Fiber artist #2 - Esterita Austin

Continuing my #5femaleartists posts about fiber artists who have influenced me with Esterita Austin.  Esterita teaches nationally (mostly at quilt stores) and I was fortunate enough to take her class about using paint on fused applique compositions.  The class I took is no longer listed on her page as she's developed new and more interesting classes. 

For me, that class was an eye opener.  It was in the early 2000's and I had not yet discovered silkscreening or even painting on quilts.  I was doing everything with fabric and thread.  The class used a composition she had developed with rocks in the foreground and a couple of tree trunks on the right.  The fabric requirements specified multi tone and color fabric.  And I learned an amazing amount about letting the fabric carry the values of shadow and highlight and adding emphasis through paint. She was originally trained as a painter and all of her classes use that training skillfully to teach quilters to use an artist's eye. Clearly this workshop was important to me since I'm remembering so much detail 15 years later.

Workshop result with some additions

After the workshop, I was in complete love with the tree trunks.  Most of the texture on them was added by some delicate painting which really popped them as 3D.  I later added the sunset sky by printing on sheer fabric from a nice photo I had.  And there was some other experimentation with shiva paint sticks and rubbing plates done that added visual texture to the water. 

Several years later (2013/2014)  I took a second workshop from her on doing fabric self-portraits.  The piece that came out of that workshop (see below) is the only piece ever displayed in my Georgetown studio that had someone walk into the studio, make a beeline to the piece, and ask loudly "Whose is this?  How much does it cost?"  That was a thrilling moment for me but I told him it wasn't for sale. 

I found the emphasis on tone rather than color freeing and have used things I learned from her regularly in my work.  I haven't browsed her class list in a while but looking at it for this blog is making me think it's time for another workshop.  This time I'll go for the paint on sheer fabric one as I already had using sheers on my experimentation list for this year.

I heartily recommend browsing her gallery and her students gallery for some other samples of this type of colorful work.