gallery

One More Week to See My Gallery Show

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My show ends next week–I will be sad to see it come down–LAST DAY is Friday, December 4 at 3:30 pm.
It’s a show I am very proud of–40 pieces and they are very creative (if I do say so myself.) 

Here are times when the gallery at the library is open to see the show. Closed Friday after Thanksgiving.

  • Saturday November 28: 10–5:00
  • Sunday, November 29: noon–5:00
  • Monday, November 30: 10–6:00
  • Tuesday, December 1: 10-noon; 1-3:00–5-7:30
  • Wednesday, December 2: 10-4:00 and 5:00-7:30
  • Thursday, December 3: 10-noon; 2-4:00; 7:30-9:00
  • Friday, December 4 10-3:30–(Last Day!)

People who purchased items can pick them up on Saturday morning when we take  the show down at 11:00 am or get them from me later.

- click to enlarge
– click to enlarge

 

Lisa Kokin Show in Mill Valley Gallery

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FullSizeRender
Lisa’s work stunned me, thrilled me, inspired me. The pieces represent pages from books with zipper teeth for the text and a little embroidery for the images. Ethereal “pages” she skillfully made by machine stitching then dissolving the medium that she stitched on. They are glorious. Some works were done on old linen cloth, but I liked the gauzy ones best. There was story attached, too, which added depth to the whole experience.The exhibit at the Seager/Gray Gallery, in Mill Valley, CA, closes on October 30 and is not to be missed.   [click first photo to see slide show]

Hooray! I Got into the Show!

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Four Veils (detail) click to enlarge
Four Veils (detail)
Peggy Osterkamp
click to enlarge

I just found out that my Four Veils were accepted in the big, big Textile Society of America juried exhibition which is in conjunction with TSA’s first ever New Directions Symposium in LA in September! Hooray! Only 19 works were selected from 400 entries! This is a very big thing–the jurors were the top of the line (Gerhardt Knodel, Matilda McQuaid, Carol Shaw Sutton, and Tali Weinberg) and the entries were from textile artists who have exhibited regularly. I hope this will be the beginning of a new phase where my work is shown in more galleries. Please see a video on how I make the ruffles.

Four Veils - Peggy Osterkamp > click to enlarge
Four Veils – Peggy Osterkamp > click to enlarge

My Rose Hips in a Frame

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Weaving with Rose Hips #2 - Peggy Osterkamp > click to enlarge
Weaving with Rose Hips #2 – Peggy Osterkamp
> click to enlarge

Here is one of my rose hips pieces in its frame. The frame is deep and I think the almost white mat and the narrow black frame really enhance the piece. Now it really looks like something where before it was just a piece of fabric that I held in my hands. I especially like the shadows the stems make.

My New Weaving (part 1)

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Rose Hips 2
Peggy Osterkamp – Rose Hips – click to enlarge
Moire with Rose Hips - click to enlarge
Peggy Osterkamp – Moire with Rose Hips
– click to enlarge

Finally I’ve woven something I like! After my show in January, it’s been hard to get going again. I’ve been trying to weave “out-of-the-box” and for February and March nothing pleased me. I was trying to incorporate locks of fleece. Everything was ugly–oh, one small part looks all right but it isn’t a composition…yet.

I cut lots of rose hip stems and really like them. In the second piece I was interested in the shapes of the stems–then I looked at it from the back–voila! Lovely shadows plus the moire that I’ve been trying for.

I’m still weaving tubes on my 4-shaft loom. I have a supplementary warp that is threaded between the heddles. Those are the threads that hold the rose hips. They are weighted separately so I can slip extra things under them as needed.

I love making the tubes and only using 4 shafts. For the moire, I need certain shafts for the top and bottom layers. When I want one side to be a different color from the other I use other shafts for the top and bottom layers. 4 treadles: I just dance a different dance.

My Woven Art Pieces are on Exhibit

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RAG Show Room
Peggy Osterkamp’s Woven Art Exhibit > click to enlarge

My exhibit is up and I’m very proud of it. If you can’t make it to the opening on the 8th, remember the show is up until the end of January and the gallery is open Tues.- Sat. from 11:00 to 5:00. I’d love to see you at the reception or maybe we can make a date to meet at the gallery and  have coffee or something. It’s in a wonderful location in downtown Mill Valley, California, across from The Depot and next to Pete’s Coffee. Here are a couple photos. I’ll have more of the reception.

Peggy Osterkamp’s Ruffles at the Room Art Gallery

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My ruffles are now hanging in the window of the Room Gallery and they look great and are lit beautifully. They will be up for December and January. My own solo show will be for the month of January. The opening is January 8, 6-8pm. The gallery is at 86 Throckmorton in downtown Mill Valley, California. More details about the show to come.
[click first photo to start slideshow] 

Weaving the Ruffle

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Weaving the Ruffle – Peggy Osterkamp > click to enlarge

Here is a close-up of what the ruffle I’m weaving is supposed to look like. Who knows, I may vary it, but this is the plan. I’ve woven ½ of it so far—74”. I’m enjoying it and the patience needed as well. I have to check for symptoms pretty often to catch a broken thread or let down the selvedge threads, etc. (I usually weight my selvedges separately.) The weft is so fine that it breaks when I pull the shuttle out of the shed fairly frequently. I thought about putting in a colored thread to mark all the weft breaks, but it became too cumbersome. I do repair the warp threads with a blue sewing thread. It gives a little variation, but it makes it so I can see what I am doing.

