Multiplicities:New Directions in Fiber

Tonight was the artist reception for an exciting juried exhibit of textiles at the IMAGO Foundation for the Arts Gallery in Warren, RI. Called "Multiplicities: New Directions in Fiber" it was a show with a broad range of work within the textile field. Works pushing the boundaries of embroidery, weaving, quilting, felting, and dyeing were mixed with sculptural forms utilizing some very interesting materials such as seaweed, plastic bottle caps, thorny branches and pine needles. The opening reception was very well attended and the gallery is spacious, bright, easy to find, and the show was extremely well curated and hung.

My husband Tony took this shot of Allison Wilbur, who lives very near the gallery, and myself. We had a lovely time walking through the show discovering the many interesting secrets within each piece. SAQA members were well represented in this show with pieces from Natalya Aikens, Betty Busby, Nancy Bardach, Wen Redmond and Marianne Williamson. 

Hanging behind Allison and myself, detail to the right is a woven piece called "1364 Threads Pulled One at a Time" by Debbie Barrett-Jones. My terrible old digital camera does it no justice. Beautifully dyed warp threads were pulled to create tension and texture and through the middle of the piece you saw only the warp threads hanging. It really was captivating and won a Juror Award. The Juror for this amazing show was Elin Noble, a textile artist and SAQA member who lives in the MA/RI region.

Another captivating piece was done by Marianne Williamson. My camera again, does this no justice. It is literally covered with multicolored thread, fabric and paint. Allison and I spent a good amount of time soaking it all in. You can see other works by Marianne on her website at: www.movinthreads.com/news/

This piece was created by New York artist, Natalya Aikens. I have loved watching the progression of Natalya's work over the past few years. She has a finely tuned understanding of architecture and a playful hand with unusual materials and color. Made primarily of plastics, "Sunset" screamed with innovation and pure excitement. You can view her work on her website: www.artbynatalya.com


My husband Tony was as enthralled by this piece by Betty Busby as I was. "Dichotomy" is rich with colorful dyed fabrics and a wildly flowing structure of stitching which punctuates and defines both minute and large areas. The colorplay and stitching skillfully seems to undulate areas of the piece so that it creates depth and movement. A master, you will find more of Betty's work on her website at: bbusbyarts.com

If you would like to see this exhibition it is showing at the IMAGO Foundation for the Arts Gallery, at 36 Market St. in Warren, RI 02885. This show runs now through November 8. Gallery hours are Thursdays from 4-8pm, Fridays & Saturdays from noon to 8pm and Sundays from 10am to 2pm. You will find information about the gallery and this show at their website: imagofoundation4art.org/IFA/Welcome.html

New Additions

 QUEEN BEE SAYS 'NO' TO GMOS

45" x 43 1/2"

September, 2014

Commercial fabrics, batiks, silks, hand-dyes, beads;

Fused and machine stitched and quilted

After many months of work, Queen Bee is finally finished. She was finished in time to make the "Food For Thought" call for entry for SAQA but I have received word that she was not accepted into this exhibit. She will be offered as an entry into the first show which comes along that suits her. I truly enjoyed every minute of working on Bee and especially loved working on seeing the bees come to life.

Left and below are my details of this vibrant piece. 

I was very lucky this summer to acquire a few new additions to my workspace which have made life both easier and more difficult.

Kittens!

Four tiny kittens were found under our deck off the studio. My bleeding heart just could not leave them to the coyotes, so I scooped them into the one room in the house that did not already have a cat in it....my studio. Because they come from a feral mom, I have to make sure that they aren't carrying a fatal disease to my other cats. They are about 5 months old now. Ready to be tested, fixed and assimilated. Casey went to a new home right away but I still have one female who needs adopting. The two mischievous males will stay with me.

This is my new baby, a Handi Quilter Sweet 16. It was used gently and the table wings were lovingly devised by the previous owner's handy husband. Runs like a dream and look at the neck. It is not 6" like my Bernina but a whopping 16". I'm in heaven.

However, nothing is easy. The cord running from the computer to the machine became an instant issue. The kittens loved the tent I made for them with fabric to cover the machine and chewed through that cord. IN TWO DAYS! It took me over a week to get a replacement cord to the tune of $39.00 and three kittens got a very stern finger wagging.

Now after every use I disconnect the computer, wrap it in bubble wrap and store it in a drawer. An old box from my daughter's exercise equipment is just the right size to cover the machine and keep curious kittens out. They are having the best time shredding the box. 

Another new purchase was necessary for two reasons: the first was to prevent fading for my blue and green stash which was kept in the open on shelves; the second was to keep the kittens out of it. I found an old black cupboard in an antique shop close by and it was on sale. It is deep and has three shelves but more importantly, it has doors and like my armoire, I can shut the light and the cats out. 

