Art and Quilts, cogitations thereon

What does the teacher aim to do?

2012-01-24T07:05:00.001-08:00

I just read a very interesting article in International Artist, a magazine written by practicing artists in most traditional media around the world. At a large conference, artist teachers were asked what they felt were the most important things to tell their students about art. Many of them at first responded with “traditional knowledge” – the craft of painting. Looking at the roster of classes at any big quilt conference, you can see that this is the focus of many quilt teachers too. Piecing, applique and machine quilting are always very popular. Basic dyeing and fabric painting also.
Nearly all the art teachers felt that, whatever the medium, drawing skills were essential – I made a mental note to try to include some drawing practice each day! If only I could draw while I walk or bicycle!! Maybe I could go on a total liquid diet and draw and suck up nutrients at the same time!!
An interesting comment by artist Michelle Dunaway was that she felt that teachers often overlooked the thinking process that she felt it was necessary for an artist to maintain while creating. She states that: “the artist must balance passion and patience while [working].”
In his book The Art Spirit (well worth reading though not I think at bedtime unless you are an insomniac seeking a cure!), Robert Henri wrote: “the brush stroke at the moment of contact carries inevitably the exact state of being of the artist at that exact moment into the work”. Have you ever noticed this? If you are deeply into some strong emotion (even that rendered by listening to a powerful audiobook) somehow it imbues itself into the quilt you are making. I could never look again at a quilt I made while listening to Schindler’s List and was very glad when somebody bought it! Somehow I had unconsciously included all the anguish and fear into the piece.
Dunaway feels that you can often screw yourself by being too worried about a piece as you are working on it, your worry, tension and frustration will then appear in the work. If you can think in a more orderly and harmonious way, then that would be reflected. Hmm! I think I want to make a wild scrap quilt, I’d better play my CD of Carmina Burana !!
More on this topic later, as the computer is in demand by the chef! I’d love any art quilt teachers reading this post to give their views as to what they try and do in the classroom. All comments very graciously accepted! And, if you have been, thanks for reading. Elizabeth
P.S. my class Working in Series begins at quiltuniversity.com this Friday, there are still a couple of place open if you're interested. This class is aimed at helping you find your own voice in your quilt making. Don't worry if you would like to take it but can't now, I'm sure they'll be offering it again later this year. See you in class!!

To design or not to design, that is the question! Shakespearian advice for quilters.

2012-01-17T06:56:00.001-08:00

You start thinking when hiking in the woods and one thought that came to mind on a recent hike (High Shoals falls in N. Ga) was that I get the impression from chat groups and blogs that when it comes to an art quilt, quilters either have to have no design in mind and work “intuitively” or they “over design” it! But, to me, both charging right in to cutting and throwing up fabric on the design wall, and sitting down with graph paper ready to draw out a full cartoon, have advantages and disadvantages.

Yes, it’s lovely just to go into the studio, see all these luscious colors of fabric just begging to be chosen for the blade! Slash, slash and up she goes! “Need a bit here, let’s see now, aha! That bit of pink would look good next to that dusty green. And now for a little black just to set them both off. And then there’s that gorgeous flowery stuff I just bought, I should have a nice piece of that in the middle, it’s so beautiful it will just make the quilt”.

Well, you can have a lot of fun and you might get some spontaneous combustion some where! Your piece will definitely be nice and loose..it will have energy and pizzazz and it will look like no other quilt out there! But it could also look like a fabric store that’s been hit by a tornado, or be “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. (and we know what kind of tale that was!)

So what if you over design your next quilt? What if you draw out a precise diagram, get it kinkily enlarged to full size, decide exactly which fabric will go where and make sure you don’t have too many fabrics and that they all match?

Then you have a stiff and lifeless piece, precise yes, those quilt Nazis would love it I’m sure, with every I crossed and every T dotted (never play completely by the rules!). Paint by number, without spontaneity, without serendipity, without tension and those little bits of unpredictability that just lure the viewer in closer and closer.

On the other hand your quilt will have a definite direction, a clear meaning; it will be strong and well organized. You will communicate that which you wish to communicate! But it may be something up with which we could not put!!

