Carol Anne Teague (Cat) Wiseman
I am a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) from the days when "cut and paste" meant using an Exacto blade and rubber cement. The technology that I currently use for my artworks hasn’t changed all that much!
I’ve had a long and varied design career. After art school, most of my life was spent earning a living as a display designer and as a freelancer. I've been a calligrapher, stencil designer, textile designer (West Africa), and jewelry designer (India). However, since 2000, I’ve concentrated on fabric artworks of woven ribbon or, most recently, fabric collages.
Ribbon Weaving
Fabric Collage
I sell my work in craft shows from Camden, Maine, to Lincoln Center in New York, as well as on Etsy. You can also find pieces of my work in Providence at Studio Hop on Hope Street.
My guiding principle is that art should be fun. And, if possible, funny.
For inspiration as a fabric collagist, I'm attracted to quilts for their color and pattern, to odd vintage photos, and arresting graphics images. To represent women’s fashions from the Belle Epoque, I print photos directly onto fabric, then hand-color them.
The combination of photos and fabric is a happy pairing; a technique found in many contemporary quilts and sometimes in fabric collage.
My process always starts with an existing image that appeals to me. Graphic design, color, and pattern are especially important qualities. To find my subjects, I browse books and search online.
Once chosen, I enlarge the original, make a line drawing of it, and cut out the component parts, each becoming a template.
I lay each template on a fabric that I have chosen for its color, texture, or pattern. Critical to my projects is having a large stash of fabric.
Almost everything I have was given to me by friends or family who have worked for fabric or fabric-dyeing companies.
Once a template is traced onto its fabric, I cut out the fabric shape and glue it onto a cloth underlayment. This process is repeated for each element of a design. The finished piece is then stretched, as a painting would be, and is ready to frame or hang as is.
Making The Sailor Girl collage.
The original.
The line drawing.
Half stencil, half fabric.
The finished collage.
I’m a member of the Edgewood Village. My home studio is a converted garage with two windows overlooking the Providence River in Pawtuxet Village, RI.
Come on inside and let me show you around.
Hover cursor over this image to enlarge.
When I started this fruit-crate-label alphabet quilt, I didn’t really think about how I would have to put together 26 pieces! Finding a fruit crate label for every letter of the alphabet was a challenge, but really fun!
Hover cursor over the inset image to enlarge.
I loved doing these bugs, but it really involved more embroidery than I wanted to do!
These masks are from indigenous tribes of the coast of British Columbia, north of Vancouver. Some happy, some sad, some scary!
My marbled fabric pieces are based on centuries-old Italian inlaid marble work. Finding marbled fabric was a challenge until I realized it was available online!
This is one of my largest and most complicated marbled pieces. I actually counted and it has 200 pieces.
This series of vintage movie posters is from the silent film era: Valentino, Garbo and Lon Chaney being the best subjects.