The Bella Quiltworks Art Bee quilters took to the streets last night to bomb Tucson Meet Yourself and the AIDS Quilt Project, parts of which will be displayed at the event. Many thanks to those who participated….
TMY is held at El Presidio Park in downtown Tucson through Sunday, so check it out while you still can. Feast your eyes on the quilts, and your tastebuds on Tucson’s wonderful ethnic food festival. Pics of the installation are below…. Now go out and build your own quilt bomb…
Those of you who saw my post last month ‘Just a Peek’ know that I showed detail shots of 2 recent works from my Samaras series–the full photos were embargoed until now. The first is called ‘Off the Wall’ and is in a blue/green and red/orange color scheme. You can see it in the Tucson Quilters’ Guild show in January. The second is ‘Free Radical IV’ in blue/violet and yellow/orange. They both continue the 3-Dimensional vein of work that I am exploring. Both will be on exhibit at the Jewish Community Center in December (details to follow).
This piece features shibori-dyed silk fabrics, screen printed by hand with iridescent textile paints, layered and stitched with raw edge cutwork. The larger piece is layered over another smaller piece to make it 3-dimensional. In a private collection.
See the works of the Fiber Artists of Southern Arizona at the Source Salon and Spa through November 14. The opening reception is Saturday, October 13 from 6-8 pm. All are welcome…no RSVP necessary. The salon is at 3382 East Speedway (across from the Loft Theater). I am travelling that day and won’t be able to attend, but you can meet some wonderful artists and see some unique work!
Wow! I was delighted when the Arizona Quilters Hall of Fame contacted me recently to be their featured quilter of the month. How cool is that???
The Hall of Fame honors our state’s quilting tradition and history, as well as the work of some great contemporary quilters. It is truly an honor to be in the company of other featured quilters.
Fortunately, no nudity was required! Click here for a link to the entry. Now I am off to tell my husband he is married to a calendar girl…
I am back in the studio after judging the Santa Cruz County Fair quilt show yesterday. The ride through the green desert grasslands was just beautiful, and the quilts were, too.
This morning, I submitted these two works (Off the Wall and Free Radical IV) to Quilt National 2013, the major art quilt biennial in Ohio. They require submissions of new work that has not been widely exhibited or posted online, so I am posting just a detail shot (okay, teaser) of each one. You can tell I am continuing the Samaras series in a 3D vein, with dyed/over-dyed/painted and layered fabrics with cutwork/raw edges.
I will post full photos as soon as I can. Keep your fingers crossed for me….
This piece is inspired by the Beekman Plaza skyscraper designed by Frank Gehry in NYC. There are seven layers of surface design on rayon fabric in this mixed media piece.
This rayon and silk piece is hand-dyed twice, screen printed, layered and stitched, pleated and mounted on stretched canvas.
I spent a whole week dyeing and over-dyeing yards of fabric for some upcoming pieces. Fortunately, I got some yardage I am pretty happy with. The first set of fabrics is in the blue-green and red-orange complementary palette. I over-dyed two versions of red-orange with blue-green (the center large piece on the right) and got strikingly different results, based on the amount of dye absorbed in the first dyebath of each fabric….I am finding that the yellow ‘strikes’ in large pieces of rayon before the blue when I dye blue-green, so I adjusted my dye recipe accordingly. These fabrics coordinate beautifully for a piece I plan soon.
The next set of fabrics is one of the dreaded tetradic color schemes: blue-violet/blue-green/orange-yellow/red-orange. Individually, these are some of my favorite colors. I say ‘dreaded’ because tetrads are so complicated (I don’t often see them in museums–this Picasso with its green-red-violet-yellow scheme at the Guggenheim is an exception). I guess when they are all together that they get overwhelming!
I am working with a chaos theme, and thought a tetrad would be pretty appropriate for that. I knew I had to be careful with over-dyeing tetradic colors because you are likely to get a lot of ‘mud’ -colored fabrics. The central piece is blue-violet over-dyed with blue-green and I really liked the results–it is gorgeous up close. Over-dying that with red-orange and orange-yellow gets you some of the muddy colors you see in smaller swatches on the left. Note to self: over-dying red-orange and yellow-orange pretty much gets you: orange. Go figure.
I have got my compositions worked out for these fabrics as well as the paint palette. I will keep you posted….
I just got a copy of Karen Fisher’s new AQS book, Easy Grid Quilts, and it is terrific! Karen is a prolific local artist who does many different styles of quilts based on grids. Her Matrix is one of my favorites, but she has been inspired by everything from the Mona Lisa to scientific principles in her grid patterns. If you think you have ‘seen it all’ when it comes to grid quilts, check this book out. A link to her the gallery on her webage is here.
Karen uses commercial fabrics in her work. Her book is generously loaded with tips and tricks for quilting, embellishing, and even making good color choices. While the techniques for making these quilts are ‘simple,’ there is nothing simple about the results: they are sophisticated, elegant and often complex.
Full disclosure: Karen is a friend of mine and I quilted several quilts in the book.
