CLAY
A new body of work by Ellen Tibbetts titled “Drawings on Clay” is featured at West of the Moon Gallery this June.
Ms. Tibbetts grew up in Washington and moved to Flagstaff to attend Northern Ari- zona University with an emphasis in ceram- ics in 1974. “Years of hiking in Grand Canyon, while I was going to school, led to an 18-year career working as a river guide on the Colo- rado River,” she tells me. “Following my river career, I taught art and ceramics at NAU and CCC and retired from teaching in 2010.”
The artist tells me of her work. “My art- work is primarily ceramic sculpture. I hand- build with rough textured clay, finish my pieces with colored slips and stains, then fire them to a temperature of over 2000 degrees. Having a show at West of the Moon provid- ed a great opportunity for me to realize an idea I’d had for a long time. I’ve wanted to combine my drawings with the clay work. I had made some large murals, several small- er wall pieces but now I could really concen- trate on a series of drawings on clay.”
“Using the clay as a surface to draw on cre- ates a lot of possibilities,” she continues. “By carving into the clay, adding and subtract- ing clay, the drawing becomes three dimen- sional with a variety of surface textures. I add color with stains and slips to enhance the clay qualities.”
You can see “Drawings on Clay” during the First Friday ArtWalk from 6 to 9PM at West of the Moon Gallery, 14 N. San Francisco, and throughout the month of June.
WestoftheMoonGallery.com
EXPRESSING THE MOMENT
The textured and expressive paintings of Kevin Kiser are featured for the month of
June at Gallery One13. “I am self-taught,” Mr. Kiser tells me about himself. “When I
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thenoise.us • the NOISE arts & news • JUNE 2013 • 15