Last year, during the height of the pandemic, a great friend of mine hooked me up with some free fabric. She had saved hundreds of rolls of upholstery grade fabrics from ending up in a landfill. They came from an out-of-business window design company that needed them gone ASAP. I received a roll of a heavy twill, possibly canvas or denim, that had been unbleached. Not exactly fabric that you would paint on necessarily, but I figured out a way to make it work.
I have been having a lot of fun pulling out pieces of this canvas and experimenting with gesso, pigments, gouache, acrylic, spray paint and fabric dyes. Most of the pieces I have created don’t necessarily work on their own, but I have been chopping them up into smaller compositions that are playful and weird. There have been a couple larger paintings that I have been able to create and I turn the scraps from those into “jumbo confetti” or “modern dollhouse art”.
Next, I found a thrift shop nearby that was practically giving away picture frames. Apparently, old frames are a nuisance to get rid of and don’t hold much value. The shop owner let me know she has a warehouse holding thousands of them. I grabbed a bundle and cleaned them up, and popped some of these fun, tiny paintings inside. I call these works Remnants because my mom, who is an upholsterer, would always have scraps of fabric lying around that we would make crafts with. I love the idea of taking something that was going to get trashed and giving it new life. And I’ve gathered enough painting supplies that it has kind of become a mission to use these supplies up before I buy too much new stuff.
I plan on making more of these and having them available for purchase at my studio, or online. They will be affordable, ranging from $20 to $80 depending on the size.