Double Bind

Double Bind
32" x 42"

I am so happy to share with you that my quilt has been accepted to Quilts=Art=Quilts at the Schweinfurth Art Center, in Auburn, NY, October 27, 2018 to January 6, 2019.

I was inspired by patterns I saw while swimming laps at the pool.  I used four of those to make the fabrics for this quilt, along with some hand dyed solid fabrics. It has undergone a number of different compositions before settling on this one.  I guess that's why it didn't look good to me before, because it just wasn't finished yet.  And this one didn't really come together until I decided to add the swimmer in the lower corner and the text.  Now it really pops for me.  I love the graphics so much!

The emotional content of the quilt came from my father.  I have been thinking about him a lot lately.  He lives in an assisted living facility and fell.  He vividly remembers the pain, and the lack of balance and loss of control when walking.  So he decided not to walk again.   He is bedridden and doesn't really eat much either. And he is having memory deficits too. It is hard to watch the slow and inevitable decline.  It is hard to be so far away.  It is hard to have so many memories of things that didn't go quite right and trying to resolve them for myself.  Let me just say that for this one, the problem has been resolved.  I can go swimming now and I can get wet while doing it!

Notes for inquiring minds:
The swimmer and the fins are made using a paper laminate process. 
The text was made from a screen print with black fabric paint.
Both the swimmer and the text were fused on with Mistyfuse before quilting.

Power of the Press

Power of the Press
31" x 28.5"
2014
I am humbled by my failures.  I am disappointed. I am sometimes sad, and sometimes angry.  All of these are okay.  It is simply part of the path.  Sometimes work needs to be made just because it's next.  There are no guarantees that the work will be good, or relevant, or accepted.  And just as I have utter joy in my successes, I know that they only represent part of the story.  I try to accept all parts of my story, but honestly, the successes are much easier to talk about--publicly.

Today's piece is a quilt I made several years ago.  It has been rejected too many times to count from every venue I entered it into.  And now, it has aged out.  It is too old to enter into most venues.  And, though it is a failure to me for a number of reasons, perhaps it is ahead of it's time? Perhaps it is even more relevant today?

I wanted to make a piece about what news is and what it aspires to be.  As I get older I feel more cynical.  This piece begs the question, how much of a story is actual news, and how much is written just to sell newspapers?  How much is written and published just to sensationalize an event, regardless if it represents a whole story, or a true story?  What is truth?

Yes, I am that old.  I am the age where my 'go to' for news is still newspapers.  But how much more heinous is the act when it is published and consumed so instantaneously?  It hurts to think about it.

This piece is made out of newspapers, newsprint, cotton, and silk.  There is a tremendous amount of black thread sketching. The newspaper titles were printed, paper laminated, and then Mistyfused into place. I made the binding red to allude to the old riddle, "What is black and white and red all over?" There are many answer to that riddle, one of which is a newspaper. The emotional expressions and the red work well together. 

Today this piece feels more relevant because of amplified hate speech, lies, rhetoric that are being published as "truths".  Some people are calling it fake news.  Some very powerful people are calling anything they disagree with fake news.  The era of reason and truth seems to be disappearing into the background.  Sensational or not, it would not be normal to NOT feel shocked, appalled, and angry today. I think fake news is the ultimate oxymoron.  If it is fake, then it isn't news.

Displaced

Displaced
7" x 10"
I am trying to get back into the swing again, but finding it hard to concentrate.  So, I decided to try something small.  I wanted to make something for SAQA's Trunk Show, and I knew the deadline (Nov. 30) was coming up.  The trunk show is a collection of about 400 quilts that is divided into smaller groups.  The exhibit will premier April 27 - 30, 2017 in Lincoln, Nebraska concurrent with the annual SAQA conference. After that they will be kept at the SAQA shipping facility and can be borrowed, almost like a quilt library.  The intention of the collection is education, to show people what art quilts are all about.  It is  a remarkable idea and really fun to see the variety of ideas people come up with to put into a tiny 7" x 10" tiny sized quilt. These quilts travel for 3 years, and then are offered for sale, if the artist's chooses, and if not sold, they are eventually returned.  I am the Trunk Show coordinator this year and all the entries are shipped to me.  I get to see them ALL!  It has been a fun experience so far and I look forward to receiving more entries.  So far, participants have sent me about 60 quilts, and many more have been entered and are awaiting shipping.  I look forward to each day to see what the postal carrier will bring me.  It's like Christmas every day!

