Jane Dunnewold

Choir. 2001 From the Disciples of Life series. mixed media textile - two layers: silk broadcloth with silk organza overlay (44" x 84")Jane Dunnewold is a professional artist and teacher, and notably, the author of Art Cloth: A Guide to Surface Design on Fabric (Interweave 2010) and several other self-published books. She teaches internationally and maintains Art Cloth Studios in San Antonio, Texas.

When did you feel your art became your own?

For me, the real question was: When would I choose to honor my own work by refusing to compromise it?

Early in my career I had to acknowledge that as a single mother I was going to have to pay the bills. I couldn't sleep at night when I worried about where the next check was coming from, or whether someone would like my work enough to buy it. At that point I decided to rely on my teaching skills and work to perfect them, so that I would have a stable livelihood.

A couple of years later, when my work began to sell, I encountered the issue of making work for myself versus making work a gallery thought would sell. Since my livelihood was derived from teaching, I decided not to work with galleries. This isn't the right choice for everyone, but it was the right choice for me. It was a fundamental gift I gave myself without being aware of it at the time. As Katherine Hepburn said, "If you always please yourself, at least somebody is happy."

It Was a Prayer They Said Together Often. 1997. Mixed media/textile in wooden box (14" x 24")When did you feel you’d found your own artistic voice?

I've always had it. I’ve been blessed with a flow of creative ideas that never seems to stop. Perhaps it's fueled by the writing I use in tandem with making. I look at the world, think about relationships and ideas all the time, and read lots of psychological and spiritual writing by others.

An artist's work is shaped by the tools he or she chooses. My first tools of choice were stamps, stencils and silkscreens - repetitive mark making tools - unlike painting with a brush. Being able to generate multiple images easily translated into working in a series for me. It Was a Prayer They Said Together Often is from my first series - which revolved around a set of art prints given to me by an elderly neighbor.

I transferred the pictures to silk fabric using solvent, and then embellished the pieces with beads, safety pins and handwritten passages in gold leaf. I witnessed the power that could be imbued in work when every aspect of the piece had meaning - by being added intentionally.

Was there any influence in your life that you felt that pushed your work to another level?

Butterflies/Sumac/Thistle 2009 from the Sacred Planet series. Digitally printed fabric with screenprinting (54" x 70")My work got deeper when I decided I wanted meaning to drive my image selection and process. Prior to that, tools drove the meaning. Now meaning drives the tools. I don’t want to make flippant work. Being an artist is a privilege. I want to put work out there that has something challenging to say. Through my series’ I have explored political, natural and social boundaries (Disciple of Life), and the degradation of the planet (Sacred Planet) The forty-eight pieces in Etudes were created in four months and are my witness to the value of a daily practice. I love my finished work, but it’s what happens inside me during the process of making that really matters. As Don Henley wrote, “You never see a hearse with a luggage rack.”

Jane Dunnewold Resources

Jane Dunnewold Website
The Art Cloth Change Purse
TWELVE VOICES FROM ONE
Existential Neighborhood

Jane is Vice President of the international Surface Design Association.

Books by Jane Dunnewold

• Art Cloth: A Guide to Surface Design for Fabric, (2010)
• Screen Printing Sampler: 4 Fun & Innovative Ways to Make Artful Cloth with Jane Dunnewold (Quilting Arts Workshop), (2010)
• Paper and Metal Leaf Lamination: A Mixed Media Approach with Cloth by Claire Benn, Jane Dunnewold and Leslie Morgan, ( 2008 )
• Finding Your Own Visual Language: A Practical Guide to Design and Composition by Claire Benn, Jane Dunnewold and Leslie Morgan (2007)
• Improvisational Screen Printing, (2003)
• 15 Beads: A Guide To Creating One-of-a-kind Beads , (1999)
• Complex Cloth: A Guide to Surface Design, (1996)
  

  #34 from the Etude series. 2011. mixed media textile: silk, India ink, black sand, embroidery (14" x 40")