The shelves were put to use housing all my art books some of which were actually still in boxes with no functional place to land. Now not only do they have a nice neat place to be but I can access them easily when I need some information or inspiration. 

From August 20 to September 20 my piece called "Nancy's Garden" was hanging at the Whistler House & Museum in Lowell. This was the first exhibition I have been able to attend the open house.   

Just a sampling of how amazingly colorful and beautiful the show was.

As I had mentioned in a prior post, this spring I became involved in the SAQA MA/RI Regional exhibition committee. I worked pretty hard along with Sue Bleiweiss and decided that I would become a Co-Rep along with Sue and Maryann Gallaher. So I am now a Co-Rep for SAQA and we have so many things going on in our region. Two exhibitions are planned, a regional trunk show is being assembled, the 25th Anniversary Trunk Show is coming to our November meeting, we have a new regional portfolio printed, we have begun a mentorship program and we are doing outreach and workshop planning for 2015 and 2016. To read about all that is going on in MA/RI you can access info from our blog at: http://ma-ri-saqa.blogspot.com.

After a small pod meeting in September, Rhode Island members Barbara Chojnacki, Carol Kaufman and I took a selfie at a quilt show in Wakefield, RI. Not only will the SAQA 25th Anniversary Trunk Show be traveling to Amherst, MA for our quarterly meeting November 15, but it will be traveling to Westerly for a meeting of the Ninegret Quilt Guild on January 13. I will be speaking at this meeting both about SAQA and about my own process.

At our SAQA quarterly meeting in September, two demos were given by Vicki Jensen, owner of Pro Chem & Dye in Fall River followed by a hands-on afternoon. Vats of indigo were set up for shibori dyeing and a table was set up for experimenting with gelli printing.

It really was an enjoyable afternoon and we were able to take home our experiments to use in our own projects. The next meeting will take place at the UU Society of Amherst, 121 North Pleasant St. in Amherst, MA from 10am to 2pm There will be demos on simple silk screen methods by Cheryl Rezendes and a demo on the cradle board technique for mounting quilts by Jeanne Marklin. If you live west of Worcester, this will be a fantastic meeting as well.

Sue Bleiweiss was the originator of our SAQA regional mentorship program. I decided to be a mentor to one person who needs help developing their voice and also to be someone's protegee for the business end of being an artist. My blog posts will be getting more regular and will morph a bit into offering my readers something besides a journal of my ramblings. My next post will be about setting goals.

So along those lines, some goals I have been setting and trying to keep for a couple of years have had to do with creating more artwork, getting it out into exhibitions and building that all important body of work. Continuing along those lines I have plans for four or more new quilts to be completed within the next six months.

I have been working and reworking this one for so many years. It is finally time to finish this thing. "Peter and the Wolf" is getting stitched. In the picture to the right you can see two wolves. The wolf on the far right puckered terribly because I stitched it to muslin without adding batting or stabilizer. Dumb move on my part. So I redid him and he is already adhered to the background and almost completely stitched. Pictures to follow in another post.

The next quilt I will be taking on is my large flying dragon. Originally worked for a really large quilt, "Crazy Eights" has been redrawn and resized to a more manageable size. This one will be created within my style but I am pushing the envelope a bit with some unusual and fun designer silks and I will be experimenting with relief work a bit.

Both these pieces have to be completed and photographed for the SAQA show "Wild Fabrications" call for entry by January 31, 2015.

This is just the very beginning of a drawing of a piece I am doing for the exhibition "Art As Quilt" at the Fuller Craft Museum. The name on this one is "Empress of the Pines". Behind her I will do another drawing of tree trunks with light passing through and that will be her background. Her hair is white pine needles. Her dress which I have only begun to embellish is full of pine cones which blend into bark. Curling behind her to the front will be a fawn at the bottom of the imagery. Her colors will be ochres, browns, rich greens, golds and coppers with just a touch of red violet. Another in the series of nature royalty, the Empress will be constructed similarly to Mariposa and Queen Bee.

So that brings you up to date in my world. I will be posting more shots of these three quilts as I begin to cut fabrics and stitch. And there are a couple more that will be coming into light very soon.

Life Changers

Shortly after finding out that Mariposa was juried into the exhibition in Texas two major life altering events occurred in our house. The first was the addition of a new family member. Meet my granddaughter, Riley Paige Theriault who was born on December 11, 2013. She is my first grandchild and I am over the moon in love with her! Below is a photograph of my oldest son Nicholas, with his newborn daughter. 

Having Riley in our lives made getting things done in the studio rather pointless for a while. Who can resist a baby to coo over and cuddle.

I did manage to get a Christmas stocking made for miss Riley. It's made of felt and has lots of hand embroidery and sparkly sequins. Christmas was so much fun this year with a baby around and I am looking forward to many years of holidays with my little angel.






