YAS contemporary lifestyle

I promised the Etsy folks some links to Itajime - clamp dyeing -  tutorials, so here they are. Itajime Shibori, Yasmin Sabur 2011 Karen Britto is recognized as a shibori master. When you visit her site - Entwinements , make sure you set aside plenty of time. You will want to visit often, a wealth of information with great images. Entwinements Itajime Tutorial . Itajime Shibori, Yasmin Sabur, 2011 From Kaizen Journey, written for paper, but the same principles apply to fabric. Kaizen Journey Tutorial. http://kaizenjourney.blogspot.com/2008/01/itajime-shibori-process.html Itajime Shibori, Yasmin Sabur 2011

Social Networks - Facebook and LinkedIn Lino Cut, printed on rice paper, mounted on recycled card stock. The block was cut in the 1980s, and printed in 2009. Yasmin Sabur ART There is enough information on the web about social networking without writing a new book. I have a Facebook business page, in addition to my Facebook profile page. Facebook changes frequently. This can be a good thing or if you can't figure out how to do what you are used to doing on FB, it can be frustrating. Start with this series of articles for setting up an FB fan page from Farmer SEO . This article by Mari Smith from Social Media Examiner should be helpful in increasing your FB audience. For advanced FB take a look at this page from about us.org . You can sell directly on Facebook in many different ways. Etsy and Artfire storefronts can be added on tabs or linked to on your landing page. Try the FB application Payvment . Facebook has a wide variety of applications. The difficulty is in find...

Have a wonderful weekend.

A while ago, a potter whose work I admire and keep up with, had her first sale on Dawanda. Dawanda is an European version of Etsy. She was surprised because her shop had been up for awhile and this was her first sale. I think, if I remember correctly, that she asked a question about DIY in Europe, I made a comment and moved on. So, this morning when I opened my emails and had a dispute message from PayPay, I was reminded of the potter's reaction to the Dawanda sale. Only my stuff, because it is my stuff, was kind of different. I made my first sale at Artfire in a shop I thought I'd closed, of an item I sold a long time ago somewhere else, with a notification of the sale going to an inactive email address resulting in a dispute. Not being one to any longer pay much attention to all of the small mishaps that tend to occur in my life on a daily basis, I sent the poor person who will never receive the scarf that everyone who saw it coveted, an email of apology along with ...

Artwear, Yasmin Sabur 2010 I have a monthly budget for purchasing books and subscriptions. Mainly because I would, if given the opportunity, spend way too much money on reading and reference materials. Also, because my little house really can't take nare another thing. (The public library is a wonderful place.) This month I purchased John Gillow's "African Textiles Color and Creativity Across a Continent" published by Thames & Hudson. I highly recommend it. As coincidence would have it (so much coincidence in my life, yours too?) John Gillow will be making a presentation at Beet Root Tree in Draycott, Derbyshire, England on Thursday 12th May 2011 at 7.00pm - 9.00pm. Go if you live in the area and can. Let me know how the presentation turns out. Further Info From Beet Root Tree: "To make an evening of it we will be serving an internationally themed supper and the chance to purchase items from the main exhibition at a discount for the evening. "...

Silk Habotai Scarf, Yasmin Sabur 2009, Shibori Components of the Re-branding -  A Blog You need a blog. This where you will have an opportunity to increase your web exposure. Web sites are fairly static. Blogs change and new content can be added as often as you feel like creating a post. The search engines love new content. It is wonderful if the web site host you've selected comes with the ability to set up a blog, but if not, you should be able to either link to or import a blog to your web site. This saves time and energy. Blogger (a Google product), Wordpress, Typepad are the most prevalent. Some web sites are set up to easily interact with one or the other. Choices here. If you like your blog host you may want to look for a web host where you can continue to use your current blog. If, like me, you have blogs on both Wordpress and Blogger, then you may have to make a choice of using one or the other depending on which one the web site connects to. My...

Silk Charmeuse Scarf, Yasmin Sabur 2009, hand dyed, hand painted with metallics. (There are 11 Components that I've selected, really long, so I've split this one into several posts. Components of the Re-branding 1. Web site – best if you also purchase a domain name. (So you get yasminsabur.com, not yasminsabur.myhost.com.) Social media say the very best approach is to host your own site for maximum control. I have designed and developed web sites, and I'm not sure if it's worth the effort. Portfolio websites are pretty straight forward. Most of us will be directing folks to our sites, not getting a lot of traffic from SEO or SEM. So if a web host gives you the opportunity to create a clean site, with space for lots of images, the ability to include contact info (critical) and maybe add a slide show, that's good enough for me. The gallery owners, jurors, curators and museums are not interested in whether or not you know html, but in the quality of your work. ...

Okay guys, why didn't someone tell me that when I changed colors for this blog, I made the background and the link color the same and you can't see any links. This would account for the blank spaces in the last several posts. On my way to correct that, now.