I do think, however, that there is a happy medium between these two extremes that allows you the best of both and reduces to a minimum the worst features of each. Think about how an architect would set about planning a house. Or a gardener planning a garden. Decide where the big shapes will go – the different rooms, the number of levels, the vegetable patch, the main trees and so on, but don’t specify which ornament will go on the mantelpiece till you have it in front of you! Know that you’ll have a bed of low growing plants in a light or dark color, but wait till the garden as a whole is ready before deciding exactly which flowers and colors will give you the right mood and feeling.

Use your head to build the main skeleton to plan; add the details (the flesh!) spontaneously as your eye and heart tell you they are needed.

Now Hamlet didn’t have a compromise position between life and death – basically you’re one or the other – like being pregnant. But as quilters we can reach a compromise between too much design and too little. And hopefully we won’t reach the end of the play with all the main characters (or quilts!) completely dead.

If you have been, thanks for reading!! Shakespeare has a lot of good advice for quilters if you look for it!! Elizabeth

Keep it Clean: tips for using a design wall

2012-01-10T12:41:00.001-08:00

I think most art quiltmakers now use a design wall – composing their images vertically, since it is easier to get a clear view of how the piece progresses by being able to step back from the wall. This was never possible when working on a table unless one had the power of levitation! Which, alas, I do not!

My wall is like any other: a layer of foam insulation (that pink stuff about an inch thick that is sold in home improvement stores) which is very easy to pin into. Some, I know, use a tougher kind of board but my fingers would never permit me to pin into it. Plus, the foam board is really easy to nail to a wall not requiring many nails to hold it up. Or you can even just prop it up, if you can’t install it permanently. You then cover the foam with flannel, or batting or polartec or felt – all materials with some surface hairiness that will “hold” small pieces of fabric against the surface without pinning. Though, I would suggest that if you are likely to switch a fan on you do pin the pieces down – unless you want to see your beautiful design disappear in a fabric snow storm!! I’ve been blessed with several such storms!

Before I start pinning up any fabric, I like to outline where the quilt is going to be. I just use the selvedges I’ve ripped off the fabrics, and I hang a little weight on the vertical lines so that they are straight, and check the horizontal edges with a spirit level. I like to keep things squared up right from the start so I don’t lose too much to squaring up later when everything is sewed together. And, also, I find that looking at those four edges I can visualize my idea within them. I can judge whether the scale and orientation look “right” for my idea.

on the left, I see a scene like a waterfall, or maybe a tall skyscraper, or a Japanese scroll kind of design….whereas on the right the shape is reminiscent of a more traditional landscape or abstract quilt design.

If you were going to make a diptych, you could outline both shapes and see how well they looked together. Or, you could set up a quartet of four little squares perhaps for some flower studies. Getting those first four edges in place and “right” is the first step in composition, and an important one. Furthermore if you’re finding it hard to get started, this is a good way to ease yourself into composing mode!

Once I’ve got my piece up, I like to isolate it with strips of white fabric – I find that if I look at it all cluttered as on the left, I can’t really judge it correctly.

I find all that Stuff most distracting – somehow it adds itself into the picture – I’m amazed at how cluttered most people’s design walls are – mine amongst them! So when I need just to see the piece and nothing but the piece, then I set out those strips.

On the right, you can see I put my strips out and then started adding on some more elements, so even though I’ve got most of the clutter out of the way I still can’t see the piece how it actually will be when it’s finished..the narrow bits that extend off the edges of the quilt are in my view and therefore in my mind.

So I think it’s important to take the time to replace the strips so only the actual proposed quilt is visible: okay…now I can see the piece and it can breathe!

Of course you can always take a photograph, run to the computer with the camera, hook it up, extract the photo and in Photoshop (wait till the program boots) crop off the extraneous distractions…..and I do that too! But keeping that clear space around the image I’m working on, helps me to focus on it, to see if the balance of images is right, where my eye goes and all those other things AND keeps my head clear.

Go now! and tear some long white (or black, as the mood takes you!) strips and try it!! And, if you have been, thanks for reading! Elizabeth

PS – if you have any helpful tips that will make composition and construction easier, do please comment!! thank you. or if you just want to tell a funny story….or anything else!!

