Feeder

Last year, I was looking for other groups where maybe my quilts wouldn’t cause people to call Fox News and report my work as disturbing the peace. I found a group called FIG, the Feminist Image Group, formed in 2009. FIG is a coalition of visual artists who meet to discuss art, see exhibitions, and support one another in their careers. They work across many media, including drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, installation, digital media and performance (I’m going to need to encourage them to add fiber/textiles to the description).

As artists, they are concerned with how women continue to be portrayed in the art world. As teachers and feminists, they encourage their students and colleagues to be alert to sexism in its many forms. As friends, they aid each other in their creative and curatorial endeavors. FIG promotes an inclusive worldview that allows all voices.

I contacted the leader of the group last year and she invited me to join, but I couldn’t make a meeting until a few weeks ago (and I had to scramble to do that, since the girlchild had soccer and I had to make dinner and get it into the oven before I left, and then the girlchild called because her dad hadn’t picked her up, blah blah blah).

One of the reasons I joined was to find more art-related venues and exhibits in town, rather than just art QUILT-related shows, and that is working because I have one I’m working on for early June (which I panicked about last night and finally started drawing) and one next weekend. Next weekend is more of a performance piece, which I did do in college, so it’s not a new experience, but the girlchild has expressed interest in being involved, so that IS new. The performance and installation are called Feeder…

You should bring an empty stomach and an open mind. The opening reception is next Saturday, April 14, from 6-8 PM at Garage 4141, 4141 Alabama St., North Park, San Diego. Yes, this is some guy’s garage. In fact, it’s Larry’s garage. You can read about Larry Caveney and his art garage here.

The premise behind the garage event is that women are care-givers. Mothers, daughters, sisters, wives–we do the bulk of caring for others. We often look after the young, the sick, the elderly and the helpless. This performance celebrates nurturers, and explores notions of dependence, intimacy, sensuality and privacy in the act of nurturing. It recalls being fed as children, and uncomfortably harkens to a future when we may be spoon-fed as elders.

Feeder is a Relational Aesthetics performance work and installation in which FIG members serve food to guests and each other at the opening event. The performance develops out of the relationship between people in the intimate act of serving and eating. Wall pieces will also explore the idea of nurturing through food. It is free and open to the public.

The Art Produce Gallery will also be running a related exhibit that opens that weekend, eat here now, with a reception from 6-9, located at 3139 University Avenue (just down the road from Ray Street, which will be running Ray at Night that weekend as well). So you can come to all these things and feel artful for a night (which is sometimes difficult in San Diego). Plus you will get fed. There will be photos, paintings, and one of my textile pieces. And I still need an apron. I can’t believe with all the women I know that none of them have a nice vintage apron. So I’m thriftshopping it later today. First I have to get the girlchild up and to the gym. That is a feat unto itself.

Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World

I was the lucky recipient of a copy of Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World, by Martha Sielman (Lark Books publishing). I was especially interested, because I’m going to be in the People and Portraits volume next year, so it was a joy to see how beautiful the book is: nice paper, good-sized pictures, lots of color, but enough writing to keep me interested. I’m into these books for the pictures, sure, but I love to read how artists think and work, and this book provides plenty of that.

There are 19 artists and 1 fiber art group profiled in the book, and a myriad of other artists who have one or two quilts in themed sections such as Animals or Leaves. Of course, my brain tries to play this out into the People and Portraits book and gets Men and Women and Children and Aliens (not the illegal kind, but the Area 51 kind) and Naked People as themed sections (guess where I go?)…but I’m sure they’ll be much more intelligent than that.

These themed sections mean we get to see a wide variety of nature-themed quilts beyond the artist profiles, which is a nice addition to the book. It’s not limited to just those artists, and there are some in the themed sections that surprised me…I did not know that Leslie Gabrielse had ever made a nature quilt…and it was quite a beautiful tree.

Having been through the interview process with Sielman, she does a good job of keeping the artist’s tone in their section. Also, there were artists I was not familiar with, like Ginny Smith and Cassandra Williams (although I recognized the giraffe quilt), and some favorites of mine, like Betty Busby and Annemieke Mein. While I love to see my old favorites, I also enjoy learning about new artists (this is why my blog list on Google Reader is so huge). Smith has some primitive-looking, yet brightly colored crows who are calling my name (not literally) and Williams’ Dance of the Deep, a quilt with a stunning octopus, impresses me with her realism on the face of traditional diamond piecing. I remember my mom showing me a book of Mein’s work many years ago…I’m as impressed with it now as I was then. And you’ve heard me go on about Busby before.

One of the parts I love about this book is that the artist seems to be talking directly to you. In Judith Trager’s section, she tells the reader to keep working: “Don’t ever stop working. Whatever your circumstances are, don’t ever stop making art…It is important to keep doing it, because it keeps you alive.” Hello sister! I’m trying. But yeah. I’m with you on that. We learn about their background, their choice to work in fiber, where they live as a connection to why they make nature-related art, and how they work on specific pieces. This adds to the worth of this volume. I’ve reviewed art quilt books before, and I am frustrated when it is all pictures and no story. I want to delve deep into the artist’s brain and figure out why they do what they do and what it means to them. This book provides all that.

I’m looking forward to reading through this book on the way to some soccer tournament (cough cough tomorrow!). I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys artists talking about their work, or those who like quilts of flowers and birds and trees and insects, because there are plenty of those to make you happy…definitely worth a purchase (it was on my wish list…so I guess I’m lucky it didn’t show up for my birthday).