Summer News

Some things have been happening, which is ever so lovely because the project I am currently working on is taking foreverrrrr!

I am honored to have won an Honorable Mention in the Lincoln Center new Legacies: Contemporary Art Quilts exhibit for my quilt Ocean Blues/Oil and Water! Phil D. Jones, one of the awards judges noted that my quilt was a "conceptual beauty!"  High praise indeed and remarkably validating!! 

My quilt, Turn the Dial/Diverging Distractions had been on display at the International Quilt Festival show in Long Beach, July 6 - 8 in the exhibit Celebration of Color. I believe it is going to Houston next for the fall Festival Market and Quilt Show, Nov 2 - 5. This one was also a two-sided quilt, but they only showed the front side (left). I am okay with that, because the feeling you get standing in front of this giant burst of yellow is pure joy! That works for me!

And, I entered and got juried into a special exhibit at the International Quilt Festival, called in Full Bloom, with my quilt, Mother Nature's All-Inclusive Flower Garden. 

As a special surprise, I found out a few weeks ago that it was selected by Nancy O'Bryant as the signature quilt for Quilt Market/Houston this year. What an incredible honor!!! This means that the image will be included on Quilt Market marketing materials.  Very cool!

And, last, I got a quilt juried into the judged show at the International Quilt Festival/Houston this year.  It is called Complements and is a special favorite of mine!  I didn't get to enter last year because I was a judge.  And the year before, my entry was not juried in. So it's been a few years.

I love the complexity of the tiny piecing of the print fabrics contrasted with the giant bold solid color swaths in complementary colors. It appeals to me on many levels. And, it is so bright, it will probably glow and light up the quilts around it! Ha ha ha ha ha! Fun!

Seems like a good year to get back to Houston.  I am truly hoping that I can make it! Cheers!

i Quilt finds its Forever Home

i Quilt finds its Forever Home

I had always hoped and dreamed that this might happen some day, and now it has!  The International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, NE has purchased my i Quilt to add to their permanent collection! This means so much to me, it is really hard to describe.  The feeling is good though, so very good....like floating on air. It is such a tremendous honor to have my work included with so many of my esteemed colleagues and quilters who have come before me.

I have had a dream like this since I was a small child, drawing pictures of my toys (see this post).  In school, I was so very fond of my art classes.  And yet, I did not have a very direct path to art in my adult life. It would be easy now to say that some of my career choices were mistakes, but I think of them now as very important steps to get me to where I am today. And, somewhere along the experience of living a life, quilts became not just the thing to do in between events, but the expression of those events and took a more central role. And now my quilt will have an extended life through the special care and conservation at the IQM and through it's online presence in their on-line Collections database.  It is a tremendous honor to be included in quilting history in this way.

I have also donated a quilt to IQM.  It means so very much to me that they wanted this quilt. It is Hidden Messages and I love this quilt so much.  Perfect!

I have written a number of posts about the creation of this quilt (the beginning and the middle part), the reveal of the message behind the circles....if you are curious! :)

Houston Quilt Festival - the Experience

Houston Quilt Festival - the Experience

Between the election and the after convention "hang-over", it has taken me a few days to put this post together.  I have been recovering from intense lack of sleep and my annual post-Houston illness which involves the respiratory crud (that in all fairness started in Austin), and losing my voice.  I had a difficult time sleeping while at the quilt festival because of the huge amounts of adrenaline, powered by a year of hard work alone in my studio (or mostly alone) and then a giant onslaught of good times with old friends and new and then winning awards and my special exhibit!!!!! To say that it is too much, is an understatement; but like a moth to the flame, I am drawn there.

Highlights of the show include winning two awards this year:

i Quilt wins an Honorable Mention!!

One Earth wins a Second Place!!

Dinner@Eight exhibit, Patterns:

Cover girl! Mistyfuse has added my face to the cover of the package for 10 yards of Mistyfuse!  Thanks Iris!

Iris and I at the Dinner@Eight dinner

Posing with Jamie Fingal and our cover girl packages on Mistyfuse!

The opening of Turmoil & Tranquility, a new exhibit from SAQA.

The Deep End

My special exhibit:

My hand made guest book with the color pens.  My sweet wonderful amazing guests filled 20 blank pages full of wonderful comments and messages to me.  Absolutely fabulous!  Thank you so much!!!!

