Welcome to Week 2 of my Summer Stories Archival Sale!

The five pieces described below are 20% off in my web shop, now through 11:59pm July 17th.
Use the coupon code Life20 at checkout.

Although these pieces span an 8 year period, they all speak to something that was top of mind for me when I made them: how do I juggle the many ingredients of every busy day, accomplishing what needs to be done while still making room for creativity? I had considered labeling this category “Parenthood” because that was my main directive during those years. But in retrospect, so many of the issues that I was confronting were hardly unique to being a parent – or any particular stage of life. Balancing limited hours, bumps in the road, being mindful of one’s actions and looking back to consider how to improve are just a part of life as we all know it.

As I mentioned in my last post, although I had the luxury of a full room to devote to art-making, my studio space was limited in terms of the materials I could use and how messy I could be with them. I had reached the point where I wanted to explore surface design in order to stretch beyond store-bought fabrics and to customize the cloth I was using in my work, but I needed to find ways to accomplish that within the constraints of my space.

The bottom line is that any perceived stumbling block can also be a call to ingenuity.
At the time, taking family photographs to the local copy shop to have customized tee shirts printed was very popular. In fact, we did just that before a large family celebration of my grandfather in-law’s 100th birthday. It got me to thinking: if one could print photos on cloth with clarity, why couldn’t that be true of a drawing or a painting?

I began to experiment with a couple of approaches.
Using oil pastels, I made abstract drawings, taking them to my copy shop to have them copied and then transferred onto cotton sateen fabric which I supplied. There was a learning curve; the colors of the copy appeared much more saturated than my original drawings and the resulting fabric didn’t have quite the same soft “hand” that it had before being printed with the transfer, but for my purposes it was a total success!

The best aspect of the copied transfers was that they picked up every textural detail from the surface of my originals. In addition to the oil pastels, I painted on brown paper grocery bags – a process that allowed for the texture of my brush strokes and for the wrinkles and folds inherent to the bags to appear on the finished printed fabric. I also made collages with the paintings before having them copied and printed, a process that presented the opportunity to have a collage effect within the printed image rather than only achieving a collage afterward by cutting the fabric and re-sewing it together.

Keep in mind, this was well before the existence of Spoonflower. How much easier and more exact this process would be for me today! But now I see these pieces as markers of possibility, both in terms of circumventing creative obstacles and in regard to a specific season within my own journey.

Thanks for being here!

Compartmentalized

Compartmentalized ©2003 Elizabeth Fram, Silk, cotton & synthetic fabrics, Heat transfer of original oil pastel drawing, Machine pieced, Hand appliqué, Machine and hand quilted, Hand embroidered, 17″H x 17″W, SALE Price: $400. This was one of my first stabs at incorporating fabric that I had designed, made from transfers of an oil pastel drawing. This piece speaks to the fact that life at the time was a series of stops and starts, all sorted into various compartments that required constant tending and nurturing so that nothing fell through the cracks.

This photocopy of my drawing was used for the transfer print in Compartmentalized. I only used a tiny section of it in the finished quilt, cutting and sewing together small areas of the printed fabric to add within the piece.

Compartmentalized, detail ©2003 Elizabeth Fram If you look closely, you can recognize the orange section from the far right of the copied drawing above, and also see that the copy’s image was reversed in the process of printing it on fabric.

Compartmentalized, detail quilted and embroidered

Compartmentalized, detail ©2003 Elizabeth Fram The textural “conversation” between quilting, embroidery and a variety of fabrics, all in chorus together, is a huge part of my attraction to working with textiles.

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Room For Adjustment

Room for Adjustment ©2004 Elizabeth Fram, Silk, cotton & synthetic fabrics, Discharge, Direct drawing with colored pencil, Pieced and appliquéd, Hand and machine quilted, Hand embroidery, 26″H x 51″W, SALE Price: $760. Becoming a parent was the perfect proving ground for realizing that no matter how much you try to get everything perfectly lined up, something will invariable throw your plans to the wind. Once this work was pieced together it felt just a bit too organized and stagnant. Taking a huge leap of faith, I sliced it right down the middle, readjusting so that it was slightly off-kilter. I can be very brave in my work, maybe not so much in life. Take a risk, try something radical, make room for adjustments.

