Howdy folks—today I finish the ride along the fabric collage trail at Tanque Verde Ranch in the burg of Tucson, Arizona—Part 1 is here—in case ya’ll missed it. The three days of scattered rain showers that opened the week of my January 2024 class, didn’t crimp our style too much as we were all-fired up at work in the classroom. As they say, “Some days you just gotta put on your boots and collage anyway.” And we did. Just wait until you see the wild work created in the second half of our cowgirl class post.
The amazingly cool pincushions above, are held and created by Deb Deaton—brought along as utilitarian table decorations for herself and her daughter Chloe, for their week of fabric collage. See their work in last week’s post.
A dark sky glowers over a prickly patch of living pincushions.
Rainclouds trip over the Arizona mountains.
Dude ranch desert yard-art.
A sunset dinner with my class at the “chuck wagon.”
January’s Full Wolf Moon over Tanque Verde Ranch.
How to make an eye in fabric collage—as seen in the overhead mirror.
A thank you to my students who shared their photos for this post: Julie Valentine, Deb Deaton, Brenda Carter, Grace Crocker, and Janice Morrow-Siebenaler.
The MISA Tucson 2024 Dudettes: left to right: back row—Chloe Deaton, Barbara Blackmon-Gussak, and Julie Valentine; middle-ish row—Brenda Carter, Deb Deaton, Debra Wenzel, Janice Morrow-Siebenaler, Michele Erker, KimHankins Kujawa, and Sue Weidenthal; front row—me, Grace Crocker, and Mary McKay.
Student Work
As I mentioned in last week’s post, this group of ladies worked together and got along beautifully. It was such a pleasure to spend the week with them—what a great class we had—lots of work, good food in a relaxed atmosphere, and excellent company. Thank you to one and all.
Today’s post will feature the other six talented ladies whose work was not shared in last week’s post.
Barbara Blackmon-Gussak
Barbara is somewhat of a local from Mesa, Arizona. She chose a Highland coo as her subject—a classic Scottish breed of cow known for its gentle demeanor and particularly shaggy fur. This portrait took on quite the festive flair with flowers, foliage, and feathers that Barbara used to interpret this young calf.
Julie Valentine
Julie traveled to the ranch from Garden City, Kansas. Her well-loved great dane’s portrait is filled with a great variety of patterned black fabrics, giving a ton of interest in this largely monochromatic collage. She was spot-on with those appropriately droopy eyelids. He looks like quite the character.
Sue Weidenthal and Michele Erker
Friends and table mates, Sue and Michele—both working on their “go big or go home” animal portraits. They met up in Tucson to spend the week together, flying in from Madison, Alabama and Cunningham, Tennessee, respectively.
Sue stitched initials onto a batch of scissor fobs for all of us (I got a second fob with my term, “messy scary,” the early-on stage that a collage can get to). Then, she pulled out a second batch of fobs she had strung with beads and charms. What a way to start the week! Much obliged, Sue. 😉
A female elephant from a rescue organization is getting a sweet treatment of dreamy batiks and big-print florals, in her portrait by Sue.
What expressive eyes, in portraits both above and below.
Michele’s Siamese cat seems to emerge from the fabrics pinned to her work board. Michele is focusing on Australian Aboriginal designed fabrics to highlight the features her cat’s face.
Janice Morrow-Siebenaler
I could tell how much Janice adores her little pup (who looks a lot like mine). This cutie is now adorned with lots of floral-laden fur.
Janice arrived flush with suitcases of fabric that she drove down from Denver, Colorado—happy to be the one-stop-shop for any of her classmates who needed extra drops of color or pattern for their collage creations. Thanks so much for your generosity, Janice!
Debra Wenzel
Debra drove herself from Prineville, Oregon—taking the best part of three days on the road, each way! Wow! Her goal for this class was to understand how to “blend” from one fabric to another. She chose my sea turtle pattern to get a jump-start into the fabric collage process. I appreciated how she’d shift the fabric pieces around as she better understood how the various colors and values were working together.
Debra was new to fabric collage, but brought in different sort of art quilt for our show-and-share near the end of the week.
“Keep Calm and Cowgirl On”
Eventually it was time to hit the trails and say, “Adios, amigos”—the bittersweet side of a creative, constructive, and companionable week together.
Featured in Part 1 of this class’s posts, Grace Crocker and Kim Hankins-Kujawa say their goodbyes. Just a few short hours later, our classroom was empty and desolate-looking, as Grace rolls out her fabric treasures for her return to Chico, California.
Included in Grace’s luggage was our class fish. It had been spread out on a central table for folks to add to in their “down time.” A push was made in the last couple days to make it a bit more complete, and was given as a class gift to Grace as she nears her 89th birthday at the end March.
When she got home, Grace set herself to work on it and sent me a photo of the finished fish, below. A perfect example of how much a subject can be revised from one draft to the next!
My week in Tucson ended on a sunny note in so many ways—including a final morning walk through this unique landscape. So long to the land of saguaro cactus. Hasta luego.
What fun. This looked like such a fun group and their projects were all beautiful. I am awed by such talent and a bit jealous I was not there. I would love, love, love to do something like this so sign me up. I’ll go pack my bags right now.
Oh my gosh that looks like it was a wonderful class! Love the photos of the scenery and the student artwork. A class is on my bucket list!