01 Feb How Small Biz, Textiles, Trim, Belts and Chain Inspire Creativity!

Happy Texture Tuesday!  With all that’s going on in our country and the world, I thought I’d give your mind (and mine) a break with this week’s Texture Tuesday.  I feature three textile art pillows I’ve submitted to apply for art exhibitions. Some exhibitions your work gets accepted, and others it doesn’t. I’m currently waiting to hear back from two.

I thought you might enjoy seeing the creative process that goes on behind the scenes in the Deborah Main Designs studio for each art piece I handcraft.

Often, like the above photo, I start with the textiles. I’ve had this fabulous snakeskin fabric in my collection and been dying to use it, but the right project never came along, until last fall when I started to get serious about applying to art exhibitions.  (More on that in future posts.)

Each textile art pillow is inspired by the materials I use but the spark of creativity comes to artists in many different ways. I remember reading about a writer who had to get in her attic closet for her to start writing.  Thankfully, I don’t have to do that!!  

For me to get started on a piece, it’s usually the texture or color of a textile or other materials, and the story behind it that gives way to my burst of creativity.

I’ve collected for years everything from vintage cocktail dresses to belts, fur, lace, vintage French trim, jewelry, antique textiles and more.  Like the vintage silver metallic belt below.  I found it at Flashback vintage shop and loved how it’s color and texture worked with the snakeskin textile.

As long as I’ve had my small business, part of my creativity process has been the hunt and shopping at Austin’s treasure trove of vintage shops.

I relish the hunt – the discovery of finding something totally unique and the Aha! moment when I realize it’s the perfect piece for my textile art project.

A little back story: I bought my very first vintage textile at Amelia’s Retro-Vogue & Relics and turned it into one of my prized Limited Editions. It’s had several interpretations, starting out as fabulous over-sized pillows at my longest account, a luxury fine linen store in Dallas, Casa di Lino.

To last spring, where the above smaller version was commissioned by interior designer Johnathan Legate for NYC charity event Design on a Dime (DOAD). The black velvet piping and smaller size Jonathan suggested made for a totally different pillow art interpretation. I recently sold a pair to a new collector, for his custom-made modern sofa, at my Holiday Open Studio & Sample Sale this past winter.

The story behind this wonderful vintage textile is that it was in a private estate from a woman who traveled to “The Orient”, which is what Asia was called back in the 40’s and 50’s.

It brings me great joy, through my art, to re-purpose a textile into multiple ways for my collectors to enjoy in their homes for years to come.  

But there’s been a kink put into my creativity recently. Sadly, South 1st Street is rapidly being redeveloped to where most of my vintage and sewing resources, part of Austin’s charm, will be gone.  While Amelia’s brick and mortar has closed (to be replaced by a storage unit facility. Now, how inspiring is that!?!?), Flashback is alive and well and so is Amelias. Owner Jane Clarke, has transformed her small business into a NEW online store store and soon a couple of Air Streams to shop in. (I can’t wait!)

But sadly, even Stitch Lab, where I first learned to sew and make pillows, is having to close because they could not find affordable rent anywhere else in Austin.

I digress. But there’s an important reason, a selfish one really.  The growth has negatively impacted not only many small businesses that make up Austin’s unique creative world, but also the artists who can no longer afford the sky-rocketing rents.

Austin developers and City of Austin take note: You may take away our small businesses we love, but you will NEVER take away our souls and passion. Small business owners will find new ways to continue to offer their incredible collections which are at the heart of what makes Austin so unique.

Thankfully, my studio is in my home. But these losses have greatly impacted my work as an artist!

Part of the fun of sparking my creativity was to jump in my car and whip over to S. 1st street and S. Congress to visit my fave vintage boutiques, find new treasures and gab with the owners, my long-time friends and supporters.

You see, Jane Clarke at Amelia’s would set aside special textiles just for me and visiting with her, seeing all the vintage goodies in her shop, has always been a HUGE inspiration to me!

And an education too!  Jane has a wealth of knowledge from 30 years in the vintage collecting business and has been one of my biggest, long-time supporters.

But change and growth happen, and I’ve had to discover new sources of creative inspiration like vintage chain and beads, and thankfully, one of them is right around the corner from my studio, Bead It Austin.

Bead It may not survive the re-development of S. Lamar, but for now their staff have been a huge help in teaching me how to quickly string beads. Here I am below trying to learn on the spot (because the art application due date was in a couple days) how to make jewelry.

You see, I’m not a jewelry designer at all! My daughter, Qin, is the jewelry designer in our family. But I had no choice to learn some basics fast in order to bring my concept to fruition for this textile art piece, The Jett, below.

I went into Bead It one day and came out with gobs of vintage chain, even some vintage Chanel beads in The Anastasia.  I call that a major score and it definitely inspired my creativity!  When I bought all this below I had no idea how I was going to use it.  But it soon revealed itself.

Below is the inspiration for the necklace I hand beaded for The Jett (yes, named after rocker Joan Jett) and you can see on the shop’s table the makings of a similar style necklace in silver tone.

Now, onto the three textile art pieces I’ve made to apply to get into art exhibitions. Below is a collage of the three pieces: Top left is The Anastasia, bottom left, La Centinella, and bottom right, The Jett.

You’ve seen above the sources for my inspiration and how I jump start my creative process.

For The Anastasia I started with the vintage cocktail dress below.

