First Day as a Blogger!

So today is my first day as a "blogger". It didn't take 5 minutes to set up like they said it would, but perhaps that's because they expect that bloggers-to-be already find meaning in such things as "tracker scripts", "widgets", and "dashboards"...

This is an important day for me. It marks the first time I will have published any of my pieces on the internet (aside from Facebook if you count that...which I don't). It is a very real jumping off point for me, both professionally and personally, as I have never tried to make it as a professional artist, even though it's been a dream of mine since I was small.

Many of you might be wondering what IS fiberarts? Good question. After having very little luck trying to find a definition on the internet for you, I'd say my first answer would be that it is many things to many different artists. Perhaps a more helpful answer is that it is art, be it 2D or 3D, and covers papermaking, basketry, tapestries, batik, quilting, weaving, textile design and so much more. Fiberart is, in fact, art made with fiber- and as general as that sounds, it means the sky is the limit and I quite like that!

For me personally, fiberart is very much about textiles. I take natural fiber textiles like cotton and silk, dye them with special dyes to my color and visual texture preferences, and then I manipulate them in many different ways, depending on the body of artwork I'm working on at the time. My specific degree was in something called "Surface Design". Again, sounds nebulous, but it means that we learned all sorts of different ways to embellish the surfaces that we chose to work on. So sometimes what I do involves painting, sometimes ripping the fabric into pieces or cutting it into specific shapes. Often I use the sewing machine and different colors and types of threads to "draw" on the surface. Finishing touches can include beadwork or hand embroidery, even foil leafing. Here's some new fabric drying after having been dyed:
If you're still stumped on what the heck I'm banging on about, you can take a look at Fiberarts Magazine- my other bible - and see their featured artists: http://www.fiberarts.com/. In the meantime, check out a few of my pieces:

Detail:

Hope you enjoyed this little intro! Please come and visit again soon!

~Holly~