Workshop - Intro to Indigo & Shibori

Workshop for members of the Art Quilt Associates of the Grand Valley (AQuA).

This mini-workshop is intended to introduce participants to the process and possibilities of “shaped resist” and the fun of indigo dyeing. After an introduction to the indigo vat and demonstrations of techniques, participants will practice clamping, binding, folding, and wrapping. There will be time and sufficient dye for experimenting; participants may wish to bring experimental fibers or prepared stitched pieces to dye. Julia studied Shibori with artist and scholar Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada, founder of the World Shibori Network and Slow Fiber Studios. She then learned how to grow and process indigo from Rowland Ricketts and grows plants from the seed stock he brought to the US from Japan.

Timefulness - Crossbedding

Last month my work was published in Patchwork Professional, an international magazine based in Germany. I’ve received a lot of questions from viewers about the works in the images. In a nutshell: Timefulness is a body of work inspired by the writings of geologist Marcia Bjornerud. The Crossbedding Series is an ongoing exploration of time, place, and “timefulness” inspired by the rock formations of the Colorado Plateau. Crossbedded layers create patterns that defy logic, inspiring contemplation of their formation and the relationship of self to this grand scale of time.

I make the work through a process that simulates the geologic processes - both require time and layers. The texture is formed through hand-stitching, which is labor-intensive but is the only way to produce the patterns and textures that I am seeking. Such processes enable me to contemplate “deep time” as I work. Stitching, unstitching, cutting, layering, assembling, and more stitching are all part of the process that result in abstracted represenations of my experience of canyon country.

Solo Exhibition - August 2019

Post-Frontier Landscapes

Solo Exhibition, R2 Gallery

Opening Reception

6 - 8 p.m. Friday August 9th, 2019

Carbondale Arts Center at The Launchpad

76 S. 4th St., Carbondale, Colorado

https://www.carbondalearts.com/r2-gallery/

“Based outside Grand Junction, Julia March Crocetto’s solo exhibition “Post-Frontier Landscapes” presents a topographical body of work rooted in research and process that investigates waterways of the west. Incorporating creative mapping, found materials, surface design, and textiles, the resulting pieces appear as mysterious, painterly abstractions.”

Post-Frontier Landscapes is a facet of my study of borderzones and anomalies, which developed from my attempts to connect with place and grapple with my faulty memories of the West. This attention to anomaly was amplified when I moved to the desert from the lush Pacific Northwest three years ago. “Post-Frontier” is my description of the present condition of the American West; on the surface it feels familiar and evokes nostalgia, upon closer inspection it reveals the colonial, drought-afflicted story of the Anthropocene. It is my response to anomalies such as administrative lines on a map, often arbitrary to the topographic, biological, or cultural content of the land they transect. It is my lament for loss of wilderness and innocence, that there is no place in the American West “untrammeled by man”.

Employing creative mapping, I layer found materials, impressions recorded on location, scientific data, and actions such as tracing, wrapping, stitching, and unstitching. Mental states of solastalgia (pain related to loss of home/place), topophilia (love of place and landscape), and biophilia (love of nature) are parts of the equation.