Unfortunately, there was another life changer that happened during the month of December. Right after Thanksgiving I was having some health issues and did some testing to find out that I had a tumor on my right kidney. It was malignant but small and was removed in January. It took a while before I got back on my feet from surgery but I am glad to say that they did remove it all and I did not need chemo or radiation.

Makes you think! Even though it was a very slow growing cancer, found early, I had a lot of time to think about my ticking clock. I came away from it feeling a strong desire to get busy in my studio. The first piece I did after my surgery was Seeing Spots, seen right. This piece is expressive of how I had been feeling at the time, like a Cheshire cat blending in to life but whose spots, one in particular, were giving him away. Every fabric I chose had dots in it. 

SEEING SPOTS

7" x 10"

January, 2014

Cotton batiks & hand-dyes

Fused and machine stitched and quilted

This is my Trunk Show piece for SAQA. It is in Trunk show E which will start out showing in Brazil, then it goes to Virginia/North Carolina, followed by Colorado.

SUMMER BREEZE

20" x 22 1/2"

March, 2014

Cotton batik & hand-dyes, silk dupioni & brocade, beads

Fused and machine stitched and quilted.

Summer Breeze was created quickly as a response to a request that came to me just as I was getting better in my recovery. The request was from a woman soliciting donations to an auction for a cancer center in Rhode Island. God moves in mysterious ways. I felt it was a sign that I needed to give a little back for the luck of having my cancer diagnosed so early. I thought about all the others who might not be so lucky, who might not have insurance and be facing large bills. While having some of these myself, what I could do was donate a piece. So I did. And it sold to the collection of Dr. James Mezhir.

Now I have been one who believes that artists should not give away their work. And I'm sure we could all have a huge discussion about it. But I'm alive! And I am appreciative. End of story. 

I cleaned up my studio a bit and took a look at upcoming calls for entry. There are a lot out there. I was hoping to enter one in this year's IQF and chose the one about pets. A friend, left, had just undergone a devastating loss. Her mother died of cancer rather quickly and she took it extremely hard. Young and alone she felt more than just grief, it was panic and despair. Her cat, Medonja, was all that was keeping her sane. This little cat is responsible for easing her deep depression. Sometimes our pets do more for us than people do. With Gabriele's permission I started my new quilt, based on this photograph of her and her beloved Medonja.

Of course, IQF requires you to keep images of quilts off of social media. So no one but Gabriele has seen my progress. I was chugging along and doing very well.

Then life happened again. This has been a challenging year. My husband's mother, Marggi suddenly became ill. We dropped everything and flew to Florida on Mother's Day. Marggi passed on the following Tuesday. We stayed a while with family, working on how to deal with her funeral, which was to be up here in New England. We flew home, prepared a bit and welcomed the Florida/California family into our home until her funeral, which was 10 days later.

Marggi was a creative and vibrant woman, who loved life and always had a sunny disposition, even when she was ill. Above Marggi is flanked by Brad, her grandson and my husband Tony, or Anthony as she always called him. 

You will be missed Marggi.

This brings me up to current time. I missed the IQF deadline, needless to say. On the 31st of May, the MA/RI region of SAQA had their quarterly meeting. One of our reps who is new to the position, Sue Bleiweiss, has been a very busy bee. Her enthusiasm is catchy and I am now greatly involved with our newly formed regional Exhibition Committee. 

I am the Co-Chair of this committee which I am sharing with Sue. With 10 members searching for possible venues, thinking of theme ideas and pitching in to make phone calls and send emails, we are having some success at finding willing venues. I will be posting about our successes and upcoming calls going out to the region. Sue is penning a new blog for us in MA/RI. You can check out what we are doing at: http://ma-ri-saqa.blogspot.com/

One of her goals is for us to have our own regional trunk show which will travel throughout the region. The piece above, detail below is my submission to this trunk show.

BUZZ

9" x 11"

May, 2014

Commercial fabrics, batiks and silk

Fused applique, machine stitched and quilted

Can you hear the buzz of the bee in the yellow quilt lines?

While I was in Florida, a call for entry came due. Before I left I put together everything I needed to send it off. My daughter, Andie helped me get it done by sending off the email and mailing my entry. It was accepted.

NANCY'S GARDEN
25" x 30"
July, 2009
Commercial fabrics, hand-dyes, beads, sunflower petal beads
Fused appliqued and machine stitched

Nancy's Garden will be at the Whistler House Museum of Art in Lowell, MA from August 20 - September 20 for a show called "How Does Your Garden Grow?". The Artist Reception and Awards is on Saturday, August 23 from 1-3pm.

So I am back in my studio staring two new deadlines squarely in the eyes. I am finishing the one above and entering into another show. Still hush, hush. So I'm afraid you will not be seeing it for a while unless it is rejected. And I am looking to finish Queen Bee as well. Both need to be done in September. Hoo boy! I need to stop chatting and get back to my machine. 

