I’d say yay Friday but I have such a huge pile of things that has to be graded this weekend that I’m not really looking forward to it. I’m not even sure how I’m going to pull it off honestly. It seems impossible. But grades are due in a short time and I have to give these kids a chance to fix their mistakes, although I was significantly frustrated with the last batch of redoes. I don’t know how many times I can explain evidence vs inference. ALL the times, actually. With some people, it just straight up doesn’t seem to matter. So I’m a little frustrated, because I have kids who want Principal’s Honor Roll so they need all As but they don’t always do A work. Or be quiet, which is the citizenship part of it. Sigh.
This school year is a lot. I’m thinking they’re all a lot right now. That might be saying something right there.
Artwise, I’m struggling to keep the hour a night…still. Usually by October, I’ve got this, but October is almost over. So I’m tracing every night, but I think last night was the first time I managed an actual hour. And it’s because I stayed up late. And made myself stop working at 9:30 PM even though I wasn’t done with that class. My brain keeps screaming about balance.
So tracing…Wednesday night…
Which looks a lot like Thursday night (except I obviously made it out of the 600s and into the 700s).
The bathtubs are done; the figures are done. That snake is next and then all the bits around the bathtubs, minus the two rugs that are already done. I think there’s about 250 pieces left. So I could finish it this weekend…but also, there’s grading. Frustrating. Really really frustrating.
We had to trim the eucalyptus trees. It makes me sad. The birds! The shade…
Poor things. The neighbor’s roof now visible. Bleck.
Owl pellets so far from the entryway.
I’m going to put them in a ziplock baggie for my neighbor’s kid when he comes trick-or-treating (he wants them…I’m not being a mean neighbor).
And here’s where I’m at.
My inner raccoon, more like it. But possums are also cool.
OK. I really am just surviving day by day and looking for the moments that sustain me. Yesterday was a bit much at school. I could do without it. The teaching was fine. The other stuff. Ugh. Make it stahhhp. So today is supposed to be an independent assignment so I can grade shit. We’ll see how that goes. Based on previous experiences? Yeah. Not so much. We keep trying though. Then after school, I finally got my wash for the ceramics pieces. I remembered gloves and brushes…there were no gloves last time. I’m going to do the washes and consider glazing. Then home for dinner and grading and tracing. I can stay up a little late tonight, but had to shuffle pilates, dentist, and groceries to tomorrow because Sunday is a meeting up in the OC. All day for that. Plus trying to grade. I’m not driving this time, so that should help. But one assignment has to be done on computer AND paper. So is my phone a hotspot for that? Or do I just take all the paper stuff. SIGH fucking SIGH. I did get an email from a coteacher last night who saw my banned book piece at the library. That was cool. I don’t know her very well, so it was a nice connection.
Anyway, send good thoughts into the air for your teacher friends. It’s a week from Halloween and the staff drama is just as good as the kid drama. Plus I can’t find last year’s costume and I don’t have the time or money for a new one…so there’s that.
I’m back after 4+ very busy days in San Francisco with the girlchild, who is really very patient and fun to be around, even though we are now both sick. I’m not sure how. Maybe someone at SFMOMA? Someone at the show on Friday? Hard to know. Still an awesome trip…so much art.
Here’s all of it chronologically. Mostly. Before I left, I did some more ironing on the quilt in progress that won’t be done before school starts (which is fine).
And I washed out the last two dye paintings I did. The dye seems to be holding particularly well, being 8 days old at this point.
The one book that made any claims for how long the dyes last said 5 days; the other one said, yo, document your shit! So yeah, some of the dye is washing out, but I still like it.
NOW, today, the dyes are hmmm…15 days old. I haven’t tossed them. I was hoping to do some this week. This is before I got sick. We’ll see how it goes.
OK, so Thursday, I flew to San Francisco kind of early so we could do the one day SFMOMA is open late…just for Ruth Asawa’s show. And wow. Not only are her iconic pieces truly beautiful in person…
And the shadows!
But there is a lot of background info and other artwork of hers as she branched out (sometimes literally) that adds to the exhibit.
Also, holy crap, but she had 6 kids and was able to create consistently. I appreciate that. We did joke that almost every piece was called “Untitled”. She did some things with pens and patterns, plus ink…the repetitive quality of her work is very satisfying to experience.
And her later, more branching work, is also beautiful.
I really enjoyed her work.
We watched another segment of the Ragnar Kjartansson The Visitors exhibit. I’d seen about 20 minutes of it last July, and saw another 20, the last 20. Truly beautiful.
And we went through Yayoi Kusama’s Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love again.
Last time, there was a huge line, but late-night Thursdays seem to be the best time to go. Also, the show has been open for a year and is closing soon.
We had a late dinner and went to bed.
The next day, the girlchild needed to work and I had a couple of shows I wanted to see, so I headed out at a reasonable hour. I was staying in the Mission District, and the murals blow my mind every time I’m there. This is Boneyard Luv by Raiz y Gonzalez con Safos.
I didn’t get the mushroom artist.
And then I took BART over to Berkeley (easy to get there once I figured out where the station was) to BAMPFA to see Routed West.
I do love some old quilts, especially when they’re wonky. This is by Willia Ette Graham, started before 1944, completed in the 1950s, repaired in 1985. I love the addition of each set of new bits. Started with a crumb quilt and moved on.
This is a shadow star by Rebecca Smith and Bettie Chaffold (mother and daughter). I like the color of the squares with the stars.
This is Alice Neal’s Mary Bright Commemorative Quilt from the 1950s, in honor of her mother.
The center is very contemporary art quilt, with the hat and embroidery.
This is Quinciana Tatmon’s fan quilt. I love that she didn’t make it the way most fans are usually designed, and they she randomly appliqued them on top of the background. This is from the 1950s-60s.
And I always love clothes being put whole into a quilt. This is a britches quilt by Arbie Williams, pieced in 1993, and quilted by Irene Bankhead.
