25th Annual Ethnic Festival 2010 and Pieces of the week.

Greetings All,
I'm preparing for the 25th Annual Ethnic Festival in Evanston, IL July 17th & 18th. I love this event because of the crowd, food, music and it's on the lake Michigan's shores. I'll be there with Gwen McGee-Boyd and we will be there both days so if you are in town stop on by and say hello.

My latest piece (below) is a small wall hanging of a little brown girl in her toe shoe standing on point. It was a request of a potential client and it is going to became a larger piece or a series I'm not sure yet. I love the color combination because it reminds me of "Neapolitan" ice cream and/or coconut candy of my youth when my dad would bring these treats home and sometimes he would sit and join us in eating them which made them even more special."That Other Galaxy" (below) is a part of my latest explorations with mix media. It's made with hand dyed cotton, paper and plastic bags. It's a small work and is now placed in a shadow-box.



"Regina-I" (left) is a discharged black cotton piece named in honor of the artist Regina Benson. For some reason once I had discharged this cloth if made me think of her and I love her work hence the title. It's quilted with variegated thread and embellished with black seed beads. There are two more in this collection and I will post as completed.

"Is This Where Agent Orange Live?" (below center) is the 1st component in a commission piece that I have for a great collector of African American art and one of the co-founders of "Diasporal Rhythms" an organization that expand appreciation of the visual art created by contemporary artisits of the African Diaspora. This piece is also comprised of hand dyed cotton, plastic bags and paper towels that I use to clean up spills when I was dying/painting fabrics. He will get such a kick out of that and I'm so very glad to call him friend.

The last piece (right) is called "Senor Naranja" because it reminded of a trip I took to Mexico City many years ago and there I saw older men with straw hats on that looked like this. Again I used paper towel and plastics bags fused on top of satin fabric.