MARIPOSA at Texas Quilt Museum

 

 MARIPOSA

42" x 42"

November, 2013

Cotton batiks & hand-dyes, silk dupioni

Fused and machine stitched and quilted

Fimo, metallic and glass beads

Well it has been a long time since I have posted here, so I will try to pick up with where I left off. I have been busy in the studio. Less time here at my computer means lots more time in my studio. As you can see, Mariposa was completed in time to be entered into an exhibition, Butterflies and Their Beautiful Kin, at the Texas Quilt Museum and juried into the show. Not only will it be at the Museum but will join 25 other quilts on a tour around the United States through 2017 for an exhibition called, Butterfly Whirl: Contemporary Quilt Art.

"Mariposa is part of a body of work that blends both my love/concern for nature and my penchant for whimsy and storytelling. I am reinventing a hierarchy of imaginary royalty intent on the survival of their realms." 

There are six butterflies pictured in this piece: The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, the Blue Spotted Purple and the Monarch make up her collar. The Blue Morpho is lighting on her hand. The Eastern Tailed Blue is flying and the Great Purple Hairstreak is on her chrysalis hair. 

This is my first time having a piece published in an exhibition catalog. The princess is on page 23. Of course, that is part of Velda Newman's Wings, 62" x 182", 1994, on the cover. In addition to the juried exhibition, 17 quilts were selected for an invitational show, A Flutter of Butterfly Quilts, in which Ms. Newman"s spectacular quilt Wings was a part.




There is a lot more that I need to post about and more things coming up in the studio. For today I will wrap it up. Most days I use my iPad to take photos and do most everything. The one thing it won't do is create posts on Blogspot. So I am going to try to get some pictures transferred from it to my main computer. Then I will update some more.

Mariposa Begins

In my last post I may have mentioned that there are two calls for entry that I would like to enter my work for consideration. The first of the two comes up in November and it is all about butterflies. Now previously I had decided not to rush to make up new pieces just in order to make a submission deadline. But somehow it seemed a shame that I was planning and in fact had done a preliminary drawing for Mariposa already. It would be a shame not to try, right? So above is a segment of the finished drawing for Mariposa. It took me three nights of drawing, erasing, redrawing and adjusting to get the final cartoon. It took only five minutes to have it blown up to size and then.....here we go.

Having an idea of what I want to do in my head, I set out to look for the 'right' background for her and the butterflies. Of course, nothing in my stash was right. So I spent hours combing through online fabric sellers. Nothing.

So I figured I'd have to make it up from what I had lying around. The butterflies are rather bland as they will be made representationally and not fancifully. So the background is a fanciful dance of bright flowers abstracted. Made from my silk doupionis and shantungs, it has a nice sheen to set off the butterflies.



Knowing that this has to be a quick masterpiece, one of the first things I did was contact my friend Gabriele Bullard of Fabrilish. She is the wonderful dyer that I met this summer in Lowell and the creator of the splendid skin fabric in Queen Bee. Asking for specifics, I expected her to say that she had nothing that fit my needs. She went a whole carload better and dyed me up some pieces to choose from according to my expressed needs.

Knowing that pictures do little to translate color to an artist, she mailed me twelve (yes,12) one yard or better pieces for me to choose from (she is in Florida, I in New England). I will mail her back what I do not keep and a check for the balance.

 Here is a little eye candy. 

I want Mariposa's skin to be yellow to yellow-green with shades of violet, blue or pinks to accent. This one is a hot contender.

She had told me about this one on the phone after she finished her dye runs. It seems to have a butterfly already in it.

This is another contender, as I love the yellow, greens going on to the right of the fantastic magenta.

Contender #3 has a great mix of yellows with pinks and violets.

So how does one pick from such amazing beauty. I am liable to keep the whole lot and send her a huge check. All these beauties were dyed on soft gorgeous cotton and she is charging $22.00/yd. A deal in my book!

This is just a small detail of a large piece that I AM buying..... just because. I love the depth and intensity.

So....back to Mariposa. I think the top piece will be the winner because it goes so well. 

If you would like to buy some eye candy too, you can get ahold of Gabriele at: fabrilish@gmail.com. I can say with certainty, "You won't be disappointed!"

I don't know how this is possible, given the extent of my bead and button collection, but I didn't have any butterflies in my stash. So I found some on Etsy and ordered them up. All are delivered but one order. Have you centered your gaze on the fimo beads yet. I just ordered a ton more. I wanted to see how big they were and if they would look OK with the piece. I love them.



So that is about it for now. Next week I will be continuing with the butterflies, one by one. There is a Monarch, an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, a Blue Morpho, a Blue Spotted Purple, and an Eastern Tailed Blue. Then I'll be on to Mariposa herself and her green chrysalis hair. I will take a few more progress photos but want to keep some secrets.