There are a lot of repeat names in these quilts…many were just tops and were finished later. I have a few of those from my grandmother lying around.
This was pieced by Cora Lee Hall Brown in 1981 and then quilted by Willia Ette Graham. there is one block but its repeat is so random and yet repetitive in a beautifully random way.
This was pieced by Louisa Fite in the 1950s-60s. It’s a log cabin with the blue and white feathers at the center of the log cabins. It was quilted in 1970 by Joan Thompson, her daughter.
More fun colors here…Johnnie Wade made this piece in 1996. Very graphic.
But check out the star and how it’s attached to the background. I love this. Because it’s not straight and it’s all buttonhole stitched down by hand.
Whatever works y’all. Great show…again at BAMPFA through November 30. From there, I walked through one corner of UC Berkeley, where I saw this sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro. This is Rotante Dal Foro Centrale in 1971.
I went to Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics, bought a few half yards, but also felt like I should be making my own pants. In my spare time. It’s an option, I guess.
I have buttons in jars too, but nothing like this guy. I knew about the clothing, but my favorite piece in the show was this bathtub covered in buttons with the hint of a female figure (in white). This is darkmuskoilegyptiancrystals&floridawater/redpotionno.1 from a poem by Ntozake Shange. It’s about suicide and self love.
I was also fascinated by how he used buttons sculpturally.
And turned denim clothing into things they weren’t…this is the yoke and sleeves, but I also like how the pockets hang down.
Also he does some stitching between the buttons.
Here’s some more stacks…on this sleeve, kind of protective.
Another yoke, this is no sleeves.
I wasn’t great about documenting titles in this show. This is Button Apron: Black Target.
These are Button Shorts: Chillin’ Chaps.
And my favorite speedos…Button Speedo: Black Ice.
Nobody is coming near you with those on.
The show offered a chance to make your own button necklace or bracelet, so I did.
There was also a small exhibit there called A Roadmap to Stardust with this little ceramic sculptures of what look like astronauts. The exhibit was created by artists Neil Forrest and John Roloff (collaboratively known as OortCloudX).
It’s supposed to be an archaeological dig.
They’re fun.
Definitely an interesting little exhibit.
Oh here’s the 5 fabrics I did buy. I wanted to buy linen type stuff for pants, but I didn’t.
After all that, I made it back to the Mission and headed out for dinner with the girlchild and two of her friends…more murals. This is by Nychos, who I’ve followed on Instagram for years…nice to see one in person.
We had a great Burmese dinner, then walked a million miles uphill to an art collective to watch a friend of theirs sing in a band in the basement…it was mostly 70s and 80s with some more current stuff. Fun times.
The next day, I had persuaded the girlchild to take me to the International Fiber Arts XII exhibit in Sebastopol at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. And there’s the bridge.
Me in front of my piece War Zone.
This was an interesting and varied show…not just quilts, but all types of fiber arts, which is nice. This is Oh Know by Mark Sullivan.
Here is Does the Caged Bird Sing by Jóh Ricci. A really intriguing texture.
I realize this is a fungus, but it also looks like a dress to me (it’s highly likely it’s supposed to look like a dress). This is Mango Tango by George-Ann Bowers.
This interesting piece is Fairyfellers by Leonard Greco.
Intriguing characters…
This is two different pieces that work very well together. The top piece is Chimera by Erica Dincalci and the bottom is All in a Band by Mercy Hawkins.
The 3D work was fascinating. Here is Il Sogno della Bambina by Penelope Lenaerts.
More buttons and texture in Still Kickin by Marie Bergstedt.
These black clouds were very cool. This is Cloud Bursts by Kathy Pallie.
And this little cutie by Eileen Morabito, Make Love. Fuck War.
It was a very visually entertaining show that closes this week, I think.
We drove out on Florence Street, where we started to see the work of Patrick Amiot and Brigitte Laurent. Almost every house had a sculpture in the front yard, and then we saw them all over town.
Patrick builds them out of junkyard remains and Brigitte paints them.
I love all of them. I want one in MY yard.
We headed out for the winery experience to a tiny but lovely place, the Horse & Plow Tasting Room. They do wine and cider and have a lovely outdoor space.
You can see we kinda needed this.
We shared one because this place is 90 minutes away from the girlchild’s home, so it was nice that she drove all that way for me.
When we got back, we rested a bit and headed out for bao and dumplings, which was fun. We happened to walk through an art exhibit on the way back and saw two art quilters’ work I knew…Joe Cunningham’sShelter dominating the exhibit.
The exhibit was for locals about the area and had a lot of fun work in it.
We walked back through the Mission…
The next morning was a late start for us, in that the girlchild wanted to watch a soccer game and I decided to wander around, feed myself, head over to Balmy Alley to photograph more murals, yadda yadda. I like how they all have their fists up in this mural by Martin Travers.
This is Victorion: El Defensor de la Mision, by Sirron Norris.
I kind of like the chairs here, but it blocks the painting a bit. This is Cosmogonia by Chilovia, Raiz-Peskador. I see two Instagram accounts on the painting: Pancho Pescador and Pablito Something.
I love the detailed storytelling murals. This is Mission Makeover by Lucia Ippolito & Tirso Araiza, her father.
Two details I found really interesting…this with Adam and Eve being pushed out by riot police is way too close to the ICE kidnappings happening recently.
And this bit with the monkeys and the guy that looks like he’s in court robes by plugged in with his mouth zipped shut.
Great imagery. This piece too…Women of the Resistance by Lucia Gonzalez Ippolito (the same artist from the last one) and more (the names are very hard to read, even in real life).
The upper portion with all the puppeteers of evil is amazing. There are strings coming down from their hands to try to control everything.
Absolutely on topic.
That gas tank dispenser…
Here is an older one; the part with the name is deteriorated…bottom left corner.
I like the tree with the body below in this one…by Laura Campos.