I was looking through my studio and trying to come up with an idea, and the one that settled was a smaller version of my quilt, Development.  The new one is called Displaced (aka., Goldie Foxes and the Three Bears! ha!), and it is about giving consideration to animals who have their habitats destroyed in the name of urban sprawl.  And though I recognize the value having homes for people, I am concerned that the loss of habitat is really bad for our environment.  There comes a point where the stewardship of the environment needs to be equally valued. It is a difficult balance. 

The little bee is from the selvage of Urban Artifacts, a new fabric line by Leslie Jenison.

How it was made:
The center part, with the houses, was made with little black boxes on top of newspaper, then layered with silk organza on top.  Place a screen and pull matte medium through the screen.  After the layers have dried they are gently scrubbed under water to removed the thickest part of the paper, leaving behind only the front image.  This was fused with Mistyfuse to a black cotton background.  Then I sewed borders around the center with some commercial cottons (the animals). Next I fused black triangles on top of the center squares to make the house shapes.  Lots of machine quilting to form the houses with X's and the gray contours of the hills, and finally some yellow hand stitching on the roofs.  I used a facing to gently wrap the quilt edges to the back and neatly finish them.  It was a bit of a process to make, but I had fun with every step, so the time flies by!

Development

Development
52" x 44.5"

This is my latest.  I have been thinking about it for a while, trying to firm up the design in my head.  I wanted to say something about the incredibly fast growth of my town.  I heard that 100 new people were moving to Austin, EVERY DAY.  People have to live somewhere, and I imagine many new houses being built.  And they are, and it is good for the economy.  But, there is a cost.  The animals are displaced.  The hills are razed, and rain washes the earth into the streams.  This is a natural process, but the rate is too fast.  It adds sediment to the streams which chokes out the life of the organisms living there.  It feels like we have lost site of protecting the environment which is our source of sustenance.  With this steady growth, how will we change to become better stewards of the earth?  As a society are we becoming more "developed" or less?

The process:
I used a giant screen to make the background from newspapers, mainly the Wall Street Journal.  I tore the newspaper pages into hills, and placed little squares of black construction paper on it, to make the houses. Then I carefully layered silk organza on top.  Next, I placed the screen and squeeged gel medium through it.  After it dried, I used water to gently remove as much paper as possible from the back.  You would be surprised how thin the final layer is!  This is called a paper laminate.

Once dry, I used Mistyfuse to gently place the yellow squares and black triangle roofs.  Some were done after adding the animals prints to the borders so that the houses could overlap into that space.  The faucet was printed on paper, and then made into a paper laminate as well.  I fused it with Mistyfuse on to the sky section.  Quilting was done in narrow 1/4" bands following the shapes of the hills with my favorite Masterpiece grey thread.  I had a lot of fun shopping for the animal prints.  I love, love, love the ghost bunnies and the tiny Japanese critter fabrics on the bottom.  I think I got both at Bunny's Designs.  I also shopped at the Cloth Pocket which is becoming a favorite!  Here are some detail shots for you. 

Houses falling out of the sky, like a giant faucet has been turned on.

foxes and deer

bears and more deer

tiny critters and ghost bunnies

And, I am happy to tell you that this piece has been selected to show in SAQA's Concrete and Grasslands exhibit which is opening at Grant's Pass Museum of Art in Oregon some time next year! It's a good feeling to make something I like, and then get to share it!

Mod Seven

Mod Seven

The Black and White Challenge ....
....was put forth by Barb Forrister.  After discussing for a while, the group decided to add a pop of blue and a pop of lime green.  We were to make blocks, any size, quilt them, and then expect them to be cut up and arranged to make this quilt.  The only problem was that we had no idea of where we were headed when we started.  Sometimes it is like that.  You have to trust the process.  And so we all began experimenting and playing with black and white.  Here are my results.

I began with some shaving cream and black paint.  The blobs were so interesting!  Then I used a toothpick to pull the paint and Voila!  I had jellyfish!  The quilting enhanced their subtle forms.  Just LOVE these! Sadly, they did not make it into the quilt.  This block had been misplaced in my studio until just last week.  However, I am happy now that they have been found!

