Woods Hole Village Quilt

Posted on December 11, 2009 by Salley Mavor

A few years ago, my friend Terry McKee and I designed and organized the making of a community quilt for the Woods Hole Public Library.

We asked local quilters to make squares depicting buildings and scenes from our Cape Cod village. I was honored to make the center square of the library, a familiar sight with a distinctive round stone exterior. My family has lived here since the 1920’s when my scientist grandfather, James Mavor Sr., came to set up a lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory. As a child in the 60’s, I remember walking with my class the short distance to the library from the Woods Hole School (one of the quilt squares). Today, the library is still a central part our community, one that reflects the unique charm and character of our village.

In the process of making the library square, I found some stone wall fabric that looked remarkably like the building. I decided to liven up the scene with appliqued bushes and vines made with batik fabrics. About twenty women worked on the quilt in 2006 and 2007, and it was hung in the Library stairwell in early 2008. Come and see our beautiful quilt! For those of you who travel on the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, the library is just up the hill from the dock.

The Woods Hole Community Quilt is now featured in a 2010 Calendar, which was made to celebrate the centennial year of the Woods Hole Public Library.

Terry McKee (left) and Salley Mavor with the framed Woods Hole Quilt

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Close-ups (Cats)

Posted on December 8, 2009 by Salley Mavor

Today, I’m starting a regular series called Close-ups, which will feature detailed images taken from my artwork. I’m having fun grouping different subjects for future posts. There will be close-ups from my childhood drawings, student work, sculpture, illustrations and fabric relief pieces, all presented in somewhat chronological order. The following cats are from my books, The Hollyhock Wall, Felt Wee Folk, Wee Willie Winkie and the upcoming book Pocketful of Posies.

For a tutorial on how to make this cat pin, see another post here.

from “Wee Willie Winkie”

detail from Pocketful of Posies

from “Pocketful of Posies”

Note: See other posts in the Close-ups series archive here.

Walking the Dog

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Salley Mavor

I started making Walking the Dog soon after my mother died in 2005. It is a kind of modern-day mourning needlework piece, popular in 19th century America, although in mine, there are no figures dressed in black, grieving under weeping willows. My mother loved color and I don’t remember ever seeing her wear plain black or brown. I thought about her throughout the process, about her gift of nonjudgmental encouragement and her willingness to provide time, space and materials for everyone in our household to create works of art. To her, art wasn’t an extra, but an essential part of everyday life.

My mother, Mary (Hartwell) Mavor, holds up a newspaper announcing the end of WWII, while a student at RISD in Providence, RI

I often think about how wise and thoughtful she was. In a term paper about art education for her master’s degree in 1965, she wrote, “The student should be encouraged to find his own way, but this does not mean the void of laissez-faire.

Drawing of my Mom by an unknown RISD classmate, mid 1940’s

Children need a structured exposure to many ways of seeing, doing and thinking. To teach art, the teacher must be an artist. By having confidence in their own abilities, teachers will be able to sensitize children to want to learn and care—not just problem solving. Through intuitive discovery a child will find himself, what he believes and be really free, even in a computer society. By giving students something to do—learn and contemplate what they can understand naturally—will give them the values needed today.”

“Walking the Dog”, fabric relief by Salley Mavor 2005, 20″ x 23″

I started making Walking the Dog by spreading out a bunch of metal parts I’d been collecting onto my work table. Several of the objects, like the wrenches and drawer pull, I’d found a few years earlier at the Liberty Tool Company in Liberty, Maine. I had no plan and tried to approach the project as an open exercise that may or may not lead to something tangible. I started playing around with the shapes and a figure emerged, then a dog made from an old key and a lamp pull chain leash. Later I added a handbag to balance the dog on the other side. Earrings and a brooch became her breasts and tummy. Then the figure needed a place to be, so I made her a hillside out of wool felt. One thing led to the other, with the earth needing a felt atmosphere, which then needed to be contained with ricrac. I finished it off with lots of French knots, chain-stitched curly ques, and added a border made from a long section of antique button loops. Then I mounted the felt piece to some leopard-like spotted upholstery fabric. It ended up being a very satisfying experience, with something to show for it. Thank you, Mum.