Inspired to Design

2012-01-02T06:19:00.001-08:00

Inspired to Design is the title of my (4 lesson) class that starts this week at Quilt University and I’m looking forward to that first day when I hear from people all over the world! I think it really does take inspiration to start designing!! I just don’t know how people manage it when faced with a blank wall, a blank canvas, blank sheet music or a blank monitor!! I don’t think it’s so much that there isn’t a rich internal life going on – whirling thoughts in every direction - but rather being able to focus them. That’s what the inspiration does: it enables you to focus on one place, one mood, one panoply of feeling, one idea. Something that is amorphous and complicated is less compelling than that one simple thing that you’ve seen and want to show others. This can be abstract, or representational, it really doesn’t matter.

Isn’t that a fabulous view at the top of the page…it’s taken through an open window by the way…I love the sense of distance, the ripple on the waves and the clouds sitting on the horizon. I tried to distill those ideas down into the small composition on the left.

I got a bit more complicated in the image on the right as I added into the composition the little cluster of cottages - it was from the window of the one at the back that I took the first photograph.

In my class I talk about different ways you can interpret a picture and arrive at a number of different designs. I’m on hand to help you (via your monitor!) at all times as you focus, design, cut and stitch. I try to be the little teacher in the box in the corner of your studio or sewing room that you can get out and consult at any time you want!!

I realised I had so many ideas about the topic of designing quilts based on one’s inspirations that I’m currently working on a book about it; I’ll keep you updated on my progress in the class!! Focus focus focus! That’s all I need I tell myself! My New Year’s resolution!

See you in class! And a Happy New Year, here’s to new beginnings! Elizabeth

Quiltopee

2011-12-28T14:09:00.001-08:00

Quilters often say they wish that “they” (critics, museums, galleries, collectors, the public) would recognize quilts as a mainstream art medium. Other media, for example photography, have developed to the extent that most museums now include photographs in their collections and display them regularly. So, why not quilts? At least part of the answer is that quilts have not developed from their early beginnings in anything like the way that other media have.

The possibility of printing very large color photographs has lead to major shows of photographs in museums and galleries but these photographs are nothing like traditional photographs. They are often artfully staged then super-hyped by computer manipulation and finally displayed with back lighting that makes them very stunning and dramatic. I’d love to see a large transparent quilt displayed like this! but I haven’t.

Traditional paintings were made from paint upon a rectangular stretched canvas. Traditional quilts were composed from three layers: pieced fabric patches assembled into well known geometric patterns, batting (which might be cotton, or an old blanket or even newspapers or corn husks), and then a backing fabric. Contemporary paintings, however, might be made quite unconventionally - collages of plants or pills for example, painting on mattresses (and 0n quilts!), wall reliefs composed from tiles and foam, rubber and old tires, gold leaf and scraps of paper. and these seem to be the kinds of works you see in current museum shows. You don’t see conventional paintings – however skillfully made. And it’s rare that any quilter has stretched the medium as far as this. Kyung Ae Cho did - with her wonderful slices of wood piece that was in a Quilt National some years ago, but I notice that she has now moved out of the quilt world and has been totally accepted by the fine art world.

Contemporary art is rich, diverse, and unpredictable. While painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and crafts are still popular, new media are more likely to be seen in contemporary art shows: film, video, audio, installation, performance, text, computers. And media are frequently mixed. It’s hot to use an “old” medium in a new way: paintings that are pixilated, drawing with chocolate. But how many quilts have you seen made from chocolate? (though it’s a grand idea!).

Contemporary art is in flux. New technologies make so many things possible, and also knowledge of art from different countries is mixed in with local art; there’s a significant amount of cross fertilization.

But I’m afraid, and correct me if I’m wrong(!), we don’t see these kinds of things in quilts. Quilters tend to stick very much to making quilts the way they were always made. There’s nothing wrong in this, but that’s one reason why the contemporary fine art world is not very interested. They’re not so interested in paintings made the traditional way either.

Current culture is used as a basis for art and diverse and rapid changes in what is available on the internet and seen on the street makes for lightening shifts. A few years ago quilts made from drug bags were displayed in New York galleries, but I didn’t see them pictured in any quilt magazine. There are but a few quilt artists stretching to use the detritus of modern life as their material for quilts: Pat Kroth has worked with discarded scraps of paper and fabric, for example.

