On the Road: Teaching Fabric Collage at Woodland Ridge in Downsville, WI, Part 2—May 2024
July 13, 2024
On the Road: Teaching Fabric Collage at Woodland Ridge in Downsville, WI, Part 2—May 2024Susan2024-07-13T07:02:53-04:00
We’re heading back to Woodland Ridge Retreat this week, back to the very end of April and beginning of May, back to a lovely week of a Wisconsin springtime. As I’m currently surrounded by summer’s heat and humidity (as so many of us are!), it’s a nice memory trip to a kinder and gentler season. Please come join me as we gaze upon some cool collages created by the second grouping of my stellar students from this 2024 fabric collage class. Last week I featured six of the 12 students in the workshop. This week I introduce you to the other six women with whom I spent a wonderful week creating excellent work—such as Barb Zeleznik, in photo above.
For anyone who enjoys wandering woods and trails, Woodland Ridge Retreat is indeed perched on a ridge of land with wooded slopes to a few ponds surrounded by fields. Those fields are in the long-term process of being restored to the original prairies of old—with a scattering of metal sculptures at the far end of the easy-to-walk trails.The creator and owner of Woodland Ridge Retreat, Chris Daly, has set up the art space with both indoor and outdoor light sources—easy to enjoy the outside regardless of the weather.I always have tables set up to stretch out my daily fabric collage examples (or pin them up onto the hallway pinning walls). This particular morning was dedicated to “backgrounds”—what goes behind your subject—something that can be fraught with more issues than you may think. Fresh coffee is right around the corner, if folks have been up late or up early working, ask a lot of great questions, or if I just talk for too long!As chance would have it, photos were taken of Jackie Zydeck’s workspace on day one (above), and again on day four (below). She’s much more tidy an artist than I certainly am, but it’s fun to see how her collage portrait advanced, and the fabric scrap containers grew, in the course of the week. Those handy containers once held salad greens from the grocery store and are repurposed for organizing assortments of fabrics for collage!
Friends Virginia Dambach and Peggy Spitzer posed for me amid their fabric stashes—again, not nearly messy enough (in my opinion)—but it was day four and folks were already tidying up a bit to travel later on day five. If you peek out the doorway (above), you can see just a small slice of the mass of fabric bolts filling the hallway outside of this classroom wing. A fabric shop that, by the way, is also available online.
Now, drumroll (for a second time, please), meet my second set of six students and their fantastical, awesome, marvelous fabric-filled collages from this year’s Woodland Ridge Retreat! If you missed my first set of students from this class, check out last week’s Part 1 post.
Be sure to click on any of the smaller photos to see them larger and to scroll through the gallery.
Virginia Dambach
Virginia Damback was not just amazing in the progress she made on TWO portraits—her glamorous granddaughter and adorable pup—but that she accomplished them with the handicap of a restrictive brace on her left arm and hand, and she’s left-handed! She said something like identifying with a (short-armed) Tyrannosaurus Rex, but with scissors and glue. I certainly can’t say it held her back from creating some awesome work.
Peggy Spitzer
It came to no surprise to me when I found out that Peggy Spitzer had been a science teacher for a good part of her life. She was very analytical with her approach to collage and really quizzed me on the process—I was hoping I’d pass the test! But from the examples she told of the way she taught her students, they were lucky to have had her influence in their formative school years. Kudos to Peggy—for her past work, and in her present work—interpreting her cute granddaughter into fabric art.
Nancy Bonkowski
Nancy Bonkowski began this elegant portrait of her mother in last year’s online portrait class. She arrived at Woodland Ridge Retreat this year with a 3-part goal: to make more progress on this portrait, especially with facial details (such as adjustments to the nose, photos below); to get final thumbs up on her cat portrait, begun in a May 2022 class; and to get a fabric palette in the works for the light and dark values of a new family pet portrait. She accomplished all, beautifully.
Jackie Zydeck
Jackie Zydeck has also attended a few of my classes, beginning this impish portrait of her niece in a November 2021 class—it was time for this little girl to be checked off Jackie’s to-do list! What I consider to be the hardest part, the face, was already done, though there was some tweaking on her eyes to emphasize the super-excited expression. For the winter clothing, Jackie started fresh and dressed this little girl in a cozy parka and one of the best wool cap fabric collage interpretations I think I’ve ever seen!
Barb Zeleznik
This portrait of Barb Zeleznik’s son enjoying a dip at a vacation spot, is not a photo I’d ever recommend as an undertaking—the angle, not much value change in his face to work with, the reflections—essentially a floating head with nothing else to define him. However, for our pre-class online coaching, Barb had already drawn a very nice design to work from, so why not give it a try? I’m so glad she did, the result is gobsmacking.
Bonnie Anderson
Bonnie Anderson brought along two prior collages to share with us. Seeing them all together in the photo above, the similarities of poses is striking, but all collages seem to have specific goals—working with complementary colors (blue and orange), working with monochromatic colors, and for this class project, working with African print fabrics. Bonnie did a great job bringing in a variety of colors and bold patterns to portray a two-toned animal in a wonderfully fanciful way. I liked how she replaced the lip area with a much more interesting fabric pattern from one day to the next (shown in photos below).
As promised in last week’s post, here’s a few closing photos of lovely walks with my students, through the springtime woods and fields behind the retreat center.
One afternoon, I almost stepped on a tiny turtle in the retreat’s parking area. Chris told us he was on his way to one of the ponds down the hill. We gave him a lift in that direction and he at least made it safely to his destination.
Every trip I make to Woodland Ridge, I need to walk out to the watercress stream—a green band in the landscape, even when winding through snow cover. Below left, is a photo from my last visit to see in it in November 2022. This year in May, I led my trail mates to the location and almost missed it! This time around the stream I was expecting was an elevated mound of watercress—I didn’t realize watercress grew that large! Amazing, and oh so spicy.
I think I’ll bring along some watercress recipes when I return to Wisconsin in 2025—I’ll share the results! 😉
Hello Susan! I always enjoy your write ups of the participants and their collages. It is not lost on me or others, that you always take the time to get to know your students. Not just their artwork, but who they are as people. From the looks of things, they certainly have caught on to the process and have created beautiful pieces, so I would say it was another very successful and fun retreat! Good for you and good for the artists who joined you!
Thank you for that, Tracy! I have to say I do seem to have lovely people as students who are quite dedicated to learning—just like you:-). Take care, S.
Hello Susan! I always enjoy your write ups of the participants and their collages. It is not lost on me or others, that you always take the time to get to know your students. Not just their artwork, but who they are as people. From the looks of things, they certainly have caught on to the process and have created beautiful pieces, so I would say it was another very successful and fun retreat! Good for you and good for the artists who joined you!
Thank you for that, Tracy! I have to say I do seem to have lovely people as students who are quite dedicated to learning—just like you:-). Take care, S.