Room for Adjustment detail colored pencil

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Unexpected Circumstances

Unexpected Circumstances ©2004 Elizabeth Fram, Silk, cotton & synthetic fabrics, Heat transfer of original oil pastel drawing, hand appliquéd, Hand and machine quilted, Hand embroidery, 37″H x 31″W, SALE Price: $640. There’s no getting around it – sh*t happens. You can either fight it or go with it. At the end of the day, as my husband’s centenarian grandfather would say, we all just do the best we can.

For Unexpected Circumstances, I made an oil pastel drawing and then had it copied in both black & white and colored versions. I brought those copies home and re-configured them by cutting and combining the two iterations in a new conglomeration of both. It was this resulting collage that I had transferred onto fabric and used within this piece, as seen directly below.

Unexpected Circumstances, detail ©2004 Elizabeth Fram While it’s all but impossible to see in this photo, I embroidered with dark blue thread on top of the printed collage, adding to the energy of the pastel marks captured in the fabric transfer.

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Tadasana

Tadasana ©2011 Elizabeth Fram, Silk & cotton, Paint, Dye, Hand appliquéd, Hand and machine quilted, Hand embroidery, 31″H x 19″W, SALE Price: $520. Tadasana is the word for Mountain Pose. This piece was made on the heels of a very busy and at times stressful period in our lives. I had been maintaining a very modest but regular yoga practice and found it was a huge help. This piece honors the peace and grounding I found through both that practice and our return to Vermont, the Green Mountain State.

Tadasana, detail ©2011 Elizabeth Fram This piece includes a bit of very contained mono-printing, made a couple of years before inserting it here. Textile paint and minimal dyeing were wet processes that I could explore in a friend’s studio and our garage. The embroidery (in white, by the stroke of yellow paint) is subtle, but integral to the pattern.

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Hindsight

Hindsight ©2006 Elizabeth Fram, Silk & cotton, Heat transfer of original painting, Hand appliquéd, Machine and hand quilted, Hand embroidered, 34.5″H x 24″, SALE Price: $600. Slowly working through the time-consuming and methodical processes of hand sewing gives one plenty of time to think and to look back on past actions and discussions. It’s in my nature to reflect on what went right, what went wrong and how one might approach things in the future. And isn’t that also a large part of trying to do one’s best at parenting? In some ways, such mulling is much like collage – a piecing together of known elements into a new configuration.

This is the original collage I created for Hindsight. Although made initially to become a fabric transfer, I went through a brief period of composing collages with painted brown paper as an exercise in-and-of itself. They weren’t made with exhibiting in mind, and certainly aren’t archival, rather they were an exercise done for fun and for myself alone.

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And finally, a quick look into the studio as promised…

When I first began this piece I was only planning to paint the eyes and to leave a lot of white space surrounded by monochromatic stitching. But as the work progressed it seemed to have its own ideas, one thing leading to another, until here we are. I’m still wrestling with the stitching on the face, but there’s something about it that won’t let me go. So I guess that’s just to say I have a lot to consider moving forward. I am learning from others’ responses that the house form is perhaps too subtle to be seen without prompting. That’s also something to think about for future pieces.

Meanwhile…

The Equivalents

I am so happy to have received this book from an Eye of the Needle reader. Not only was it a much appreciated gift in general terms, but also in light of one of the themes running through this post (reread my very first sentence). I had planned to put it aside for later in the summer, but once I began its introduction while eating lunch last week, I couldn’t put it down. It revolves around 5 artists/writers and their participation in the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study. Were you aware of this fellowship opportunity for “intellectually displaced” women? It offered its fellows “a stipend, an office, access to Harvard’s libraries and professors and the gift of unfettered time”. That’s an opportunity we all might aspire toward; in the early 1960s it was unimaginable. Fascinating and highly recommended!

Don’t forget to use the coupon code Life20 for your 20% discount in my web shop. These five pieces will remain on sale through 11:59pm July 17th. And don’t forget, free shipping within the continental US, with hanging slats included.

The next sale will begin with my July 25th blog post in two weeks.
Keep an eye on my web shop, as the next five pieces will be available to preview soon after this sale ends. You can find them under the category “Etudes”.