An Artful Life

1 of 500 Art Quilts

 
  
I just found out that my quilt, Now, was accepted and will be published in the book 500 Art Quilts.  Karey Patterson Bresenhan, of Quilt, Inc., was the juror of over 2000 art quilts that were submitted.  This book will be available in bookstores and Amazon in the spring of 2010.

I remember doing a visualization when I popped the application in the mail.  I saw myself at a Border's or Barnes and Nobel in the quilting section and opening the book to see my quilt in print.  In another 6 months, I imagine I will be doing just that!

Imagination

 

This is my latest word quilt.  I make the letters to spell the word, but then use the letters as shapes as I put the pieces together.  In this piece, I used Skydyes hand-painted fabric that I had purchased at the SAQA conference in Athens last month.

SAQA, Studio Art Quilt Associates, is an awesome organization that promotes the medium of art quilting.  Imagination is going off into the mail today to be included in their annual auction of 12" x 12" quilts.  The auction starts September 10 and you can see what they have collected so far, here.

Some of other word quilts are listed on this blog.  If you would like a quilt of your special word, please let me know. 

Election Results

 

As President Obama's 100 days comes to a close, I think that there are more Americans feeling more hopeful, despite the shrinking economy and job losses and events happening that we never would have imagined.  There is a feeling that with all of these huge changes, our country will head in a new and better direction.  A direction of sustainability, truth and abundance instead of making money at everyone's and anyone's expense, lies, and fear.

This quilt kept me busy during the stressful time before my move from Blue Star to the Exchange Building downtown in December, January, and February.  I could feel the hope in the air as if it were a tangible, tactile thing.  Clearly, other people were feeling the same thing as Hope became the call letters for Obama's campaign.

Election Results, as this quilt is named, will be displayed over Memorial Day weekend at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, TX from 10 am - 5 pm each day--May 23 - 25, 2009. 

Growing Up

  

As I prepare to quilt my Obama quilt, I realize all of the care that I now take to better ensure my success.   These are habits that definitely weren't there in my early days. 

For one thing, I now back-track when I have to.  I don't like to, but I know that if I don't, I won't like the piece as much.  I repieced a tiny bit of green where there was a tiny bit of blue showing on the underside of the P.  I moved part of the H over an 1/8 of an inch and squished the O a bit.  I also ripped out more than one seam while putting the blocks together.

When I'm doing really putzy work like laying out these diamonds, I do it in the morning when I have extra patience.  That also goes for working on the tension of a new machine.  I am finally going to use this new beast for quilting a large quilt!  I will never, never give up my Bernina.  It is so easy to change out the feet, needles, and thread, I'm still using it for most things.

 

Here is an interesting little habit that I have started doing--making a practice sandwich to get the tension right before I start my quilt.  I think this baby artist is growing up!

Mini Art

    Today I started making quilt cards.  I have had the paper stock for a while, but as I eased back into my studio after a long New Year and First Friday weekend break, this seemed a nice easy warm up.

But these little things could get addictive.  I have made little quilts with the normal top and batting, but with the card itself serving as the back.  I really felt productive today taking the morning off, doing a ton of house work, and finishing 3 pieces! 

This is what the inside of the card looks like with all of the quilting.  There is no ripping out and re-doing when working on paper.  But it held up really well even with the close stitching of this piece.

Here are the other two that I created today.

 

 

These notecards will be available at Fiber Artspace after we move into our new digs.  I should have a nice selection by then.

Flame

     

Flame is the result of my playing with red.  What I really enjoyed about this piece is that I allowed myself to follow my instincts all along the way.  And while this piece was intended for someone, I didn't have a hard deadline. 

I started making fun little blocks in the lusty red (middle range) color until I couldn't do anymore.  Then I switched to the Chinese red (lighter range) color and made a few more.  I liked the tension of these two colors together, but I really felt the need to make this piece more harmonious.  Not being able to move forward, I went back to my stash, and came up with the deep wine (darker range) color.  The quilt fell together after the third red showed up.  The remaining blocks came together very quickly.

The blocks and the arrangement are very geometric and so I softened it by adding the organic quilting and hand-embroidered shapes.  The intention for this piece is to hold the strength and light of a long-lasting love where one of the partners is dying.  These are dear friends of one of my customers.

Another First

 

This has been a year for a lot of Firsts...first juried show acceptance, first piece sold, first repeat customer for Fiber Artspace, first commission, first repeat customer for myself...and today, first award.  Dance, pictured above, won third place at the Fiber Artists of San Antonio Annual Juried Exhibit.

I have a lot to be grateful for, and trust me, I am.  But what I am the MOST grateful for is my HD, Chuck.  [HD is short for Hug Dispenser.]  Chuck supports me in so many ways.  He enjoys playing the role of breadwinner while I play the role of artist and kitchen goddess.  As Executive Producer of Fiber Artspace,  he fights for it when I have doubts.  He buys art quilts because he really digs the medium.  He loves my work and he loves me, but most of all, he truly appreciates the artful life--full of creative energy--that comes when an artist follows her heart.   He is my saint and for him, I am most grateful.

 

Terra Juried Into "Admiration"

 

Earlier this year, I collaborated with Marcia Dahlman for the exhibit Innovation:  A Collaboration.  One of our pieces, Terra, was juried into SAVA's Inaugural Art Gala.  This was a national juried visual art exhibition that opens at the Spanish Governor's Palace, but will be moved to SAVA's new gallery at the River Center Mall. 

I'm very excited to get a piece into a national exhibit that is conveniently located in San Antonio.  I will post dates and times to see the exhibit as they become available.

BE - Before and After

   

           Before                            After

Be is a quilt with dimension that I completed in April 2008.  You can't really tell by these pics, but the black center is a separate quilt that is hanging behind the white and yellow part.  I loved working with the depth and loved how it looked from the front.  But I didn't like how it was viewed from the side--seeing two different-sized quilts dangling from a single support.

So, the idea came to me to mount this quilt on a frame.  It was a lot of work to wrap the frame's interior with black fabric, wrap the outside with a wool batt, sew the sides to the quilt, and then attach to the frame.  But I think the results were well worth the effort.  With the quilt pulled slightly over the frame, it attains the clean rectangular shape that I first imagined.

One of the first quilts that I have seen mounted on a wooden frame was Guadalupe/Tonantzin by Susie Monday--an absolutely gorgeous piece that I got tp view at the 2007 FASA exhibit held at Gallery Nord.  I thought that the extra dimension really gave the piece more punch.

The American Dream

I began this quilt in 2005 not long after Chuck and I left San Antonio for Colorado with the expectation that our house would foreclose.

It was a piece for my first color class with Heather Thomas, which was about neutrals.  Even though the palette is beige and gray, there is nothing neutral about the emotion that this piece holds, even after 3 years.

The American Dream for Chuck and I had turned into a nightmare of corporate jobs that we hated, a house that seemed to own us, and debts that we could barely keep up with.

We escaped by quitting our jobs so I could be a life coach and Chuck could be a massage therapist.  Of course, this quickly led to divestiture of our house, most of our belongings, and credit rating.

With our lighter load, we have been able to re-sculpt our lives into something that makes sense for us.   Our palette includes a lot of very bright colors.

This quilt will be on display at Fiber Artspace, aka our living room, September 4 - 28.