Another difference I notice between “art quilts” and contemporary art is in content/no content. There have been times in the 20th century when there was more of an emphasis on form than content in the art world and artists who were preoccupied with formal matters such as the properties of a specific medium or the role of color or composition. But the contemporary belief is that such a formal approach doesn’t allow one to interpret art that expresses the artist’s inner vision, or art that refers to the world at large. In mainstream art, it is evident that artists are focused on meaningful content. They are motivated by a range of ideas much broader than their own personal emotions or their need to display a mastery of media and techniques. Some of the issues they have addressed: politics, social issues, science and technology, media, popular culture, literature, man made environments, the flow of ideas generally. There are a few quilters who are, thank goodness (!) beginning to address some of these topics: Shawn Quinlan, Kristen La Flamme and Wendy Huhn come to mind (though I notice that several of these folk don’t use the Q word!), but, again, not many.

Are the themes in contemporary quilts those we see in contemporary art? For the most part I find that quilts tend to be less personal and less political and many of them are ‘art for art’s sake’. I don’t think this is either good or bad, but it does explain why the few art critics that are left (as opposed to a huge proliferation in political commentators!) aren’t much interested in what’s going on in the quilt world. As an aside, wouldn’t it be wonderful if all those gasbag hot air political chat shows were actually about art??!! Can you imagine Chris Matthews arguing at full voice about the merits of Nancy Crow versus Ruth McDowell? Or the validity of simply printing digital photographs onto cloth because it can be done, or the meaningfulness of layering random surface designs one on top of another?

Are you ready for quilts that incorporate elephant dung? (Chris Ofili) Do you want to enclose quilts in tanks of urine? (Andres Serrano). These are some of the ideas that have gained attention in the art world. I think that the answers to questions as to why art critics arn’t interested in quilts are evident in both formal and content areas: quilters don’t really want to stretch the medium to uncomfortable (if not breaking) lengths, nor do many of them want to address some of the contemporary issues evident in main stream art. As I said before, neither good nor bad, but, rather, why!

And, if you have been, thanks for reading…now for a nice cuppa tea…then to go and start filling the tank…..

Elizabeth

Masters Art Quilts vol 2: a review

2011-12-13T07:22:00.001-08:00

I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of Masters Art Quilts Vol 2. Major works by Leading Artists, curated by Martha Sielman and published by Lark Books in 2011.

Strengths

The concept of the book is a wonderful one: leading artists in the art quilt medium from around the world are represented with a short introduction and almost a dozen images of different pieces. Nearly all the artists are absolutely amazing and you find yourself drooling over their work. The square format is very appropriate to the medium and the book has a generous 414 pages. The great artists we all know are included and also some that are not so well known and it’s excellent to have several pieces by the same artist. So many shows, and therefore show catalogues, are so very bitty because of the arcane rule of one person one piece. Most of the pictures are a good size – thank goodness none of that arty trend of a small photograph in the middle of a white page! The text often gives interesting information about technique – which I know we’re always curious about!

Some of the artists are amazing and very often I’d only seen one or two pieces of their work before, so it was a real treat to see so many examples. Leslie Gabrielese’s work is fascinating and one or two bigger details reveal the technique. While at first sight his quilts look very representational, as you examine the technique you can see that he has totally justified the use of fabric as his medium. His subtle use of commercial fabrics is elusive until you come in close, and then the stitching adds a wonderful edge to every line. Shades of Edrica Huws! Plus marvelously balanced compositions.

I would have liked to have known the rationale for choosing these 40 artists…some are obvious – like Dorothy Caldwell and Rachel Brumer serious artists who’ve been making work for a long time with several museum shows to their credit, but others not so well known – or known more for popular success as teachers and entertainers…rather than for their art work. It is also good that some not so well known artists who are doing very interesting work are also included. I often wonder if there are hidden geniuses out there who just don’t enter shows and we never see their work. (which is one reason I’m against very high entry fees).

Weaknesses
There are only a few criticisms I would make, specifically these relate to the quality of some of the photographs, the size of some of the details, the introductions, and some points regarding the design of the pages.

Photographs. So often it comes down to the quality of the photographs; we hear that all the time from jurors and now that there are such excellent digital cameras out there, there is really no excuse for blurry images of which there are quite a few in this book I presume the artists submitted their own images (Horst-Beetsma for example) but I wonder if the editor should have culled those that were not very clear or at least asked the artist to resubmit.