I love my own backyard mesquite for its shade, its wood (I soak windfall branches in water before throwing them on the barbie) and its delicious, sweet beans (which I grind into flour for baking). You get a sense of all of these uses and more when you tour Tohono Chul’s Mesquite exhibition. It really showcases the many ways we desert rats appreciate this vital part of our ecosystem, as well as the amazing variety of artistic media–from handmade books to wood carving–that you can find in Tucson.
My friend CJ Shane’s triptych incorporates parts of the plant in her mixed media creation… Josh Schacter’s photograph of a large stack of mesquite flapjacks is mouthwatering…Trish Hastings-Sargent, another friend and textile artist, does some exquisite thread painting in her piece, and I like my friend and fellow fiber artist Miriam Otte’s submission so much that I will be bringing it home at the end of the show. It is called ‘Mesquite Morn’ and uses a photographic process called cyanotype….I love the subtle shading the process gives the border fabric and the cyanotype on silk is delicate, beautiful, and mysterious. I have the perfect place for it in my home and can’t wait to see it installed!
You still have time to see ‘Mesquite’ at Tohono Chul’s Main Gallery before it closes July 22.
Just down the street from Snyderman-Works Gallery in Philadelphia is the Wexler Gallery. They hosted a group exhibition called ‘Narrative Threads‘ during the 2012 Fiber Philadelphia. Wexler represents several artists who work in the fiber medium, and it is well worth your time to stop by if you are interested in fiber arts. The gallery spacious and the staff helpful. These are some of the more memorable works from ‘Narrative Thread.’ This first one is called ‘Eyes [Red].’
In some of here smaller works, the artist obliterates whole figures from snapshots and calls them ‘ghosts.’ Click here for a link to Gardner’s work.
Click here to see more of Chau’s work.
See more of Endicott’s work here.
Click here for a link to Rosenthal’s work.
There was another work in painted glass that kinda fascinated me….it was made of 6-10 painted glass panes, separated by a half-inch or so. They were inserted in slots of what looked to be a shoe box. The subject matter was a pair of yellow high-heeled shoes. The 3-D effect was striking and made for a memorable piece. Sure wish I had written down the artist’s name!
I was able to see the last day of Snyderman Works Gallery’s Fiber Philadelphia show on April 28. Fiber Philadelphia is a biennial celebration of fiber arts that takes place across the city. Galleries and art centers showcase a fiberart form or show. This coincides with the biennial show Art Quilt Elements at the Wayne Art Center in Wayne, PA. 2014 was the 8th international fiber biennial.
Snyderman-Works Gallery is the premier gallery for fiber art, IMHO. The space is gorgeous, they understand the medium and and the staff is attentive without being pushy. They are very knowledgeable about the work and the artists. I was impressed when I mentioned I was from Tucson and a staff member told me that one of their artists is also represented by Obsidian Gallery here in town. She had nothing to gain by mentioning this, but I bet the artist is sure grateful she did.
But there is some really interesting work to show you, and so I begin. These are just a few of the works that caught my eye. The gallery has better photos of the 2012 Biennial on their website here if you want a closer look or to learn more about the artists.
Called ‘Order/Disorder,’ this is rust-dyed silk with encaustic, I believe, by Deborah Warner. The encaustic will prevent further oxidation of the fabric.
I am already planning my trip for the ninth Fiber Philadelphia biennial in 2014. Snyderman-Works Gallery will be on the ‘must-see’ list. In the next few days, I will post some pieces from the Wexler Gallery’s exhibition, so stay tuned….
These small works were made of hand-painted silk and screen printed before being layered and stitched. They are 12” square (matted and framed). Click here for information on the exhibition ‘Red’ and how to see Square Peg V in person at the Temple of Music and Art. Square Peg V has sold. Only three more left.
You can see an earlier version of Free Radical here. I inverted the composition to highlight the twice-dyed fabric. The dyes are called ‘pineapple’ and ‘melon’ and I almost called this piece ‘Fruit Salad,” but I refrained. I tried some new-for-me techniques: raw cut edges and using stencils and acrylic textile paint to put the shapes on fabric. I am especially intrigued by the cutwork and will continue to explore that. The piece is layered and stitched in the border only.
I have been busy since the quilt bomb, and have several new works to post. The first I call Channeling Gehry I and is inspired by architect Frank Gehry’s skyscraper at Beekman Plaza in NYC. While it hangs on the wall, it is really more a 3D sculptural work (96′ x 12” x 4”. It has 7 layers of surface design and is designed to be hung 8′ from the floor and flow onto the floor. The trick was getting it to hang like I wanted it to, and I had to try several experiments.
I am calling it Channeling Gehry I because I am considering re-making it in silk to get a better luster from the fabric. Showing it out of town is going to be difficult as ‘some assembly is required.’ I apologize for the lighting on the photo….it is my own and I don’t have all the lighting I need for such a large piece. Some detail shots are below.
I am considering making it even taller next time….what do you think? More new works will follow later in the week.
You have heard of ‘yarn bombing,’ well now a group I belong to, the Fiber Artists of Southern Arizona, has invented the quilt bomb! Inspired by Olek’s yarn bombing of the Wall Street bull, we had a blast doing the installation last night. A link to a video of the late-night installation is here.