This sign was in one of the windows in the alley…I heartily agree.
I passed this trailer parked on 25th Street enough times to agree with it.
This is Leyend Azteca, which was directed by Leia Maahs and Jaime Wynn, painted by a bunch of people, possibly originally painted by Gustavo in 1978. Long story here…bottom right corner.
The girlchild eventually picked me up and we headed south to Filoli, which is this huge mansion in the middle of nowhere.
But it had (17,000 people AND) 6 of Thomas Dambo’s trolls, made from recycled materials. I saw one of these in Seattle and have kept an eye on them since.
It’s an expensive trip, unless you’re a member, but I found between the trolls, the gardens, and the house…plus there happened to be an art fair while we were there…it was worth it. We spent about 3 1/2 hours wandering around (in the heat, to be fair).
It was harder to get photos without people in them…
Hence no picture of this one’s face…
Except here, where I cropped out the entire family in the lower half.
And this one never had no kids on it.
But this is nice. And yes, they all have names and stories and are very kid friendly.
But awfully adult friendly too.
Super loved this place.
The gardens are pretty and have some interesting stuff in them.
And the house…well the ballroom is amazing and so are all the kitchen rooms (multiple rooms).
Yeah, I didn’t have time to figure out what these were.
I tried to get a picture of the squirrel I saw this morning running along the wires in front of my second-story window, but that didn’t happen. I flew back this morning…which is kind of when the girlchild and I realized we were both sick. This flight was delayed as well, which might just be a summer thing. And then I spent most of the afternoon lying on the couch or the bed and sleeping. I’m feeling a bit better now, but suspect tomorrow will still be ugh. I was just thinking I hadn’t been sick in ages…well, since my trip to Ohio, when I actually got sick when I got home. Fun times. It was a great trip…lots of good food and time with kid, plus art up the yinyang, whatever that means. Totally a cool time. I’ll be resting up for a couple of days and trying to figure out how to be ready for school next week. Too soon, y’all…too soon.
I just got back from four days in Ohio…Athens, Ohio (OK, it’s taking me a long time to finish this post, so not really just back…almost a month ago! Hey school ended. Don’t judge too hard.). Where Quilt National takes place. This is my 5th time getting in, and nothing compares to the first time, but it’s still amazing. I wasn’t able to go the last two times…in 2021, there was barely a vaccine, and I was teaching on Zoom, and it just seemed like too much. In 2023, I was still listening to my school district tell me there were no subs, you can’t possibly take time off. I stopped listening to them, because there has to be a balance between work and life, and there hasn’t been. I am glad to have a supportive principal at the moment. So this year, I went. Excited! But even then, I had forgotten the amazing rush of being with like-minded people, artists struggling to create, whatever that looks like, meeting new people, seeing old friends, seeing the art! So my brain is still in exploding mode, and hopefully that will get me through the end of the year.
I didn’t photograph all of the pieces. I get to a point where I can’t. But I tried to photograph every artist with their piece, and details when I felt them. Oh hey! Here’s me. Talking about my inspiration. I kept it short. I read Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run With the Wolves when I was in college, and then I had signed up for Audible to listen to books when I quilt and clay, and her books about wise women and crones and Mother trees popped up, and I think I listened to two or three of them. I loved the idea of a Mother Tree/Crone who was trying to protect us all, especially the younger women who might not have the resources we older women have (I’m still not old enough to be a crone, but it’ll come). On the left are all the issues with reproductive rights, telling us we don’t have any, turning women into baby factories. On the right is war, Gaza, Ukraine, there’s bombs dropping throughout this quilt, body bags, people crying. It’s not an easy quilt to explain; it wasn’t easy to make. And I’m glad it got in.
Oh yeah, it has a name: Seeking the Crone’s Protection.
And here it is surrounded by other quilts…love to see what’s around it.
Susan Else’s sculpture Something to Say; to the right, Jennifer Candon’sMetanoia, Peggy Black’sPolyphonic 5 to the left of mine, to the left of that, Ruth de Vos‘ Wings of Freedom, and then to the far left, Keetje Abbenhuis’ Trash in Orbit.
Here’s Peggy Black in front of her piece.
Here’s my good friend Dinah Sargeant with her 100 pieces…holy moly. The piece is called Snaps and is all of her scraps made into little snapshots.
A detail of one of the hundred pieces. Not a small amount of work. She made each into a tiny quilt with sleeves and rods.
This is Kestrel Michaud’sEchoes of Time and Magic, part of her steampunk world.
I’ve read articles and watched videos of her explaining her process, which is similar to mine, but uses technology (computers and cutters instead of scissors).
I had a great conversation with her about her technique and materials, and am impressed she has persuaded her husband to make her artistic life easier (more technological support).
I know that if my hands ever give out, I might need to do the same, head to the computer. Not there yet. Nice to know a process exists though.
I saw a few of her pieces at QuiltCon this year; it’s a fascinating way of working, especially after hearing about why (and how) she did the arm and shoulder after an injury.
Certainly very different to how I make work. It has some ideas I might be exploring this summer. Inspirational anyway.
This is Russ Little talking about his quilt to the right, More Than Black & White #4, with Helen Geglio’sMind Map: Compartments behind him. Russ had a fascinating story of the background behind making these pieces.
Also, this is a good example of my forgetting to go back and take additional photos. I was constantly getting overwhelmed by this experience of art and artists, so I apologize for not fully documenting the event.
For instance, this is Gabrielle McIntosh, a math teacher, who was talking about the piles of grading she needed to do (this is Precarious Balance, which is largely how I feel about school on a regular basis).
I meant to go tell her YES. I GET IT. And I never did.
I took one larger picture where you can see those two a little better, on the right. I think when I went back, there were people just hanging out there constantly (table and chairs?), so that’s my excuse.
This is Jennifer Strauser’sSweet Surrender, constructed by starting to stitch on the outside edges and then moving in.
