Cultural Connections and the piece of the week.

Greetings All,

The piece of the week is my first machine felted creation completed with the use of Erica Graff's Baby Lock??? felting machine. This was a different kind of experience for me and a challenging one because I wanted to treat this machine like a regular sewing machine and I broke two needles. That I didn't like, but I do like the simple little piece that I created. I used hand dyed cotton batting and wool roving that was created and supplied by Judy Coates Perze. I painted a Crescent matte board and sowed the piece to it. I added some of the scraps from squaring up the piece to the matte board and I also sewed some of Sonji Hunt's wonderful hand painted fabric scraps to the felted piece. So thanks to all my friends that contributed to this small work and it's a good thing to have friends.

I went out vending this weekend and sales were down, but I did come home with some goodies and had a good time. I have another Najee Dorsey to my collection and I just love it. Najee is a young artist from Georgia that I met last year along with his wife. He creates these wonderful mix-media collages. The piece that I got this weekend is called "A People United" (below). I'm still riding high from the past presidental election and this piece reminds me of that and my youth. I was born in 1950 and still remember those times. My daughter asked will I ever forget and I told her I hope not. Najee got in exchange a king-size bed quilt and "Mother Wind" (right) we both were very please with our acquisitions.I also did a little booth sitting for Nii-Oti Zambezi and in exchange I got a bone/silver earring. I also found out that Nito is a fabulous painter (below). He has works that feeds the body inside and out. Do check out the links to all the websites.