Mind & Eye Candy at the Canvas Outlet.

  The past two years I have enjoyed great success creating collages,  ship fleets and paintings with both solid black camping canvas and prepainted phosphorescent orange canvas.  Last December I set a wide range of artistic goals that continue my ongoing commitment to my passion and professional craft.  One specific goal, in my artistic production arena, is to expand materially and to further experiment with various types of textiles.  This goal is part of an ongoing broader goal  to further move away from the monarchy-based traditional rectangular painting.  By investigating and questioning the absorption qualities, rheological properties, and staying power of various textiles with acrylic paints and mediums,  I will hopefully be re-informing my painting and mixed media artwork and reanimating my creative self.


The first week of the new year I took a little stimulating safari north off U.S. 169 to SR Harris Fabric/Canvas Outlet in glamorous Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.  This little step towards my goal just happened to be the start of their post holiday 50% off sale. Thanks to a friendly artist tip from Pete H-T from Tent Services last Spring, this was my second visit to SRH. The store is packed to the gills with canvas, fabrics, textiles, sewing accessories and upholstery items of all colors, patterns, shapes and sizes.

As a visual artist and painter, I cannot help but absolutely love wandering aimlessly down the aisles and gently gazing at all of the visual eye candy.  Customers are allowed to pick and cut their own fabric bolts on large tables, write down the price and quantity, and hand them  to the lonely clerk at the register in an honorable trust system.  Craft ladies and penny pincher's love bending the rules here in order to receive a slightly larger piece of fabric, or better value for the dollar.  It is also fun to chat and joke with your fellow customers at the cutting tables, to find out what project they are creating, why they chose their fabric, and to compare stock prices.

For the traditional painter who worries about snotty art critics, art historians, and art conservators with their need for market driven quality and archival status-- this place may not be for you.  Although there is a small assortment of short cotton ducks, you will not find the high quality Belgians and 144 inch wide 12 oz. cotton ducks or mass produced and preprimed Fredrix canvas here.  SR Harris is not a Utrechty and Dicky Blicky retail type of setting.  But if you are DIY, theatrical, installationary, contemporary and new genre this is the artsy fartsy fabric site for you. Weavers, knitters, crocheters,  sewers, quilters, clothiers, costumers, braiders, macramists, needlers, batikers, tie dyers, thimblers, and yarn darlings will all be sent fashionably adrift into  their next signature style. Textile artists beware:  this is your very own garage sale and primo private palace to "find finds." Consider SRH the place for your secret fabricistah orgasm. It will be all yours, and we are not telling anyone!

Here is a selection of my thirteen fabric finds that I will be using to create new small, medium, and large scale bodies of two and three dimensional mixed media artwork and unstretched paintings in the near future:  Rose Satin, Soft Emerald Velvet, Muted Dark Green and Red Mottled Velvets,  Fancy Orange Fuzzy Hair(It Sheds!), Phosphorescent Lime Yellow-Green Medium Hair, Scrumptious Purple Shags, Pink and Orange Polka Dots, Bright Blue Canvas, Yellow Ochre Canvas, Avocado Green Canvas, and Dark Teal Blue Canvas, and last but not least-- Red Jute/Burlap.

The SRH assortment of textiles is chaotically uncategorized and finding what you want can be difficult for the newbie. Asking one of the few store clerks on hand is advised to help find your specific animal, vegetable, mineral or synthetic fabric.  Also available are multiple varieties of inspiring Awesome Awning, Chic Chiffons, Cocky Corduroys, Colorful Camouflages, Flowing Fencing, Fickle Fishnets, Flirtatious Flannels, Goofy Gingham's, Hick Hunting's, Lipstick Leopards, Loquacious Lingerie, Luxurious Laces, Naked Nylons, Peculiar Paisleys, Pompous Prommers, Puppy PJ's, Raucous Rayon's, Sexy Spandex, Tacky Tentings, Tickly Tartans, Traditional Too-wools, Turkish Tunics, Wacky Weddings, and Zannie Zebras.  These are just a few of the scrumptious swatches and if not to purchase, the store is always well worth the thread titillation, visual stimulation and artistic inspiration.
See you at the sewing machine or the grommet stamper,  Pete XOXOXOX