[Artists-making-art] my introduction

[Jewel]

Dear Kestrell,
Sorry about the misspelling. It's definitely an interesting nickname.

Please keep us updated on how the silicon works on the canvas cloth.
I'd love to hearhow that turns out. FRor the beads, I might suggest
using jewelry-grade wire. If you research French beaded flowers,
you'll find that they use thin wire to shape their beads into all
sorts of shapes, mainly flowers, though I've seen French beaded
animals, too. I have a pendant that is a blue rose made only out of
seed beads. Persoanlly, I can't work with seed beads due to pain in my
joins (fibromyalgia), but it's an idea if you can do it.

For the brads, I stick to fabrics that can easily be punched through.
I've used nylon, cotton, linen, and light-weight wool. I'm trying
embroidery cloth right now, which basically already has the holes so
it's easier...with other fabrics I have the chance of tearing the
fabric which could cause a rip or bending the brad and breaking it.
Both have happened to me in the past.

~~Jewel



On 11/29/11, Kestrell <kestrell at panix.com> wrote:
> Hi, Jewel
>
> The name kestrell (I spell it k e s t r e l l) comes from the name of the
> smallest kind of falcon (spelled with one l), but I took my particular
> spelling from Edmund Spenser's long poem, "The Faerie Queen," in which the
> Elizabethan word "kestrell" (with two l's) means a low and common person. It
> started off as my online nickname, but then it just seemed everyone I knew
> was calling me Kestrell, so I pretty much use it all the time.
>
> I haven't gotten into brads much. I tried beads, but what a pain in the
> butt! I have arthritis in my hands, so doing lots of repetitive handwork
> with small items can irritate it. Do you use some sort of punch-machine to
> insert the brads, or can you easily do it by hand?
>
> For my tactile tapestry, I used a duck cloth banner/flag which comes with a
> lightweight wooden dowel that I purchased online from Dharma Trading
> Company, which is also where I get some of my dye products. The baners come
> in a variety of sizes, they are all nicely sewn, and it is natural cotton
> fabric. First I tie-dyed the fabric with dark green in a pattern which
> suggests tree trunks and branches. Then I took some wide brown velvet ribbon
> and made three straight up-and-down lines to suggest three abstract trees. I
> wanted to make a green and silver river of beads, so used Big Eye plastic
> beading needles to sew the beading thread onto the tapestry, but
> unfortunately the thread broke, or perhaps I just didn't sew it securely
> enough, so then, beads everywhere! My new plan is to use this silicone
> product called Sugru which comes in little packets which you open, knead
> like PlayDough, and then layer on to the cloth or whatever you want to put
> it on. People use it to mold into bowls, create custom grips on devices, and
> patch holes on boots--it's pretty cool stuff. Then it just needs to cure for
> 24 hours.
>
>   Kestrell
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jewel" <herekittykat2 at gmail.com>
> To: "An exploration of art by and for blind persons"
> <artists-making-art at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 11:43 AM
> Subject: Re: [Artists-making-art] my introduction
>
>
>> Kistrell,
>> What an unusual name! I love it! Thank you for the book suggestion; I
>> went directly to Bookshare and got his books (there are two of them,
>> one on arts and one on history of blindness in England).
>>
>> I also do tactile art with ribbons, butons, and more. Have you tried
>> brads? I use them in my tactile art. they come in many colours, which
>> I keep sorted in bead organizers, and some even have textures (such as
>> ones I got that have a velevet texture and some that are glittery). I
>> have only finished one piece, a dragonfly and flower, but am working
>> on several others. What do you use as the tapestry blank (cloth,
>> canvas, something else?) I am trying embroidery cloth now, as I've had
>> some difficulty with regular cloth taking the brads without tearing
>> the fabric. Oh, and brads can be used to write things out in a sort of
>> jumbo Braille!
>>
>> ~Jewel
>>
>> On 11/29/11, Kestrell <kestrell at panix.com> wrote:
>>> Hello
>>>
>>> My name is Kestrell and I live in the Boston area. I am totally blind,
>>> but
>>> was low vision until my early twenties. Growing up, I was an art
>>> student.
>>>
>>> For the past few years, I have been helping to organize a tactile art
>>> show
>>> for a Boston-area science fiction convention, and it resparked my
>>> interest
>>> in making and appreciating art, so last year about this time, I decided
>>> that
>>> I wanted to get more art in my life. A number of great events, such as
>>> this
>>> list, seem to have occurred during this year. Another great event was the
>>> visit of Simon Hayhoe, an academic who studies and writes books about
>>> teaching art to blind people (you can find his books on Bookshare, and he
>>> also has a Web site which you can find through his Wikipedia entry).
>>>
>>> I've been trying different art media, including tactile tapestrymaking (I
>>> use things like ribbon, hemp cord, beads, and fabric for this), wire
>>> sculpture, and tie-dying. On Thursday, the blind crafters list will be
>>> having a class on creating tie-dye with permanent marker, so I'm looking
>>> forward to that, as it is a lot less messy than using powder dyes and
>>> gives
>>> the artist a lot more control.
>>>
>>> I've also been blogging about different resources I have found and
>>> writing a
>>> book about my experiences reintroducing myself to art as a blind person.
>>>
>>> Kestrell
>>> http://kestrell.livejournal.com
>>
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>
>
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