Falling, Vertigo, Doors Across Austin, Park Place

Park Place, Planned Obsolescence, Windows

Windows, A Few of My Favorite Things, Urban Tree

Out of the Box, Just Around the Corner, Bridge

Bridge, Dot, Suburbs

Central Park, Home

Self Portrait '08, Blue Towers

Community Gardens, Winter to Spring, Gift

Urban Daisy, Building UP

Duck and Cover, High Rise

High Rise, You Are What You Eat

And, one of my biggest highlights was having my mother come to see my exhibit!

After I got home, a dear friend forwarded me a newsletter from The Quilt Show.  Surprise!! They made a beautiful slide show of my exhibit and you can see it here.

I also found out on the last day of the show, that my exhibit, Inspired by Color will be traveling to
INTERNATIONAL QUILT FESTIVAL/CHICAGO, April 6-8, 2017.  Whoo hoo!!

And, if that is not enough, there were a total of 49 different quilt exhibits in Houston this year.  Only one of them is the World of Beauty.  I could spend weeks looking at all the quilts, but I didn't have that much time!  My favorites were the Modern Quilt Exhibit (sorry I didn't get photos!), Quilt National, Viewpoints 9, Dinner@Eight Patterns, SAQA Turmoil and Tranquility, and the Susan Carlson exhibit.  There was also a number of other fascinating exhibits like the quilts made to honor the moon and the missions to the moon, the Dear Jane exhibit, and Tactile Architecture.  

Many, many, wonderful times with friends, and so happy to have gotten photos of some of them, and sad I forgot to get photos with others....such is the nature of a highly distracted and adrenaline fueled experience!

Deborah Boschert, Suzan Engler

Kristen La Flamme, Deborah Boschert

Heather Pregger

Jamie Fingal

Becky Navarro and me

Selfie with Helen Godden and her quilt!

Selfie with Judy Coates Perez

Me and Paula Kovarik

Me and Sue Bleiweiss

Selfie with Lisa Chin

Me and Mikyung Jang

Sherri McCauley and me

Heidi Proffetty and Victoria Findlay Wolfe

The beautiful view from the Hilton:

A rather frequent view from the escalators at the George Brown Convention Center:

Behind the scenes, take down of the exhibits.  Love the tables.  Love the attention to detail in quality care of our quilts!! Look at all those white gloves! Thanks!

At home, cherishing my guest book!

The most frequently asked question:
How long did it take you to make all of these quilts?
I still don't know.  It took a lifetime to find my artist voice and get the skills I needed.  I am a professional artist.  I work full time at making my art, just like other people who work their full time jobs.  If you think these art quilts take a long time to make, you are right, but hey, it's what I do. And, I would like to thank those of you who make it possible by supporting the arts!  Whether you donate to our organizations or buy our work directly, we couldn't do it without you!!!

Outtakes:
Getting a little silly with no food, exhaustion, and adrenaline, the night I dropped and fatally cracked the screen of my iphone.  Waiting, waiting, and more waiting, but the techs at the Apple Store came to my rescue and finished the repair even though they worked past closing time!  Kudos! 

Spending a very brief amount of time each night doodling with watercolors to amuse with texts to my daughter back at home:

dedicated to the raccoon (or other animal of the night) who made a tasty meal from her Jack-O-Lantern

Houston International Quilt Festival 2016

Houston International Quilt Festival 2016

It is getting to be that time of year again!  It is almost 2 weeks until the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  This year, in particular, is a very special year for me.  In addition to having two quilts in A World of Beauty, a quilt in Patterns (Dinner @ Eight special exhibit), a quilt in Tranquility (a SAQA special exhibit), I will also have 25 quilts in my very own special exhibit called Inspired by Color: Art Quilts by Kathy York!  It is really fantastic to have my work recognized in this way, and it is also a bit humbling. A big thank you to Becky Navarro over at IQF for reaching out to me, all her hard work, and Karey Bresenhan for her support and encouragement!

And as if that's not enough, I found out a few weeks ago that both of my entries in A World of Beauty got awards!! I will have to wait until after the Awards Ceremony on Nov 1 to find out what they are.
I entered i Quilt in the Innovative Pieced category,

and One Earth in the small Art Abstract category.

You can see my quilt for the Dinner@Eight exhibit, Patterns:

And last, my quilt at the SAQA exhibit, Tranquility:

I hope to see you there!  I will be there for most of Festival this year, dividing my time between manning the SAQA booth as a volunteer, hanging out in my exhibit, and looking at the thousands of quilts on display in the 49 different exhibits of quilts. I am anticipating lots of inspiration, because the skill level and artistry is simply amazing. And I really look forward to seeing many old friends and meeting new ones! It is going to be spectacular!!! I  can   hardly      wait!!