Then I laid everything out on my cutting table and started from there. At first, it’s totally overwhelming and I have no idea where to begin. But as I play with all my delicious materials visualizing the artwork in my head, I begin to narrow it down. It’s like a painter’s paints. Since I work as a textile artist (a transition that I’ll be writing more about in the future) my paints are all my collected materials I incorporate into each piece of pillow art –  vintage French trim, jewelry, belts, fur, chains, fringe, beading and more.

It’s when I start playing around with my materials, imagining different possibilities….well, that is when the real spark of creativity gets lit!

Below is The Anastasia. As you can see, my textile pillow artwork incorporates a variety of new and vintage materials in many different layers. It was thrilling to be able to add the gold chain and Chanel beads and crystals I hand strung for this piece. And of course, I had bought the vintage fur and dazzling amber brooch at Amelia’s Retro-vogue & Relics.

Lastly, are some images of La Centinella. There are only two of this textile art piece. The first one, in these photos, I created in 2015 for the BD West Art Pillow Challenge and donated it to the charity Invincable Me. The second one, I just submitted to an art exhibition application on Monday. Fingers crossed one of these three art pieces gets my work into the exhibition; find out Feb 7th.

Below, for La Centinella, I outline the steps in the process (from a previous blog post) of taking all the unique materials and pulling them together into my textile pillow art.  I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about my inspiration and process of creativity.  At least it’s a nice break from politics, right?

Thank you for reading my blog.  If there’s any other subjects you’d like me to write about, please let me know in the comment section below. Till next time, I hope this inspires you to support and shop your local small businesses and discover how to spark your own creativity.  XO PG

(Note: All photography is mine, except where noted, by Gregg Cestaro.)

The Experimentation & Creation Stage – Keeping the color palette in a contemporary gray, I re-purposed a putty gray designer fabric sample as my canvas – a crocodile-pattern textile by the family-owned Italian company, Dedar (below).

For artistic ornamentation, I selected one of my favorite black, vintage French metallic trims in an Art Deco pattern (below). This particular trimming is from a vast collection of rare vintage French trim that I’ve collected from old European factories that no longer exist.

Inspired by the warm colors of luxury boutique hotel interiors, I placed a copper mesh ribbon underneath the French trim so that the color peeks through the intricately cut metallic pattern. Below is the back of the mitered corners with the copper mesh sewn to the vintage French trim. I tried some vintage French lace (above) as the backdrop but that’s what the experimentation stage is all about – trying different materials and textures. I loved the lace texture, but as you read further down, I changed it a few times to get the exact look I was after and it resulted in replacing it with an ultra-soft vintage fur.

Below is the vintage belt that I’ve had in my collection for quite some time now, just waiting for the perfect project!

The texture of this belt with the shiny black leather and black and golden wooden hair-pipe beads really spoke to me….and became the driving force of my design. 

I took it to one of our great local small businesses, The Golden Slipper, to get it cut and properly prepared so my vintage Necchi sewing machine (which is not industrial) could sew on the leather.  The belt leather was too thick, so I had them attach a thinner leather on each end.

Here I am, below taking the exact measurements of the rectangle frame I created so the belt would line up perfectly flush with it.

Here’s my vintage sewing machine where I’m sewing the copper mesh ribbon to the back of the vintage French trim. (My machine is graced with fun stickers my daughter put on there when she was about 10 years old.)

Here’s the final frame I sewed together (below) for the centerpiece of the pillow, the vintage French Art Deco pattern trim with a layer of copper mesh underneath.  I’m not exceptionally talented when it comes to mitering corners, so I thank my expert seamstress who gave me an emergency lesson.  It’s kind of like zippers…not my favorite part of sewing, but must be done absolutely perfectly!

The “Aha Moment” Production Stage – It was really after I put the copper mesh ribbon underneath the vintage French trim that I had my first “Aha moment”.  I then knew exactly which textile would be perfect to give the pillow that modern sensibility – a new copper and black, diamond-pattern silk brocade that I hand-selected in Suzhou China (below). And then my second “Aha Moment” came when I remembered I had the vintage Chinchilla fur.

The artistic process of creating the centerpiece, working with black Victorian lace at first, soon evolved into a four-layer applique I meticulously handcrafted.  To offset the organic nature and movement of the beads, I contrasted the textures by creating an ultra-soft, luxurious bed of vintage Chinchilla fur (instead of using the lace).

Suddenly, my applique was transformed from a vintage French design into a tribal centerpiece with a definitive global, yet elegant and modern look and feel. How perfect I thought for the international clientele of the hospitality industry.

You can see here how these textures captivated my creativity!  I love how they are all so very different from one another.  All I had to do was figure out a way for the fur to not come up between the beads. The beading needed to present itself in the clean, modern lines that I wanted the belt to demonstrate as the focal point of the applique centerpiece.  Easily solved with a backing of black thick fabric for stability of the beads.

Here I am hand-stitching (below) the applique I made for the pillow’s centerpiece onto the putty gray crocodile top fabric.

I was very proud to enter my one-of-a-kind luxury pillow “Vintage French Modern Tribal” for the “Invincible Me Pillow Art Challenge” and have it auctioned off at the BD West Fair to help raise funds for women, not as fortunate as many of us, who are working hard to become strong and  “invincible” through rediscovering their independence and self worth. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to create and donate!

What I love most about creating one-of-a-kind luxury textile art pillows is the surprising transformation that comes from mixing together new and vintage materials, which alone make one statement, but when combined, create a totally new and different experience with multiple layers of depth and texture.

Now please enjoy these gorgeous images below that award-winning photographer Gregg Cestaro took of my pillow on location at John-William Interiors, a long-time Austin fine furnishing and design center.