Susan Else Schedule

Workshops with Susan Else
Follow California artist Susan Else into the wild world of three-dimensional quilted fiber art. Learn her techniques and explore the process of making a three-dimensional scene. Both 3D workshops are designed for multiple-day formats and geared to intermediate skill levels. Most materials are provided; students bring sewing machine and basic notions.
New this year: Susan is also offering a shorter workshop on free-form fabric collage, a flat technique, which is open to any student who has basic machine-sewing skills.


                                         3D Adventures: Beasts in the Jungle

                                                              This hands-on workshop explores techniques for making organic 3D forms in fabric, from vines and
                                                              flowers to outrageous animals. To allow students to experience the process of making a complete
                                                              three-dimensional landscape, we pin our individual class samples together to make a collective
                                                              jungle scene, photograph the result, and then, at the end of the workshop, un-pin the diorama and
                                                              take our samples home. We explore the use of color, value, and scale to enhance the depth of a
                                                              piece, as well learning to create gesture, form, and movement in fabric.
                                                              This workshop can be offered in a two- to five-day format.

3D Adventures: Let's Make a Village

This workshop begins with Susan's basic methods for making people and architecture, including the use
of quilted fabric collage. For the rest of the time students continue to create figures and buildings,
eventually assembling a whole village from their individual samples. As in the jungle class, we
photograph the collective diorama we've made, and then take our individual samples home. Making a
complex landscape takes weeks or months for an individual artist, but students engaged in this cooperative
endeavor get a sense of the entire process, as well as learning to convey interaction between figures.
This workshop can be offered in a four- or five-day format.

Free-Form Fabric Collage - New this year!

Loosen up your creative sewing skills with the art of sewn collage. Susan uses this two-dimensional
technique as the basis for all of her sculpture, but it can also be used to make flat wall quilts. We will
experiment with free-form, intuitive methods as well as more controlled techniques.
Students need basic sewing-machine skills to participate in this fun and flexible workshop.
This workshop is offered in half-day, full-day, or two-day formats.

Workshop Instructor Fees, 2011: $450 per 7-hour day, plus kit fee.

Lecture - Off the Wall: Quilting in Three Dimensions

California artist Susan Else uses collaged and quilted fabric to create unusual sculpture. Ranging from wry comments
on everyday life to wild imaginary scenes, her work adds a new dimension to the usual flat format of art quilts. Her
engaging, vibrantly colored work includes free-standing figures as well as three-dimensional dioramas. Built around
armatures of foam, wire, and fiberfill, the work incorporates both hand-treated and commercial cloth as well as paint
and embellishment. In this lecture, Susan discusses the relationship of her work to the art-quilt movement and
contemporary folk art, as well as to other three-dimensional textiles. She explores how sewn cloth differs from
traditional sculptural materials such as clay and metal, and she describes her own metamorphosis from quilt-maker
to sculptor. Although she never expected to become an artist herself, Susan grew up in a family of artists who shaped
her personal vision. After "fooling around" with fabric and fiber for twenty years, she started making quilted sculpture
in 1999. In addition to one-woman shows, she has participated in many travelling exhibitions, including Quilt National.
Her work is in public and private collections throughout the U.S.

Lecture Fee, 2011: $450

To schedule a workshop or lecture please contact Susan at: susan@susanelse.com