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Textile Art at Smith Ranch Homes

Another surprise during my last trip to California was at the retirement community where my mom lives, Smith Ranch Homes in San Rafael, California. On the lower level, they have monthly art shows in the corridor from the Grill Room (a lunch cafe / restaurant) past the mail room to the lower lobby, shop and beauty parlor. In February, they had textile/fiber art, including an art quilt! Some of the pieces were quite modern and abstract, some representational, and many were interesting. Here are some of my favorites, starting with this glorious piece of art cloth (all pictures are clickable to enlarge, most include the tags with the name of the piece and the artist, but alas am not sure they can be read! I tried!):

SmithRanch art 1

Here is another piece I particularly liked, made of discharged fabrics fused or otherwise adhered to the black background:

SmithRanch art 7

The “kimono” was fun, too… made of metal I think, with glass affixed– the piece on the far left was cloth and encaustic (I think)….

SmithRanch art 6

All in all, it was interesting, nice to see fiber art, but a bit lacking in color! I remember one purple woven piece, and an interesting face made of denim worked punched-rug style, but as loyal readers know, I’m ALL about COLOR!

Here are some of the other pieces I liked. This one is fairly 3-D:

SmithRanch art 2

This one is copper foil applied to the background with thin strips of copper sheeting or copper tape wound around the piece:

SmithRanch art 3

The one art quilt needed a bit of help in the hanging sleeve department and the quilting was fine if uninspired, but the threadwork to make the 3-D flag was intriguing:

SmithRanch art 4

and a detail of the flag:

SmithRanch art 5

All in all, I was happy to see fiber / textile art being shown, but apart from a denim piece (a portrait, worked in hooked rug style) and a woven in purples and greens, it was rather lacking in color…. and loyal readers know, I LOVE COLOR! I’m hoping to be able to afford a major dye-fest when the weather is warm this summer to indulge that vice <GRIN!>… stay tuned!

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