Susan Carlson On the Road: The Colors of Fabric Collage in Santa Fe, NM—MISA, April 2025, Part 1

Color—there’s a lot of that in Santa Fe. After my first trip here in April 2022, when I think of Santa Fe, I think of turquoise. This year, both outside and inside our classroom was a prevalence of aqua blues—a favorite color accent to the sandstone adobe of Santa Fe buildings, and also the background color choice for Elizabeth Imperato’s stunning sea turtle fabric collage, above.

Both of my trips to Santa Fe have been with MISA—Madeline Island School of the Arts—and both times have been welcome breaks from the grayness of a Maine winter. Yes, this year it could have been said it was a little chilly in Santa FE (which can be a matter of opinion), but let’s just say that flowers and trees were blooming. With both my class and the weather, I definitely enjoyed myself, again. See my 2022 MISA Santa Fe posts here: Part 1 and Part 2.

Be sure to click on any of smaller photos in the photo galleries to enlarge the photo and to easily scroll through the images.

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April 2025 Fabric Collage Class in Santa Fe with MISA

This week I’ll be introducing you to seven of the fourteen students in this class of fabric collage enthusiasts of all levels—from beginner to a two decade veteran.

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Barb Boland

Barb is from Lewiston, Idaho and attended my Maine Collage Quilt Retreat back in October, 2019. She began her exuberant butterfly back then, and as she said, pretty much hadn’t touched it since. That happens, doesn’t it. Sometimes inspiration comes with a classroom full of like-minded folks—Barb had that in 2019, and again a couple weeks ago. Click on the progress photos to see the sparkling accents Barb was inspired to add to her creation.

Barb’s butterfly beginning and end of the week photos are above, in-progress photos are below.

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Angela Drake Young

Angela is from Germantown, Tennessee, and set about recreating a photo of her daughter from her cheerleading days. Angela has worked in bright colors for pet portraits, but wanted to keep to realistic colors for this memory quilt. She had begun a smaller version of this collage portrait before, but wanted to “simplify her way of previously working a collage,” and learn how to progress through the process in drafts, or steps.

Angela’s daughter’s portrait beginning and end of the week photos are above, in-progress photos are below.

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Darlene Determan

Darlene has recently become a resident of Sanibel Island, Florida, and is loving it—though she did tear herself away for a week to attend another class with me. We think she’s been taking classes with me for maybe 20 years? We’ve lost count, but she’s become a dear friend over that time. Even with all those years of collage experience, Darlene still states that a goal of hers is to “silence the inner critic,” and her intent for the week was to “get into the flow.”

Darlene’s “Sophie” portrait end of the week photo is above, along with her in-progress “cartoon” giraffe—a playful collage in the making. Sophie’s portrait in=progress photos are below—as sheer fabrics were gathered and then applied for highlights, shadows, and just plain bling. See the very beginnings of “Sophie” in this May 2021 Online Class post.

Below, Sophie’s summertime playmate, Pebbles, gets an appropriately beachy background as Darlene progressed on a third collage this week as well.

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Lynne Prince

Lynne is from Salinas, California, and attended this week’s class with her sister, Noel (following next). Lynne’s intent for the week was to work on transitions—both shape and color—to better blend one area into another.

Lynne’s giraffe portrait beginning and end of the week photos are above, in-progress photos are below. On day two, Lynne showed me the piece of fabric you can see in the photo, below right. What a great print and color gradation in the colors that Lynne wanted to work with. Using that fabric’s pattern to her advantage, the giraffe’s nose made a big jump into a boldness and playfulness that carried on into his horns and neck.

Both Lynne and her sister, Noel worked on spiral exercises (below), that I recommend to “loosen up” with the fabric collage technique and learn while just playing with fabric in a no-stress way.

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Noel Johanson

Noel is from Middleton, Idaho, and was able to work side-by-side with her sister, Lynne. Noel’s portrait of her Nordic dog goddess, Freya, had already become very sweet and soul-full. Interestingly, Noel’s intent for this class was to “seek peace” in the process, and I believe that is happening.

Noel’s “Freya” beginning and end of the week portrait photos are above, in-progress photos are below. If you click through the enlarged photos in the gallery, you may be able to pick out some of the softly colored birds (and bird parts), that are adding detail and visual texture to Freya’s features.

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Elizabeth Imperato

Liz is from Santa Barbara, California. She has attended several of my 5-day online classes and has created a number of colorful and fantastical collage quilts—this week’s sea turtle was no exception. Plus, though I’ve had the chance to get to know Liz through those classes, there’s nothing like being able to give someone a real-life hug when you meet them in person.

Elizabeth’s sea turtle beginning and end of the week photos are above, in-progress photos are below. She said her first goal for the week was “as always, to have fun.” After that, it was to “go with the flow,” and work on the blending of fabrics from one value to the next.

This sea turtle certainly went with the flow and even progressed to the background—a Hawaiian sea and reef—for the Hawaiian friend she’s making this for.

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Vikki Hunt

Vikki is a good friend of Liz Imperalto’s, and is also from Santa Barbara, California. Though this was Vikki’s first fabric collage class, in a way, I had already met Vikki through her photography—she had given Liz permission to use her photos as inspiration and reference for collages I’ve coached Liz on.

Vikki’s sun and moon beginning and end of the week portrait photos are above, in-progress photos are below. Her intent for the week was “seeing versus looking,” and trying to work with (relatively) larger pieces of fabric—before adding little details.

Working with Vikki was interesting for me, as she has a non-fabric way of seeing. As she says on the home page of her beautiful website (vikkihuntphotography), “I don’t just photograph what I see — I photograph so that I *can* see. When you look thru your camera it clarifies your vision.” For this class she left her camera behind, and set out to see faces and fabric in a wonderfully different way.

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Morning Walks in the Heart of Santa Fe

Every morning, Darlene and I would get up early and out the hotel door as the sun was rising. Within a few minutes we’d be at a nearby cafe that opened at 6:30am, then off to explore downtown Santa Fe for an hour or so.

Openheimer Ghosts

Walking through a historic structure that now houses various shops (below), you can imagine the past where WWII history happened at Los Alamos, just a few miles outside of Santa Fe. In the Rainbowman, now a native arts gallery and bookstore, J. Robert Oppenheimer and his staff conducted screenings of those applying for access to the site. At least that’s my understanding of the story as told by an employee of the shop. In any case, I was there. But bad timing to get a coffee at “Oppie’s.”

“Santa Fe Current”

Canyon Road

With our morning walks ending at 7:30 am, Darlene and I may not have been there at the right time to enter any of the many inviting galleries along the Canyon Road Arts District, but lucky for us, amazing artwork can be found all along the stretch of road, surrounding the charming buildings. It took us three morning walks to wander through and enjoy the “magical half-mile.”

Having a soft spot in my heart for crocodiles, and an appreciation of a good tree specimen, I’ll end this post with the metal versions of each, above and below.

See you next Saturday with On the Road: The Colors of Fabric Collage in Santa Fe, NM—April 2025, Part 2, that will cover the second half of my impressive class and their artwork—including an Alien.