Mary Lynn Heth

I added 7 new pieces today.  It was a busy winter.  I created four pieces that concentrated on the Moon.  Clear, frigid nights that are found in the mid west have always fascinated me.  It was fun to think about the moon and even more satisfying to be able to capture images that I could turn into wearable art.  Or is it portable art?  That will have to be a question for another day.  Five of the bags are of the HerStory genre.  They are very satisfying to create and to look at.  Happy memories made even more special.  Time to more on.  I was able to purchase some lovely wool from a 95 year old braided rug maker, a real artistisan.  I think it was very hard for her to give it up, but it was time.  I asked her daughter to assure her that the wool, most of it in 2" strips, would have a good home and be loved.   I'm even dreaming about the wool. 

I've been working and working and working and enjoying (almost) every minute of it.  I love the feel of the old wool.  The quality is so much different than what is being produced today.  I need to check labels very carefully or I get a "wool" garment that is only about 50% wool with a lot of other fabrics, usually man made, thrown in.  Nylon will gum up the iron in a second!

It's amazing to me how focused I become when I pull out my wool sample folders and work on a new design.  It is a very good thing Lovie is a clock watcher.  Sweetie would be skin and bones if Lovie were not around to loudly remind me that it is time to eat. 

Becky made me a great set of polymer clay "buttons" last weekend at a clay retreat she attended.  They are wonderful and such fun.  The ideas are dancing around in my head.  I have a really nice hat, scarf and bag set I am working on right now and then next cly, crochet and wool.  The leaves are almost all gone and as fall heads for winter I am not so tempted to head out with the camera.  Can't wait to start on the buttons.

The two new galleries are added to the site.  I also have been putting in alot of hours in the studio.  I finished the homage to van Gogh,  which was a great deal of fun and I have cut several more denim bags.  I have been designing and cutting denim so I have some stockpiled hand work to do.  I'm off to the north (Minneapolis) for two weeks.  My son and his finance are getting married in late September and I will extend my time with my sister before and after the wedding.  It is lovely to sit on my sister's porch, listen to the radio or music and embellish fabric.  Have I said recently how much I adore being retired!

My plan is to use up the left over demin, from the market bags, quickly and transition back to wool and dry felting. The denim scraps demand creative solutions because the cut up pieces tend to be long and thin.  So far I've created designs that take off from log cabin and haphazard quilt patterns.  Next will come some crazy quilt designs.

I'm enjoying the last quiet days of summer and am looking forward to fall.  The wool beckons and I have some Herstory designs piling up.

Well,  I've finally got everything loaded and ready and up.  No prices because somehow I am not able to save the changes that I need to put in prices in dollar amounts and not Euros.  Soon!

This was at first a little nerve racking.  I tend to stress over the starting of anything, especially when I have to show off what I can do.

The next act is to set up my photography station and take photos of several new purses.  They are mostly small and will go fast. 

At the moment I am working on a series of market (like farmers) bags.  I will be taking pictures and posting them when the series is done.  These specific bags are "borsa da mercato"  for my Italian cousins.  They are so kind and generous with time and food whenever we visit that we (my sister and I)  wanted to give them something.  Years ago we brought Chicago hats and this time Alice is in charge of getting Minneapolis or at least Minnesota hats.  I think I created the market bags because I truly wish I could go to the market every morning and pick up fresh bread and meat and pastries like they do.  Somehow the local Target is just not seem the same. 

I've created the bags using recyled jean fabric.  I actually have gone for jean skirts, blazers and dresses over just jeans.  I do have to say that there are some pretty funky looking denim capris that make great accent pieces. 

Time to leave the computer and go back to the studio.  I'm happy to finally have a place on the web.  I am repeatedly asked about a website and I finally have one.  New business cards are next!

Blog August 2, 2014

First, things first: getting to know me.  I am a surface designer:  that means I embellish fabric.  I love fabric, all kinds, all colors, all textures.  I don’t make fabric, I add to the beauty as the fabric calls to me.  In past endeavors I have done some weaving and I did teach it for several years.   I knit, not as well as several of my artist knitter friends and I will use a bit of crochet to embellish a bag or hanging.

I retired after teaching art and photography for 38 years and I have ‘grown up’ to be the artist I always wanted to be.  I grew up in a very small town in rural north central Illinois and started sewing early on.  I loved to draw and ‘color’ from a very early age.  In college I found a new found love for paint.  Real life happened and being a single mom and full time teacher put my own art work on the back burner.  After I finished by master’s degree in 1982 I went back to the paint brush and combined it for a series of quilted, stretched paintings.  Yes!  Sewing and painting merged!  A friend recommended silk painting.  Wonderful!  I still work with silk and find it very rewarding.  Old age has started to creep in and 8 hours on concrete bent over stretched silk became a bit much for my feet and back, but I still return to the silk on a regular basis.

Since fabric has always been a love I felt drawn to the felted art and craft that I begin to see in the early 2000’s.  Retirement was completely freeing and I began to play with ideas.  Good wool can cost anywhere from $75 to $100 a yard.  My budget was not really ready to go there.  My brilliant scientist sister suggested recycled wool coats, etc.  An idea was born!

First though, I had a special project to complete.  My mom loved clothes.  When we closed up her house after she moved to a nursing home, I gathered up all her cotton clothes.  And there were lots.  She had lived in the house in that little town for well over sixty years.  There were even a few cotton things left from my dad who had passed many years previously.  It seemed only fitting to honor, in some way the mom who gave me my love of fabric.  Finally it all came together.   A series of wall hanging using the recycled cotton from mom’s clothes with a garden them, to honor my dad.  You can take the boy off the farm, but never the farmer out of the heart of the man.

From June, 2010 when I retired until August 2013 I worked on and created 8 wall hangings.  In October 2013 the family gathered to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of my brother and sister-in-law.  The wall hangings were displayed the next day and everyone choose (in birth order) the art they wanted for their homes.

Here is a link to the blog I kept to document the process. The Grandma and Grandpa Quilt project. It was a wonderful experience for me and a great way to honor my family:

http://mlh9550.blogspot.com/

mary lynn heth

surface design

B.A. in art (concentration in painting)
Illinois State University 1972

M.S. Ed in art education
Northern Illinois University 1982