Monthly Archives: September 2018

Boro-Horse – meant to be!

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Boro Horse
Lyn Belisle 2018
24″ high with stand
Mixed media fiber, clay and paper

This magical horse insisted on being created while I was in the middle of getting another piece ready for the Fiber Artists juried show. I had some scraps of indigo linen on the table when I spied a beat-up papier-mache horse figure that had come from my old studio and was much the worse for wear, with one leg broken.

On impulse, I wrapped the strip of indigo linen around his broken leg — he liked it! So I kept going, patching in the tradition of the Boro textiles of old Japan.

Example of patched indigo Boro cloth

Boro textiles are usually sewn from nineteenth and early twentieth century rags and patches of indigo dyed cotton.  The diversity of patches on any given piece is a veritable encyclopedia of hand loomed cotton indigo from historic Japan.

Once he was covered with indigo scraps, Boro-style, I began adding strips of sari ribbon. I sewed a saddle-blanket for him and added sticks and beads and fund objects.

Detail of saddle blanket on Boro-Hourse

This weekend, I decided that Boro-Horse needed a stand to elevate him to his proper status as a very cool animal.

I used more scraps from old indigo and rust projects to cover his platform, the sealed it all with acrylic matte medium.

Boro-Horse will have little Velcro dots on the bottom of his hooves and matching ones on the stand so he will be able to be secured but still be removable. With his stand, he’s about 24″ high.

He’ll be one of my entries in the San Antonio Fiber Arts Juried Show. I encourage all of you to enter as well. If you work in fiber of any kind (including paper, which is a fiber), you are eligible to enter your artwork in the upcoming 44th Annual Juried Fiber Art Exhibit!!

When and Where: Say Si Art Gallery, located at 1518 S. Alamo St., San Antonio, TX 78204. Art will hang December 7, 2018 to January 25, 2019.

You might just see Boro-Horse there!!

 

 

Wax and Words, Paper and Clay, Danielle and the Magic Bus

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The Wax & Words Workshop interactive video eBook is live and available on my website! Since I’ve talked about it so much, that’s all ya need to know! Thanks to those of you who have reviewed and purchased it 🙂

Click on the image above to find out more – and thanks to Dani for her review:

“Hi Lyn, I really enjoyed your Artful Gathering workshops this summer and ordered the DVDs. I’m looking forward the Wax and Words workshop ebook next. Thank you for making these workshops available to those of us unable to attend your classes in San Antonio.”

And now, ONWARD! About paper clay — Leslie Newton (of the San Antonio Potters Guild) and I are teaching a workshop this Saturday at the San Antonio Art League on paper-infused clay. This is a new clay product for me. It’s not the same stuff as Creative Paper Clay. This is porcelain or earthenware clay body combined with paper fibers, and needs to be kiln-fired. Leslie mixes her own and fires it to about 2200F.

Graham Hay is one of the foremost potters currently working with paper clay

I used Leslie’s clay mixture to make some small ornamental examples for our workshop. I fired mine to 1900F and got some nice porcelain-like results.

Ornament assortment made by moi with paper-infused clay (and finished with walnut ink, of course)

Apparently, there are a lot of different formulas for paper-infused clay. Last week I went to Roadrunner Ceramics and bought a 25-pound bag of their “bone paper clay.” It’s weird stuff, more fiber-y than Leslie’s mix. It’s quite squishy and pulls apart in ragged layers.

Here are some pictures of the good and bad things I found out as I worked with the clay – because it has paper fibers, it can get stinky black mold in the clay body (which you can spray with Clorox to kill). However, because of those fibers, you can work with very thin slabs of clay!

And here’s my first experimental piece with that paper clay formula from Roadrunner:

Experimental piece made with bone paper clay

Some of the edges look as delicate as paper, but they are sharp because they’re fired clay! I believe the fiber burns away in the kiln leaving just the clay-coated texture.

In a SHARDS post last year called “Lotus and Clay”, I mention that Leslie and I love Roadrunner Ceramics as our go-to clay store now that Clay World has closed.

Even if you’re not a potter or ceramicist, they are super nice to their customers and encourage questions from everybody.

OK, I’ve saved the best for last. When I was looking around for materials about using paper-infused clay, I came across potter Danielle Bluestone of Magic Bus Studio – you gotta watch this – she is my new hero.

There is no way to follow Danielle’s act, so I’ll just say, “Bye for now.”