Foreclosure series so far

Hat's off to Kitty for reminding me that I've been sharing too many bits and pieces lately, nothing overall of my work. It's been a busy year so far and this is the first week I've been able to really spend 100% of my time on my Foreclosure series again. So here's a recap of what I've accomplished so far sharing my latest piece to the first inklings of the idea.

Cape Coral Foreclosure Boro, 2011. 30" x 44" embroidery on voile and linen.

The exciting thing about blogs is you can see the artist's twists and turns as they make decisions leading to the ultimate path that becomes a series. This is certainly a case in point here. It has been a series of explorations with various fabrics that have been discontinued (argh!) while trying to figure out the most powerful way to expess my message of how pervasive this problem is here in the US.

Las Vegas Foreclosure Boro, 2011. 12" x 36" denim and cotton on linen.

I needed to finish something since the quilt below was taking so long to make, so I made these 12" x 16" experiments with pojagi to play around with the idea of having smaller pieces surrounding a quilt in a gallery.

Foreclosure Pojagi, 2010. 12" x 16" wool and linen.

And back to that quilt. I am still oh so slowly working on it.

Las Vegas Foreclosure quilt, 2010-11. 48" x 72" embroidery on wool scrim.

Anyone who has made a quilt knows how there are starts and stops and slow progress. So while I slowly make my way through cutting holes into the quilt top, I'm focusing on the boro for the next few months and see where this leads. I have finally found enough of a particular linen and cotton I'm happy with (yeah!) to make a series of six or so boro pieces. The first one is in process right now, here's a little peek at my test sample.

Today I'm working on Modesto, California where the foreclosure rate went as high as 20% in some neighborhoods. If you want to read some articles on foreclosures, check out my Foreclosure page.