My Weavings Found a Gallery!

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Last Tuesday I traveled to the wine country to visit The Grand Hand Gallery in Napa. It’s on a busy street in the center of town and has an eclectic collection of wonderful art including fiber pieces. As their brochure says ” … the gallery reflects owner, Ann Ruhr Pifer’s  affinity for work that conveys a strong sense of authenticity, and that shows ‘the hand of the artist’ at work”. Check out their web site:  www.thegrandhand.com.

If you find yourself in the wine country, be sure stop in: The Grand Hand Gallery, 1136 Main Street, Napa Ca 94559. There are famous restaurants very close by. By the way, there is a sister gallery in St. Paul, MN.

I was very happy that  Ann Pifer selected four of my pieces for the gallery!
Please have a look at this gallery of photos taken during our visit.
[ please click first photo to start slideshow ]

My Weaving Books Sold Well

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My book table was laden with everything. The new, A Woven Retrospective, looked great and people loved it. I sold quite a few and several people said they would ask their guild library to order copies. I worked hard on all those books and since I sit in California in my studio all alone, I was greatly pleased to hear that lots of people are using them–and teachers, too. I especially made Weaving for Beginners for teachers, so that pleased me greatly. The Retrospective can be ordered from my website.

My Weaving Art Book Goes to Press

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Woven Work
Woven Work

My art book went to press on time: April 25. I will be printing 50 copies to have at Convergence, the national weaving convention, held in Long Beach, California. Dates are July 18-21. My booth is #535. I can’t wait to share my work over 37 years with people stopping in. I’ll have many of the pieces shown in the book for sale in the booth as well as the book and all of my other books. This book will have numbered copies and of course, I’ll sign them. Let me know if you are interested. By only printing a few, the cost is significant. I’m just covering my expenses for this First Edition. Introductory and Convergence price: $175. Regular price: $200. (There are over 60 pages, all in color with many detail photos–hardbound, too.) Everyone says it’s beautiful and I think so, too.

Weavings for Convergence

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Easel for My Weavings
Easel for My Weavings

I’m getting ready for my booth at Convergence! Here’s the set-up for easels I’ll put on tables to show my art pieces. I hope people will like them. I’ll have my new art book (retrospective) as well as all the others and my DVD. I’ll be at Booth #535 and hope to chat with a lot of people. Please let me know if you check my blog.

Easel for Convergence
Easel for Convergence

CNCH Was a Success

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Peggy Osterkamp's Weaving Retrospective
Peggy Osterkamp's Weaving Retrospective

The conference was wonderful–I’m exhausted, but the keynote address went well, as did the exhibit and my 2 seminars. Lots of people came up to me and said the speech was fabulous! It’s so wonderful to receive all of the recognition. Most people have never seen my work but know my books and know me from teaching.

Peggy Osterkamp's Fiber Optics Surprise
Peggy Osterkamp's Fiber Optics Surprise

I surprised everyone while giving my keynote presentation when I turned on my fiber optics piece that I was wearing.

More Sheer Weaving

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See-through, One
See-through, One

In this piece I wanted to show that the cloth I was weaving was sheer. You can see the wavy supplementary warps that are on the back of the cloth. The cloth itself was woven as a tube with very fine wefts. The idea is that it’s one layer of cloth with the floating threads behind, but instead of weaving it as one layer, I wove it as a tube (two layers) the sett is very open and the layer is really 2 gauze-like layers–more transparent than a more solid single layer would have been. (The floating threads are in the middle, between the layers of the tube.)
The supplementary warps are woven into the cloth in the band in the middle. For the rest of the cloth, they were not woven in so when I cut it off the loom, they were free to wander except where attached in the middle area. The idea came from a previous piece where the supplementary warps floated behind. In this piece I planned where they were attached and free floating.

See-through one, close-up
See-through one, close-up

More information on the supplementary warp techniques are in previous posts for this sewing thread warp. This is a subject I use a lot and will be teaching on line in the future. Let me know if you think you might like to sign up.

More Weaving with Horse Hair

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Black Horsehair with heading sticks
Black Horsehair with heading sticks

Here are more photos of the black horse hair piece. One shows it just off the loom, before cutting off the heading sticks. Note that the heading was WOVEN when I cut off the previous piece. The sticks were attached to the apron rod to put the warp back on tension so I could weave this piece. Look up the tip on Two-stick Heading. It is also described in my first books and my book, Weaving for Beginners.

Black Horsehair detail
Black Horsehair detail
Black Horsehair Back Side
Black Horsehair Back Side

Here is the back; also interesting.

More Miniature Weavings

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Black Horsehair Weaving
Black Horsehair Weaving

This piece has black horse hair woven in. I think the back side is interesting, too. Some people like it better. My computer is acting up again and I can’t show the back now.

More from the sewing thread warp. It is finished (10 yards) and I’ll be sending the last pieces. I’m pretty sure the next warp will be 10 yards and narrow again for more miniatures. They are so much fun and I feel so creative. I plan to use the very fine silk threads again. The ones used in the pieces on my home page. I can’t wait. Life seems to be in the way for now.