OK, crazy small world (or not)…I just finished trying to watch some of the Making Zen online workshops this week (totally failed last year, due to being in Maine) and I watched hers! But I didn’t realize it was the same person.
It’s a fascinating technique.
And then there’s this, Stefanie Neuner’sThat’s NUTS, about her atypical child and trying to get them help.
There’s a ton of really special embroidery on this piece.
I know it’s emotional for her and am glad she was invited to be part of the exhibit.
Insane amount or stitching.
Cindy Grisdela explained her leaf/pod shapes and her experimentation with color, in Musings II.
Wendy Richardson’s piece Children of War won an Award of Excellence.
So many pieces about war this year. This one is beautiful.
She spoke about the crosses going up into the sky being those who had lost their lives heading to heaven.
I traveled with a local San Diegan, Juli Smith, who happens to be in my modern quilt guild chapter. This was her first Quilt National with Sweet Tooth, due to the sugar packets she originally designed with.
We had a variety of international quilters, as always, with a variety of ways of communicating with us. This is Harue Konishi and her piece Halu #14. She translated her artist speech for Keri Wolfe to read to us.
Great sense of color and contrast.
Betty Busby’s piece Conflict was an intriguing mix of materials and shapes.
Another war quilt…she talks about these being the aftermath of battle scenes. Here she is explaining how she made barbed wire out of fiber.
When I first started paying attention to Quilt National, you could always tell who had taken classes from Nancy Crow. I think Irene Roderick is the new version of that. This is Laurie Paquin’s Composition 3, and she admits to Irene influence. Her piece reminds me of beetles…or brightly colored cars. The thin lines are intriguing.
She won the Emerging Artist award.
I got absolutely no good pictures of Patty Kennedy-Zafred’s long book-shaped piece, Mercato Del Friuli. It’s behind that head. Whoops! I swear, my brain gives out after a while.
I meant to go back and never did. This is where I tell you to buy the catalog. If you can’t go to the show.
I love Anne Smith’s work. So much recycled fabric used in such a fascinating way. This is Elmore & Duke Reminiscing.
Inspirational stuff.
I often wish I could work more like that…more freeform and textural.
She is also a much more careful quilter than I am.
Susan Shie was not at the opening weekend. I’ve met her before. I would call her one of my early influences in the art quilt world. This is her piece Navalny: 9 of Wooden Spoons (wands) in the Kitchen Tarot.
A crazy amount of writing.
This is Rodger Blum’s Seven Angry Men and One Celestial Being…
The surface is very interesting. I’d like to know more about how he does this. .
This is Trash in Orbit, by Keetje Abbenhuis.
She talked about using a particular shape, three sides and a curved line.
Ruth de Vos was also not at the opening weekend (not surprisingly). This is her piece Wings of Freedom.
The bird wings are beautiful.
Isabelle Dupras’s piece Le grand Tamtidelam a deux tetes is a fun folk piece.
It’s also very different than her other work.
I did ask if she had cats at home…
because of these…apparently no.
Cara Gulati’sRainbow Spiral Kaleidoscope is fun to look at (and try to figure out).
His piece is sound reactive, so I spent time staring at it, trying to figure out what it was reacting to…
No real answer to that. Just that it’s reacting. Certainly beautiful and fascinating.
Sandra LH Woock’s piece Day Break is just fun to look at, trying to figure out how she made it.
That website is ancient. Clearly she spends more time making fascinating things than updating it.
This is Danette Pratt’sScream. I wanted to meet her, to talk to her, but she disappeared. Her piece is on the page next to mine, and she has my mom’s middle name.
Plus holey moley, her stitching, that face; they’re just fascinating.
I like it. I like the hand applique with the slow stitching.
The cool shading here.
Just an amazing piece.
Barbara Schneider is amazing at making fabric look like bark. This is Forest Floor, Tree Bark Fragments, var. 10.
You know, one of the reasons it takes me so long to create this post (besides the day job) is that I search out websites for each artist, and THEN I read their websites. So I just take forever.
This is Barbara Lange’sSo Wa Wai. It’s all discharged jeans fabric and there’s an amazing story behind it.
It involves a mom’s love, which is always a cool subject.
This is Heather Akerberg’sDialectic No. 1, which won Outstanding Machine-Pieced Quilt.
I love that on her website, she talks about introducing her team…and it’s her. And her cat.
From left to right, Louise Silk’sGabriel: A Mantle for our Steel Town Angel, all of reused materials. Then Sandy Curran’sSurvivor’s Guilt. And Shin-Hee Chin’sViriditas (Greenness), which won Best of Show.
Here is Jean Renli Jurgenson talking about the fabric she used for her piece Hallelujah.
It was a real pleasure to meet Jane Haworth (I own a small piece of hers) and hear about how she made all the chickens in Let’s Talk Color.
She makes some amazing collage pieces of animals.
And her chickens are gorgeous.
I also talked to Sue Sherman, not realizing at first what other work she had done that I had seen. She’s been creating these animal portraits and they’re mind-boggling. This is The King Family, and they are all painted.
Then the frame is made of all the things the animal would like…such as the squid crown.
Real skill in the painting as well…
There is such a wide range of work that is vastly different from mine…it’s part of why I love these exhibits. This is Seen and Unseen, by Kathy Ford.
She was an architect in her former life, so this is a true departure.
More fascinating closeups.
Here’s a better photo of Shin-Hee Chin’s piece Viriditas.
She’s got some YouTube videos of her process that are just fascinating, but she also talked about the role of classical music in her work.
Looking at it up close does not help explain her process!
I could stare at it for hours.
This one, I could have sworn it was flowers until the artist, Beth Schnellenberger, started talking about the two birds in Double Phoenix Rising (it was my first run through…wasn’t reading labels at all).
She uses a technique very similar to mine (so she understands my insanity).
Brent McGee’s work Apollo and Dionysus is fun to look at…very textural and 3D (honestly probably more fun to touch…but you’re not supposed to touch the art).