FASA chose the Arizona Historical Society as the site of the world’s first quilt bomb because it is co-hosting the exhibition ‘One Hundred Years, One Hundred Quilts’ with the Arizona Quilters Hall of Fame as part of the state centennial celebrations. A reception for the quilters was held this morning and was virtually a ‘Who’s Who’ of Arizona quilters. You can see the exhibition through the end of 2012.
The work of FASA artists has roots in the quilting tradition, and we thought it was a great way to honor our past and celebrate the state of today’s art quilt. People who come to the exhibition can see that quilts can come off the bed, off the walls, and even onto the trees!
FASA is Barbara Hall, Trisha Hastings-Sargent, Joanne Krawchuk, Sandy Lambert, Sharon Nemirov, Aimee Smythe, Peggie Thomas, Mary Vaneecke and Kay Wild.
UPDATE: The Arizona Historical Society has offered to make the quilt bomb a part of the exhibition’s history….Needless to say, we are thrilled. The installation will be removed on Monday, February 27.
Photos follow. Please share this link with all your quilt/fiber art friends….
I have been mulling this question over the last few weeks. Some collectors buy on impulse: they see a work that speaks to them and they have to have it. If the price is right they buy it on the spot knowing that someone else can come by and snap it up. Others, like a couple who came into Flux Gallery a few weeks ago, have their eyes on a piece for TWO YEARS before they buy it. Some seek a particular color. One of my collectors purchased my Egyptian-inspired piece Fragment because the ibis was one of the marsh birds depicted on it (he has an ibis collection).
I recently sold a very dark work I call The Fabric of Our Community After January 8. It is a piece I created believing no one would ever purchase, but one I needed to make all the same. I tried to evoke the despair I felt for the victims and my hometown that day and in the aftermath of the Tucson shootings. I completed the work within 3 weeks of the tragedy. Because made the piece so soon after the event, there are no rainbows or happy transformational symbolism in the work, just the delicate golden husks of a few Indonesian silk cocoons. The work was spotted on my website by a collector and now hangs in his corporate offices.
Over the holidays, I purchased two works I have had my eye on for some time. Aspen and Copse are both by my friend C.J. Shane, who is known for her abstracted ‘big sky’ landscapes. They would perfectly fill some corner wall space that had long been empty in my home. The sizes and colors are terrific for the space. The pieces themselves were soothing–the yellows appear to glow softly against the blues. I will see them every day and wanted something calm and tranquil. They remind me of Hart Prairie in northern Arizona, which has a large aspen clone in a meadow below Mt. Humphreys. I love the way they looked when installed (see below). The fact that I know Shane, like her work, and want to support it is ‘icing on the cake.’
I suspect the answer to my question has as many variables as there are art purchases, but I’ll ask anyway: why did you buy a particular piece of art? Was it the theme? Color? Size? Subject matter? Medium? Did you buy it as part of a charity fundraiser? If you are an artist, tell me why you think people buy your work.
Painters Lee Beach and Sheryl Holland and I brought our studios to Flux Gallery for the weekend and had a great time meeting folks and sharing our work. Lee worked on some of his miniatures–look for them at the Small Works Show at Flux on December 9th and 10th. Sheryl began work on several paintings. About a 100 people came out to the gallery (braving the cool rainy weather) and I sold all but one of my Shibori Chic scarves. A nice way to spend the weekend!
I’m packing up some Shibori Chic scarves, t-shirts, and works in process for the Open Studio Tour, Saturday and Sunday, 11-4. I will also have videos of my 14′ sewing machines for ‘show and tell.’ Last but not least, this week I am framing several new ‘little gems’–small framed pieces starting at $35. Each one is hand-dyed or discharged, painted, layered and stitched. Some are embellished with shells, agate, or copper. Great little gifts of art for the holidays.
This year I will move my studio for the weekend to Flux Gallery in Plaza Palomino at Swan and Ft. Lowell. Artists Lee Beech and Sheryl Holland will also be there. It will be lots of fun. Hope to see you there.
I am working on my line of Shibori Chic clothing for the Open Studio Tour on November 12 & 13 (I’ll be doing the OST at Flux Gallery this year). My scarves and t-shirts will also be at the Tubac Arts Center. Check out the before:
and after:
Tucson filmmaker Dan Buckley is documenting the 100 Years, 100 Quilts Project as part of the Arizona state centennial celebrations. The exhibition runs next year at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson. Check out Dan’s blog here. Warning: Cuteness alert: Brownie Troop delivering their quilt for the exhibition.
Please join us on Friday, October 14, from 5 to 8 p.m. to celebrate the second anniversary of Flux Gallery at Plaza Palomino. Enjoy wine, hors d’oeuvres, and new work by artists C.J. Shane, Dragana Skrepnik, Lee Roy Beach, Lynne Yamaguchi, Mary Vaneecke, Peter Eisner, and Sheryl Holland. Flux Gallery is located at Plaza Palomino, 2960 N Swan Rd (at the southeast corner of Swan and Ft Lowell), in Suite 136. For more information, see http://fluxartists.com, email info@fluxartists.com, or call (520) 465-6600.
