Holiday Sale / December 11th and 12th @ Chia Jen Studio / Rio Dell, California

samples shots from my blackberry

The famous cocoon jacket that everyone loves... and a shibori hanging detail

Return to Redwood Studio / East Bay Moving Sale

I am consolidating studio and office this weekend and will be based full time in the beautiful Rio Dell studio that overlooks apple trees and redwoods.

During this week of transition I am selling all my prints, paintings, books and textile pieces that are in the Richmond house for 25% - 50% less.

Please let me know if you want to stop by and view/purchase any of the work.

There are quite a few pieces not on the website.

Shibori hangings are the newest additions.

I do hope to see you...

Cheers

P.S. if you miss this in the East Bay I am having an Open Studio weekend in Rio Dell on the 11th an 12th of December. I am sharing this weekend with Patty Demant. It is our second annual because our first year was fun and successful...

Crossing into Spirit

Studio work was set aside for months. My Ian had left. Transformation. Banners for the memorial brought me back into my lovely Rio Dell studio. There I found a course for communication with spirit. My own and his. There, through tears I cut into precious shirts and stitched his beloved ties. There I knew I might eventually find salve for a broken heart.

Shown are the banners. More to be explored when I get settled back into Humboldt for the winter.

The heart is a lonely hunter.

Ah, life and death. Just a breath away from each other.

I had begun the project full of life. Death was in the distance.

When my son called the day after these photos were taken I knew the winds had shifted.

I now must continue this project without my warrior at my side. Rich has also departed. Yet for them I will continue as I can, when I can, with their spirit surrounding me and guiding me on.

The morning after Patty and I worked and played in that sanctuary I was back with another dear friend Shiela. We had a nice long walked. The weather had shifted. A storm was brewing. We were still in the balance between winter and her time of death. It was still cold. There had just been that brief break in the storm but now it was back to winter's business. New life and spring were far off again.

I was still keen about more work with my textiles outside and finding the right barns for installation. I was getting great encouragement from Ian, Rich and Patty. Meeka also wanted to participate. I finally had an idea that I believed to help show the beauty in the broken down barns, the beauty of the aged, the beauty of the end of the years, the beauty of a certain type of death and ending that comes to histories. There was a poetry there I hoped to find and exhibit.

A marriage of fiber and natures wood whether natural or turned. And the relationship between abstract and realism. And most importantly the dance between new and old / life and death.

A balance of so many thoughts that run through my mind.

Patty and I were paying with the fiber. I was trying to get a sense of fiber against fiber. How was the tone and texture outside? Had I chosen the right material. Should I try to procure some more next time I went south to the city?

During this exploration I remembered the beautiful photographs of the Native American bodies that were laid to rest, wrapped in cloth and placed up in the branches of beautiful oak like trees. It was a communion of death and nature that had made a big impression on me.

I did not know then how soon death would bring me her own stories. I did not know then that soon I would be offering up my own warrior to the next life.

The project would eventually have a great deal of yardage. Perhaps stretches of 20 yards that would interweave and flow in the midst of the decaying and beautifully aging barns of Humboldt County and rural California. This would be a kinetic sculpture. An installation that moved and worked with the environment to show off the beauty of fiber and form. Perhaps to be documented as ruin continued.

I was beginning the process of taking simple and natural flax fibers woven into a chinese practical textile, scouring it, pleating through heat processes, and using a shibori technique to add color over a spring green dye bath.

It was a crisp and clear day of possibilities and beauty. The geese and other migrating birds were making themselves known. Patty and I were enjoying the winter songs. I was excited to continue on a project that had failed to get funding from a grant I had proposed earlier in the year. I was going to do it anyway... bit by bit.

It involves the marriage of fiber. The meeting of weaving and color. The mixing of historical architecture found and created through the necessity of form as product and tool.

early stages of a new idea / the process begins

There was a beautiful day in early January before the big series of storms hit the east bay of California. I was still in Humboldt County and musing over an idea I had been thinking about since early autumn. Ian was excited about it and my friend Rich was going to help me execute it. Patty was spending the morning at the Wildlife Bird Sanctuary in Loleta helping install the first studies.This project was to help explain to my audience how my work is not so abstract, how it reflects very closely the realism on a tangible level of my textiles within nature.

little wee book arrived

and it is really wee. i cannot believe the weeness of it... but it is cute and could fit in your pocket. after shipping and tax it comes to $10...

if you want a bit of jennifer's imagery in your pocket just call me and i will order up some more!

707-764-3877 cheers... off to the studio where i am working on my spring / summer barn series

a few shots/sequoia

i attempted to get a grant this last year. two in fact. seems i am not a preferred candidate. it has put off a dream of mine that was to super impose my fabrics into older deteriorating humboldt county dwellings. barns and the like. i thought the modern textures moving within the older historical textures could both enhance the histories that are disappearing in humboldt and create a format for new innovative art installations.

i will do it in 2010 now, somehow. it continues the idea of my abstract work being more real than realism at times.

i leave realism to the gods/goddesses... or fabulous realists of which i am not in the traditional sense.

let me know if you have connections with owners of barns that are falling apart and gets lots of wind and light!

eco sequoia fabric shoot

as you might remember i just self published my first book called earth series. the response has been good and i was happy with it. it is a good first edition. i am still searching other papers and lower prices as it is quite expensive for me to produce and perhaps a bit pricey for my friends and family.

so, i was checking out the little book idea on iphoto. i am now awaiting 3 little books of just snapshots for this show i want to organize this year.

there has always been a question around my 'abstract' art. i call myself a landscape artist. few understand it. so my idea is to show people how my work blends directly with nature and in fact how strong the connection if between my work and what i see in the outdoors.

i decided it is merely a question of the proximity. that would mean in my case, seeing things through a macro lens instead of a telephoto lens. you know, up close and personal.

here are a few shots for the study. and the wee book is only $5 if you want one. i will get them soon...

cheers, and enjoy your local redwood! and your local textile artist jennifer...