I recently found these childhood drawings and can see that my subjects and style haven’t changed much in almost 50 years!

Walnut Shells

Posted on November 23, 2009 by Salley Mavor

There’s nothing like the sight of a sleeping baby. I’m constantly on the lookout for natural objects that can be used as beds for my dolls. A baby can curl up in a cradle made from half a walnut-shell.

This walnut is bigger than most that you can buy in a bag at the super market. I usually pick out the larger ones during Thanksgiving season, when the stores sell them in loose bins. I am a curious sight, digging through the box, determined to find the biggest ones. To make the nuts more easy to split open, bake them in a low oven at about 200 degrees for a few hours. They start to crack along the center seam and you can then break them open with a knife. You can also cut the shells open with a fine saw. In the above illustration from my up-coming book, Pocketful of Posies (Sept. 2010), I sawed half a walnut-shell in half again lengthwise, so that the side could be seen in relief.

This blue suited baby is lying on real reindeer moss in a walnut-shell. He is part of an illustration from my board book, Wee Willie Winkie, on the page that says, “Are the children in their beds?” This image is available as a note card in my Etsy Shop. I edged the felt leaf with wire to give it a curvy, raised lip that fits the shape of the walnut. You can glue the shell in place or drill holes and sew it like a button.

detail from “You and Me Poems of Friendship” 1997

Apple Orchard

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Salley Mavor

This piece from 1992 was inspired by some metal apple crate tags which I found on our property on Cape Cod.

APPLE ORCHARD, fabric relief by Salley Mavor, 1992, 22" x 27"

detail from APPLE ORCHARD

An apple orchard was here about 100 years ago and all that remains are these tags that appear from time to time on the ground in the woods. The metal is stamped with the names Fall Pippin, Baldwin and McIntosh. I’ve used them to frame the border, along with a kid leather lattice pie crust in a silver bracelet pie dish. The woman’s pig fabric apron is made from a childhood dress of my mother’s from about 1930.

Metal apple crate tags, pie with leather lattice crust in a silver bracelet

Apple Crate tags

Over the years I’ve accumulated kid leather gloves from my grandmother and great aunts. It seems like ladies from their era could not have too many gloves. The leather is thin and easy to cut with scissors. It can also be painted with fabric or acrylic paint.

kid leather gloves

Joining the Blogging world! Selfportrait

Posted on November 16, 2009 by Salley Mavor

detail from Self Portrait : A Personal History of Fashion 2007

This blog is an opportunity to share my creative life with you, whether you’ve seen my illustrations in children’s books, have made projects from my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk, or are a lover of embroidery and textile art. I will share pictures of my studio and work in progress, along with images and artists that I find inspirational. After years of quietly working in my own private space, I feel compelled to communicate with like-minded people, who have a passion for stitching. I plan to present current work as well as dip into the past, showing early works made during my 40 year career. It may take a while for me to become comfortable sharing my ideas and reflections in writing, as I am more content to make and show than explain in words. So, rest assured that I will be posting lots of images!

Self Portrait: a personal history of fashion, 2007

I made this piece for a self-portrait invitational show in 2007. It shows a spiral of dolls, one for each year, starting with my birth date in the center. Each figure is dressed in an outfit I would have worn that year, taken from memories, family photos or imagination. The dolls are a variation of the wee folk and fairies in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk.

Self-Portrait detail

I made many of my original dresses and recreated them here with smaller scale fabric and embroidered wool felt. My husband, Rob, appears the year we were married and my sons, Peter and Ian, are included through the years when they were little and physically connected to me. The tatting around the outside of the circle was made by my late grandmother, Louise Salley Hartwell. The wool felt spiral is mounted on upholstery fabric, which I embellished with multicolored french knots.

When the piece is not included in one of my exhibitions, it is on semi-permanent display at the Woods Hole Public Library, Woods Hole, MA. My husband Rob and I made the following film set to music I remember hearing through the years.

Self-Portrait detail

Posters and cards are available in my Etsy Shop here.

Poster – Self Portrait

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