Next, I wanted to try some paper laminate.  I thought it would be perfect for this challenge if I used newspaper.  Here's a closeup. This one was not selected for the quilt.  It hangs in a happy spot in my studio, as I just love it too!

Next, since this one was so fun to make, I decided to try some other shapes.  I used a freezer paper cut out stencil to make these three blocks.  Only one of them is paper laminate.  It was also not selected for the group quilt.  You can see what became of it here.  I think only the center one was used in the group quilt.  As for it's negative (the bottom image), I don't really know where it is.

I also made this little sample.  It was cut up and used in a few spots in the quilt.  I had wanted to make some blocks with batik, because I just love batik.  Unfortunately, I have a hard time getting black to dye as rich as I would like.  So I took my favorite circle from batik and used it to stamp some paint on a piece of organza.  It left a ghost image on the fabric below, so I just shifted the two pieces to get this array of circles.  I then added some strips of blue and black, and last, some pieces of blue dyed batting for the circles on top.  The solid black circles on top are commercial cottons, all fused with my favorite Mistyfuse!

You can probably not believe how chaotic it is after we all bring our pieces together.  It is hard to commit to cutting into them.  It is hard to commit to a layout because there are so many fabulous ideas sprouting.  We picked a common color palette to make the pieces fit together, but we all have very different styles of working.  That is what I love about collaborative work with our group!  It is exciting!
Here's a photo of the very beginning when we started throwing our work up on the design wall and trying to decide what to do with it.

Wow!  And, as a wonderful honor to our hard work, we were delighted to have earned a Judge's Choice Award as the Austin Quilt Show this fall.  Thanks so much to our tireless project director, Barb Forrister!

Swimming

Swimming
about 23" x 62ish"
work in progress

The swimming pool has been a source of inspiration this year.  I made one piece already,  (See The Deep End here) but there was still more that I wanted to do.  While doodling in a meeting one Saturday, I quickly sketched an array of new designs.  The one I could not get right was the reflections of the waves on the bottom of the pool.  I kept trying for a very literal and exacting replication of what I saw, and it wasn't working.  Then when I moved it to a slightly more abstract representation, it suddenly worked for me.  I absolutely love these free flowing organic and overlapping lines.  The fabrics are new designs that I hand-dyed and batiked in my garage studio. 

I used a paper laminate technique to make the drawing of the swimmer. However, I might decide to make it into a screen instead and use paint....still not sure.

I love the palette, the greys and white with the turquoise and blues.  I think it might be the simplicity of the patterns or limited color choices that appeals to me so much. And I absolutely love the contrast of the still and quiet almost contemplative swimmer figure with the dancing waves and bold patterns surrounding her.

Urban Flower

Urban Flower
12" x 12" x 1 1/2"

This one is an unusual color palette for me, grey and white, but I really like it.  It is oddly soothing, or maybe not so odd?  Well, let's just say that it looks fantastic on my dining room walls which are a lovely shade of aqua!  Scroll down to see that one!
I am really falling for this technique and the way it looks. It is a paper laminate (for another sample click here).  It uses paper (in this case newspaper) and a sheer fabric (silk organza).  It becomes like a piece of fabric and can be stitched.  In this one I have machine quilted around the flowers in black thread about 5 times to get a thicker line.  I also hand stitched the stems in lime green embroidery floss.  It is subtle, which I also really like.   The border is made from that shiny silk with little nubs (someone help me here!).  I stamped it with black circles.  The centers are made from hand-dyed grey fabric that are hand cut and fused in place.  It is wrapped around a canvas frame which finishes up the edges ever so nicely!

I love the way these pretend tulips capture the essense of nature in their form, and are made from real plant material in the form of paper, paper that has been altered by humans in ink and in meaning, and it captures a moment and place in time when the paper was printed.  (sorry for the run-on sentence!)

It seemed too perfect to not surround them with a grid representing an urban life.  This one has been entered into a juried exhibit that will run in the Austin Area Quilt Guild's quilt show.  It is sponsored by Austin Fiber Artists.  Keeping my fingers crossed that it will get in!  :)

I would love to do another piece that is larger.  So far both of the pieces I have tried with this have been small (12" x 12").  However, it will have to wait.  I am busy hand stitching a large piece, and the quilting lines are rather dense....it may take a while to finish up!  Meanwhile, the little projects are a very nice diversion.