I spent some time hanging out with Brent and some of the other artists at a winery Saturday night. It was interesting listening to all the ideas bopping around.
Here is Ann Houle talking about her work Bio-Sphere on Fire.
It’s a fascinating piece to look at up close.
As is this one, Holly Cole’sAdrift, which won the Persistence Pays award.
Intriguing use of materials and development of imagery.
Vicki Conley’s piece Flying has crazy details. These are flamingoes…which explains her headband and shirt…
I had just read an article about her traveling and quilting. She has a setup in their camper and it works. Sounds lovely.
Susan Lapham has been doing these organic plant quilts recently (or maybe forever?), which totally contrast with the more blocky/improv stuff I’d seen from her before. I love this piece, Field Counts 2.
Jungeun Tark’s piece Tea-Bowl of Mama has some very interesting construction going on.
When I think of experimenting with more textural work, this is some of what I think of, at least in parts.
Lousy picture, sorry; I think that woman walked in front right as I took the picture and it focused on her amazing hair instead of Jean Sredl and her piece Shoddy, made up of waste fibers and other fun things.
She talks in her statement about ‘environmental catastrophe’, which is what this piece reminds me of happening.
She moved so fast! She had someone read her statement for her; I found a website, but it’s out of date. That said, her work is fascinating and very textural.
She mentioned that her piece didn’t have any deep story behind it; it was just about color and shapes…it is a fun piece though.
Jan Soules told a story of improv piecing these fish shapes in Two Fish, Blue Fish.
Complicated but also fun to look at and contemplate.
Sarah Spencer’s (aka Io the Alien) work is graphic and in your face, as is the subject of this piece, Queen of Swords, who is Mona Eltahawy.
This is kind of my mood for 2025 (my own Project 2025?), so I love it, and the color. Plus Sarah is fun to talk to.
She’s relatively new to the quilting world, but let’s hope she keeps making these graphic pieces.
I’ve always loved Terrie Hancock Mangat’s work, from way back. This is Vertigo on Cobblestone, which is so accurate for how this quilt feels.
And even better? That skelly under a sheer fabric.
It’s funny that her work and Susan Shie’s are two that I feel really influenced me early on, and I don’t embellish really at all…although maybe I want to? I did crazy quilting, so there is a connection. Terrie wasn’t at the opening, unfortunately.
This is Kathy York’sWhere the Walls Have Eyes piece, where the eyes are inside.
I did wonder if it was on the wrong side, because you could only see the eyes from the top, and most of us were too short to see them…but I don’t know what happened with that.
I didn’t take pictures of everything. I always feel weird about that after, like I would have enjoyed staring at Niraja Lorenz‘ piece Abundance, on the right, for a long time, but I never got there. And there’s Denise L. Roberts‘ piece Finding Connections #26, the red on blue piece.
There’s a point when I feel totally overwhelmed.
This piece was so delicate and beautiful. It’s Dawn’s Early Light by Myania Moses.
Linda Steele’s piece Communication Breakdown is about being addicted to being on our phones, but also a fun use of improv and text.
I realized while wandering all over her website that I’ve seen some of her crazy quilts before. She has a wide range of stuff she creates; truly impressive.
This piece, Cellular Entanglement, by Mattea Jurin, is a very cool use of materials.
The clear vinyl plus stitching plus colored pencil work…
She wasn’t there, unfortunately, because I would have loved to hear her talk about her work.
This is Susan Avishai’sWhere Do the Children Play?, a quilt about the Hamas attack on Gaza.
She uses a lot of repurposed fabrics and texture. But also, wow, another war quilt, and as I’m finally getting around to finishing this post, the day after my country drops bombs on Iran. Sigh.
Doesn’t matter what your politics are…it’s a valid question.
Here is Regula Affolter talking about her piece The WEF Extra’s #103.
She was talking…sorry for the weird face! I do spend more time listening than I do taking amazing photos (as might be obvious).
This is a quote from her statement: “Pieced with dimensional pocket that person can fit in.” Because we need those.
Yes, I know I missed some people and some quilts. I can’t do it all. In fact, in looking at the catalog, there’s some I don’t remember seeing at all, which is kind of mindboggling. I did really really really enjoy the trip though. Totally worth all the school stress going in and coming back. Just getting the chance to hear everyone talk about their work and spending time with artists was a boon to my art brain. So I’ll remember that for the (hopefully) next time I get in. Always go. Don’t NOT go. Now I just have to find the extra frame I have somewhere in the house so I can hang my poster from the show…my 5th! I remember when I thought I would never get in. It feels good to get in.
I had a great three days of art, although I hit some line on Saturday and had to come home a few hours early and take a nap to beat a migraine that was starting. I’m still tired, but that’s normal for me, unfortunately. Certainly, this is not the week that will fix that. I’m glad I signed up for the conference. Most class situations I need to travel, so there are travel costs, plus hotel etc, and then it’s too expensive for me. This was perfect…in town, no travel/hotel costs. Kept my food costs down by bringing lunch one day. Wish I had had more energy for hanging out after, but that was my body telling me I was doing too much. I know the next SAQA conference is in Florida, so that’s not happening, but I’d keep my eyes open for another one (although they don’t do workshops usually, and I really enjoyed that).
The best part about workshops is getting to know/hear how another artist’s brain works. Betty Busby has a very interesting and creative brain, and it was very cool to listen/see her process. We did lots of fabric painting, which was cool, but also the nonwoven stuff in the cutting machine was very cool too.
But first the painting…sun prints…
Plants under the silk…
Metallic paints…
This needs ironing…
I didn’t make as many as some…
I had more silk…just never know what to do with those pieces…
Although I have more ideas now than I did. The coolest part for me was the nonwoven stuff in the cutting machine. I did a few diatoms the day before…
And then went home Friday night, did schoolwork for 2 hours (ugh), then took one of my drawings, thickened the lines and simplified it…
Until it looked like this…
Then texted it to Betty, who put it on her computer, and then we made a cutting file of it…
Tossed my other piece of nonwoven into the machine…
And got this!