This episode of Culture Wire features Museum of the African Diaspora's (MoAD) current exhibition Textural Rhythms: Constructing the Jazz Tradition, Contemporary African American Quilt. Join Director of Cultural Affairs Luis R. Cancel as he chats with Grace Stanislaus about the show. For more info, visit http://www.moadsf.org

Work in Progress,  Wall Hanging, 84X42 inches, detail from the Yasmin Sabur ART Studio, March 2011 Cotton batiste, lined with silk organza, hand and machine stitched resist, dyed Really, so much good news about the growth of fiber arts this week. A new gallery for art quilts opening in New York City! The Art Quilt Gallery Work in Progress, Wall Hanging, 84X42 inches, detail from the Yasmin Sabur ART Studio, March 2011 Cotton batiste, lined with silk organza, hand and machine stitched resist, dyed And the Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance is projecting the opening of a 2000 sq foot facility in Atlanta, in July 2011. The SEFAA needs your support. Eventually the purchase of a 14,000 sq foot building is planned. Work in Progress, Wall Hanging, 84X42 inches, detail from the Yasmin Sabur ART Studio, March 2011 Cotton batiste, lined with silk organza, hand and machine stitched resist, dyed Put your money where your mouth is and donate .

There are a lot of preconceived notions of who collects art. Major corporations, museums, the wealthy. My favorite collectors are folks just like you and me, who have made a commitment to supporting art, artists and culture. Carol Briggs of Chicago is my kind of collector. Filmed by Najee Dorsey.

"Meditation for Judith and Kumari" detail, 2010 Yasmin Sabur, hand dyed, resist This morning I opened my emails and found a newsletter from Alyson Stanfield, the Art Biz Coach on what art consultants look for in an artist's web site. Timely. To sum up the advice and comments - show pricing, show artist contact Info, quick download and getting straight to the work without having to click around the site. So some of this I knew. But the advice on getting straight to the work, means I will redesign my home page. Think I'll put the text "The Work" smack in the middle of my home page with a link directly to my galleries. Then beneath the text, the name of each gallery with a composite image of some of the work included in that gallery.  "Meditation for Judith and Kumari"   detail, 2010 Yasmin Sabur, hand dyed, clamped More on the website Having a site that easily links to images and blogs was important to me. Flickr vs. Picasa, Blogger vs. ...

"Senegal" Yasmin Sabur, 2011, resist dyed, block printed, hand painted I got a question about Procion MX dye from a friend who has never worked with this particular fiber reactive dye. Not sure if I'm the right person to answer the question. I've been working with Procion since the late 1960s and I'm sure that I no longer follow any of the published directions for using. Would I let that stop me from running my mouth on the subject? No way. 1. The first thing is understanding what fiber reactive means. Procion forms a chemical bond with natural fiber fabrics - cotton, silk, linen, ramie, rayon and wool. In order for the chemical bonding to take place you add fairly ordinary chemicals to develop the color and to facilitate the bond. Plain salt (not iodized), urea, and soda ash. 2. Procion dye for cotton does not require heat. This is one of it's outstanding qualities. So sometimes Procion is referred to as a cold water fiber active dye. 3. Procion ma...

This is what I am working on during the first week of March. The Steps  The fabric is a striped cotton damask sheet which I purchased from a thrift store. The fabric is soaked in a soda ash and water solution (buy at a pool supply store for the best price). Minimum soak time 15 minutes, doesn't matter if you leave it soaking for a longer time. While the fabric is soaking I mix up my dye, using Procion MX dye and adding urea. The dye should be mixed into a paste before adding to water to thoroughly dissolve the dye powder. I work outside. As a safety precaution, wear gloves and a mask. The urea can be added to the dye and water solution or mixed separately with water and then added to the dissolved dye. The fabric was folded on a diagonal (while damp) and then dye was poured on the edges. I set the dyed fabric covered with plastic outside to cure for 24 hours. I live in Southern California, where sometime during most days the temperature will reach 70 degrees. If you li...

A Home "Sidi-Yahya" Yasmin Sabur, 2011 (This piece is from a series of hand dyed, hand woven fabric strips, hand stitched, the series is entitled " Intersections and each work is titled around the city of Timbuctu, Mali, an ancient trade intersection city.) In the past, I’ve used a cloud server, designed and developed my own web sites. Now this feels like too much to do. So I looked at several web site hosts and did a test run on three. Two of the three were too complicated and didn’t offer a full range of bells and whistles. (Because I know how to develop web sites using Dreamweaver and work with both PhotoShop and Illustrator, when I say complicated, that is exactly what I mean.) I decided to go with Weebly.com. The deciding factors: FREE!!!!!!!!!!!! Web site for portfolio, blog, shopping cart and business email all in one place. Video, flash, sound and html available. Totally user friendly, any one can get set up in minutes. What’s not to like? Are you...

What to do? Mansa Musa Yasmin Sabur 2011 Hand dyed, woven, hand stitched Select and set up web site Design logos Thoughtfully select name (SEO) Update blog Update FB Update LinkedIn, add a company page Update Black Artists in America Take photos Update Picasa Update Flickr Add Cashie to sales sites List items Write bio, artists statement, resume Set up Mail Chimp for e-newsletters Set up PR Web for press releases Well, that's enough for a minute