Fiddly as shit. The plan is to iron it to silk, then paint from behind, cut the silk away from the design, and then put that on a background for quilting etc.
The leftovers are pretty fascinating too…
I was not organized enough to save them for a backwards version. Not really backwards. Opposite? Notan? IDK. But certainly I have some ideas…she showed us how she has all these parts (if I divided a drawing into parts) and you can compose with the parts.
Hmmm. More ideas. Also finally found my Inktense pencils and played around with them a little bit before my brain shut down.
It really did shut down. I drove home and went straight to bed for an hour. In the afternoon. Took meds. Woke up and felt better. I did not get enough sleep last week and my brain was in overdrive. Plus Saturday night, we went to the Man’s dad’s 85th birthday party. So I needed to be awake for that.
Sunday was all work. Simba on guard dog mode…
Until about 9:30 PM, when I started searching out all the quilts that need to be shipped or delivered in the next few weeks. A big one needs to go out ASAP. I have one more roll of quilts to pull down for two of them that are going later, but I found a chunk of them.
Some of them have never been in shows, so that’s cool. And now the studio is a disaster area! I’ll get the exhibits on the page where I tell you what shows I’m in…as soon as I get progress report grades done and survive this week. It’s hot again. What are the odds that my class A/C is working? Three work orders, no change. I’m gonna be irritated if today is still no change. Probably gonna be irritated anyway, honestly, because I was gone for two days and a bunch of kids did absolutely nothing. Ah well. It is what it is. You reap what you sow. Or something. Off to the day job. Hopefully I will get back to ironing soon…probably not tonight, but soon.
Hello Art Friday. I’d like to make you a thing. A regular thing. I used to have Friday Draw on my calendar and then every Friday, at night, I’d pull out my sketchbook and draw for an hour. Ah the days! Then I got buried in school stuff and sometimes I do absolutely nothing on Friday nights because my brain is gone, and sometimes I grade things, because it means I don’t have to do it some other time. I don’t know what the solution this year is, but I want to draw more, but also, school is taking so much time that I can’t do the things I want.
Although I took these two days off for the SAQA thing…yesterday we got to listen to a bunch of inspiring artists talk about their practices: Jane Dunnewold, Paula Kovarik, Betty Busby. Best quote: “When you know what you’re about, no one can take that away from you” (JD). Paula made me want to use more, play more, cut things up more. Betty is just amusing and inspiring as hell. I’m spending the next two days in a workshop with her. Looking forward to it. I got to see lots of other people I hadn’t seen in years, since 2019 or 2015 or whatever. Yes, I also got a new student at school, had to add them to my online class, then to the app they were using in class, and then they pulled my sub, the one that has access to everything, fuckers, seriously, if I set up a specific sub that I trust while I’m gone, then you shouldn’t fuck with that. That shit pisses me off. So who knows. I did set stuff up so hopefully anyone can handle it, but you know how that goes.
I have all my art supplies packed up, I’m wearing an old holey shirt and shorts, I got sunburnt yesterday at lunch, so I have my sunscreen. I even packed a lunch so I could save some money and just buy caffeine and maybe spend more time playing during the 2-hour lunch break rather than waiting in line somewhere for food. I have ideas swirling around my head and it feels really good. So yeah, I’m an introvert (I needed a serious alone-time break yesterday between the talks and the two exhibition receptions). So I went to Liberty Station, walked around, ate…
(it looks better than it tasted, unfortunately) got some caffeine, and then sat in the car, trying to charge my aging phone (it was not happy) and drew for a bit…
Oh, I also graded a week’s worth of homework papers while listening to artists talk, and then stitched the rest of the time, because I am notoriously bad at listening if I am not distracting myself with something in my hands…
Definitely making some progress, but it will still take forever :-). Forever is OK though. For some things. Not traffic…
I don’t usually have to sit in traffic. But I did it for art. And besides, the location where the art is happening is pretty nice…
Cooler too. Always a plus. Autumn my ass. Southern California does Autumn for about a week in late October, and then that’s it. We’re done.
My ex is at a wedding in the UK…check out that building…also check out that family! It’s nice to see them all in a photo together.
Also looks like nice weather.
Last night, I sat on the deck in the dark, talking to the Man, collecting mosquito bites. Thought I was staring at a planet up in the sky. I was…it was Jupiter.
Also my birth constellation. Nice coincidence.
This morning, the sky was pretty. My phone can’t handle the pretty…
Unfortunately…
OK, well, the personal art project is definitely suffering this week, but it’s for a good cause. I don’t expect to get much done on it until maybe Sunday, but we’ll see. I will however be slinging some paint and who knows what else today…looking forward to it. Plus after all the emails from school yesterday, it’s good I wasn’t there I guess. I don’t know. Whatever. Just needed a break. If I take two days a month every month? Yeah, that won’t happen…and it’s too hard to do the prep and after stuff. But definitely to remember that making art helps…and maybe taking a day off to catch up on grading AND make art would be a positive thing. We’ll see. For now, though, it looks like there is less traffic today, so I will be leaving soon. Need more caffeine. I’m certainly failing on the sleep front still.
Yes, I took pictures. I’m never very logical about it. Sometimes I take pictures because the piece speaks to me…sometimes it’s because I want to complain about it. I try to stay away from the latter, but there are a couple in here. I don’t take a whole lot of traditional quilt photos, mostly because I find them boring. I suspect there are traditional quilters who walk right past the art quilts in the same way. So this is Kathy’s highly selective (I take fewer photos when I’m tired!) reconstruction of maybe 1/32nd of the International Quilt Festival at Houston, 2013, remembering that she had already seen West Coast Wonders and the Dinner @8 exhibit in Long Beach, and somehow she missed the placemats completely…I SAW them…I just didn’t have the mental energy to photograph any of them. My bad. But since most of you don’t come here for my quilt-show reporting, I’m not going to worry too much about my lame-ass reporting style.
Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry (sweetie, it’s too many names…I get why you’re keeping all of them, I really do, but please…maybe just calling yourself Caryl would be good) has created a series of thirty 30-inch-square pieces that celebrate her thirty years of quiltmaking, referencing her past work, themes, etc., and using her fabric collections to complete them.
So. Here’s what I think. First of all, the more power to her. She has a strong body of work that is well-liked by many, the exhibit already has 8 venues it’s traveling to, and she definitely has the technical ability to be showcased like this. I liked being able to look closely at her insane stitching…
(Electric Ellipses #2)
Especially in the more cellular-looking pieces and the two beach sand pieces.
(Casting a Long Shadow #2)
That said…why redo ideas from the last 30 years? I don’t get it? I know it might be hard to put a retrospective together if a lot of your work has sold, and I do get what you’re saying about the exhibit being pulled together by all of them being the same size, but…eh. Make New Work. Put some old work in the show. I don’t understand. It was popular, though, so apparently I am in the minority. I want to see new work, though. You have a new life…how will that change your art?
Bodil Gardner had at least 4 pieces in Houston…with two in the SAQA: People and Portraits exhibit with mine. I’ve always liked her work…it’s quirky and graphic and slightly off, but Martha Sielman mentioned something in the People and Portraits Walk and Talk that I’d never really thought about…her work is inordinately cheery. There’s never a sad moment. It’s just nice and joyful and chaotic and happy (unlike my own work).
This is Santa Lucia and that is one BIG and happy spiral-eared dog. Maybe I need to channel some Bodil. Maybe she’d let me come stay with her for a while. One of the pieces in the People and Portraits exhibit had a large central female figure, like her pieces (and mine) often do, and there was a coffee cup balanced on her shoulder, like I often do. Sielman said that Gardner says it refers to how women often share a cup of coffee (or tea) together as part of their socializing, and that if she were doing men, she would probably do a beer stein instead.
Another featured artist in People and Portraits is Sonia Bardella, whose faces have a particular quality to them.
This is Venice’s Carnival, which takes place near where she lives.
The best part is the detail she puts into the clothing in contrast to the skillfully painted faces.
Dianne Firth made four elements pieces for an exhibit, with Wind currently showing with the traveling Quilt National exhibit. This is Fire…
Which, like Wind, is much more stunning and vibrant in person…and was based on the volcanic eruptions in Iceland in 2010.
Betty Busby curated an exhibit of quilts called A Walk in the Wild, a SAQA exhibit of artists from New Mexico. Below is Busby’s piece, Desert Fox.
All the pieces were similar sizes…this is Where Earth and Sky Meet by Susan Szajer.
Her work deserved a detail shot…there are even tiny beads in there…
This one…Eight Ravens by Judith Roderick…was one of my favorite quilts in the show.
Her silk-painting technique adds a lot of interest and depth to her pieces, which have that graphic quality that I love, coming out of the printmaking world.
And the subject matter of the ravens is also a favorite. This piece glowed in person.
There were two dinosaur pieces by Shannon Conley that I liked…S Is for #4 is below…
Coelophysus bauri is the dino depicted in both quilts, apparently was thought to be a cannibal until recently. In the quilt above, Conley shows him in his Triassic-era habitat, with S Is for #3 below showing him in modern-day New Mexico.
Conley is a scientist who put real teeth on that first quilt…hopefully not valuable fossils (naw, they’re polymer clay). Here’s a link to her posts about these quilts.
Kathy York is one of my favorite brightly colored artists…you’ll notice I photographed lots of bright-colored quilts (a dream? hope? wish?). I posted York’s video of populating this quilt, Park Place, a while ago…
Stella is the dog in the raincoat, rescued from the animal shelter. I love the contrast and the pattern, with the pitiful-looking dog off to the side.
Both Stella and this one were part of a pet exhibit, It’s Raining Cats and Dogs, bringing awareness to saving animal lives. This is One Cat, Two Cat by Laura Bisagna.
Bisagna had been feeding a stray gray cat, and every day it would come out and eat, then go behind the house, and seemingly come out and eat again…until she realized there were two gray cats.
This piece was deceptively simple-looking until you studied it up close. This is Winter by Laurie Weiner.
The piece is whole-cloth, hand-dyed, and trapunto, but the quilting is what drew me to it…
Intense pattern and texture makes up this piece. I saw a lot of this close, patterned quilting and I’m always attracted to it, which is amusing, because I so don’t quilt like that…but it’s true that type of quilting would not lend itself to the images I create…so I am happy to admire it in other people’s work (and call them insane behind their backs…while they say the same about me and my 2000-piece quilts).
The sky drew me to this piece…In the Bleak Midwinter by Ruth Powers.
Being a Southern Californian, we rarely see winter landscapes such as these.
I always like to show Tanya Brown what pieces hers are hanging with…so there’s Under the Gingko Tree…
featuring her painted whole-cloth work and crazy tiny stitching…
As well as her boy actually standing still…a minor miracle in itself.
This one drew me to it with all the crazy detail…It’s a Crazy Life by Gail Thomas.
Gail’s own beautiful, long white hair was used to quilt this piece as she recovered from health issues…
Her painting on the fabric is very colorful and detailed.
This piece drew my eye because of parts of it…overall, I wasn’t sure I liked it, but I liked the faces. This is You Are Here by Victoria Findlay Wolfe…
The people are from digital photos manipulated in Photoshop and printed on fabric.
It’s an interesting use of a traditional pattern with modern tones to it…I’m not sure I like the whole thing (the silver lamé really bugs me), but I liked those parts.
This quilt had lots of funky details in it…and I kinda like how it’s just all globbed together…
And the use of pattern in the fabrics is really interesting too…
This is Japanese Calendar by Fumi Kido. The Japanese do often have a certain feel to their quilts…
I’m not sure what that’s about…because they often use American patterns, and it STILL feels Japanese to me. This one has a different appeal to me, though…very stylized but with those details.
I do hail from an applique background…and this one was beautifully done. This is Four Loons and Friends by Patricia Sellinger.
The symmetry and design in this quilt are stunning…and she embellished the birds with beads as well.
This is an original design.
I liked this one because of the flame-like blobs wandering across the design. This is May Your Burdens Be Light by Kazuko Covington. This is an original design using New York Beauty blocks, made after the tsunami that destroyed her hometown.
Those blobs now look like tsunami waves…
This one won best of show…Chihuly’s Gondola by Melissa Sobotka. That’s $10,000, people. It’s a beautiful quilt, but it is from a photograph of Chihuly’s installation in Texas from a few years back.
So tell me this…is there a difference in the art applied between Sobotka’s copy of another artist’s work (is this a Sobotka or a Chihuly?) and the Jane Sassaman (original design) below? I think yes…but I wasn’t a juror in this show (and probably never will be invited to be one either). I think Chihuly deserves a healthy percentage of the prize.
This is Jane Sassaman’sIllinois Album, also an award winner, but in my eyes, a much more deserving one.
You decide.
Another Bodil Gardner happy piece, this is I Arise from Dreams…
Sheila Frampton-Cooper had two of her graphic, colorful pieces in the show…this is Lair of the Amethyst Deva…
I see legs…Sheila’s another tight, detailed quilter, which suits her big, bold, abstract work.
Nearby was another somewhat controversial piece…yes, it’s abstract; yes, it’s colorful, even pretty…Roses in the Window by Carol Morrissey. On the surface, an original design from a photograph she took…but how did she get all those circles? Is it the same place my mom gets her circles? Where is her hand in this quilt?
Does what equipment we use to create a piece make it more art or less art? You’ll notice I have no pictures of quilts with digitized photos where the artist has printed it out full size and just stitched over it. I need to see the artist’s hand in the work…I need to see what they’ve changed or made their own. Feel free to BE a photographer (there was a great photography show at IQF), but if you’re going to put it on fabric, make sure there is a purpose to that. Why fabric? Why not just print a photograph on paper and frame it and be done with it? It’s something to think about…
Another Kathy York…this is You Are What You Eat…
Speaking of having your hand in your artwork, York made the batik flowers herself.
This piece…I still need this one explained. The graphic nature explains why I like it, but there is some weird stuff going on in this quilt. This is Alice’s Kitchen (obviously Alice in Wonderland) by Miki Murakami…I love that this is so NOT typically Japanese.
All she says is that this is how she imagined a kitchen in Alice’s story, even though there wasn’t one. I think I want to talk to this woman.
Sue Bleiweiss makes wonderfully graphic and deceptively simple pieces. This is Tutti Frutti City.
This one intrigued me…it was just plain weird, yet cool. This is The Birders by Suzanne Marshall, an original design inspired by a 1565 manuscript…ahhh…there’s why it’s weird.
I’ve taken pictures of her work before…liking the weird medieval qualities to her work…
Just look at that unhappy face.
This one caught my eye because I couldn’t (at first) figure out what it was…I thought maybe it was leaky tubes of paint. Silly me…it’s just Oregon Buoys by Jane Haworth.
I like my idea better…but I guess it caught my eye. Chaos and color.
Another Frampton-Cooper piece, this is Venus in the Garden, named by her sister, who saw Venus Flytraps (I see an angry parrot…that wouldn’t be a nice name though).
This one had a stunning use of color…this is Antelope Canyon by Kimberly Lacy.
It’s a very graphic piece…she does lots of pieces like this, though. I wonder about that. I guess it’s a different challenge to work abstractly with the same shapes than to do what I do. (It would drive me bonkers though!)
OK, so there were all these cow quilts…something to do with a book. I liked this one because?
Come on. Guess. OK. It’s a cow skelly. How can you not love a cow skelly? Actually, I was walking past this part of the exhibit when someone pointed to the earrings on the cow and said, “Honestly, some of these quilts you cannot use as a QUILT!” Oh my. No ma’am, you can’t (she wasn’t old…younger by far than I am). So. There you have it. It’s a MooSkellyNotQuilt. Actually, it’s Dia de los MOOertos by Patricia Ward.
This one…it’s cute. It’s tiny. It’s beautifully made. It’s a prize winner. This is Masanobu Miyama’s Wind, a picture of the artist’s dog.
The statement talks about an original microfused applique technique. I do not know what this is, although micro means small and those pieces are freakin’ small (I should know).
This one caught my eye because of the fabrics…in the US, we are so into our cotton and occasionally a silk or two…this piece, The Berlin Bear by Marjan van der Heijden, was made completely with leftovers…
That were stitched together sort of haphazardly, but in a beautiful way…
Truly amazing use of fabric.
This Japanese landscape is so Japanese because of the taupe, but the imagery is so American…I wonder what the Japanese countryside actually looks like and why this appeals to them. This piece is A Place to Long For, by Aiko Yokoyama.
The fabric and design is beautiful…I just wonder why it’s so appealing.
So that’s my take on IQF 2013…there were probably quilts I didn’t photograph just because I was tired or in a mood (I was in a mood a lot), so don’t take it badly if yours isn’t here…mine is just one set of slightly jaded, tired, and miserable eyes among 60,000 viewers. I do know that I will miss IQF coming to Long Beach, California, because it was cheap and easy to get to, and I don’t think I’ll be going to Houston again for a good, long while, but I did enjoy some of the quilts quite a bit. I’ll talk more about the experience in general at another time. I do provide artist’s links when I can easily find them and confirm that they belong to the artist. If your work is here and you have a link you’d like me to use, please let me know.
Kathy Nida 