Details. Sometimes the details are apologetically tiny and timid. I would have loved some good sized details but a very small detail that is only about 5% bigger than the picture of that section in the quilt as a whole has little point and is distracting. The ones that show a close up of the stitching, however, are very good. And we could have used more details especially of complex work like Anna Torma’s. Overall more and bigger details would be most desirable. Sometimes details reveal really striking stitchery even though the full composition can be somewhat awkward and unresolved. Composition counts!

Text: It’s great to include a pithy comment by an artist e.g. Dorothy Caldwell: “I have deep respect for cloth. It’s very powerful when it retains traces of its previous life, gathers history, and becomes something new.” But some of the comments tend toward the obscure and meaningless. Most, however, are fascinating: some artists prefer to stick to descriptions of technique, others talk about their philosophies.

While the text by the curator is kept fairly short and to the point giving a few details about each artist, I would have liked a little more bio – you don’t really need to describe the quilts when you have the pictures right there. More information about the artist in a more tabular form: place of residence, education (brief), shows (major only), website, main construction and style would have been useful. Also, their major strengths as perceived by the curator and her reason for including them. Plus, I think, everyone would be fascinated to know their answer to the question “how do you start?” It’s always good to have real details instead of just vague generalities. I think also an alphabetical sequence would help one to find them; I don’t know what the rationale of the actual sequence was and I found myself hunting around to see if various folk had been included.

Page Design: Love the square format reminiscent of the quilt, but don’t like the edge of each page having the artist’s name so large - very often it crowds the image and just looks messy. Also don’t under stand why each page has a half inch of grey along the bottom? Did the book designer think we wouldn’t know which way was up?

More strengths!
I didn’t see the first Masters book but was told that the second one includes a lot more international artists and they are magnificent – especially the Australian ones. Their aesthetic is so strong: pure and clean, minimal without being boring and with wonderful surface texture. In fact there’s a very clear national feel to a lot of the work: the Australians: bold and clear, the Japanese: delicate and detailed, the Europeans: sophisticated and rich. Complex and somber and memory laden from the Middle East. Obsessive precision from Switzerland. Alas, not everybody’s country of origin is mentioned. An interesting and revealing extra would have been a map of the world with the artists location indicated. We could then see just how far this movement has extended.

Unlike many show catalogues, I felt that nearly every quilt was worthy of inclusion – so there were lots and lots to ponder over and think about and a stupendous variety of images and styles, techniques and colorations. The overall concept of the book is great – it’s an encyclopedia of major quilt artists; this is a book to savor over several evenings and then dip into over and over again.

This is a wonderful and extensive collection of some of the best of our time; an important addition to an art book collection. Thank you, Martha, for a great idea! And thank you to Lark books for publishing the book and for sending me a copy! Elizabeth

The Importance of being Thematic

2011-12-03T13:07:00.001-08:00

All That Glitters is Not Gold

There are trends in the art world as in any other and I’ve observed that the current art world is very focused on meaning. Abstract patterns of minimalism and optical art are much less popular; we are all wondering about the meaning. Perhaps abstraction is for affluent times? And when everyday life is uncertain and worrying we look for meaning? When we feel threatened, when emotional levels are high, we need to figure out what is going on and to express our feelings about it. While “popular art” becomes even more sweet, saccharine, whimsical and unaware of the looming clouds, references to the desire for personal meaning and expression are consistently being made in mainstream art.

Gathering Storm

In a book by John Blockley, one of my favorite watercolour painters, I read:

“Painting is not about perfectly executed technique, desirable though this might be. Better an original statement, expressing a unique viewpoint, something to make people think.”

The judges in “Work of Art” – the Bravo TV reality show that challenges young artists to make works of art addressing a specific challenge have a similar touchstone and standard. Each week one contestant is eliminated; the last man (or woman!) standing gets a show at the Brooklyn Art Museum (alas no fiber artists on the show, though I’d love to see what they came up with – though the 24 hours which is usually given would not be long enough for any fiber art I know of!). The judges invariably give the weekly prize to the artist that produces something that is both fresh and deeply rooted in their own experience. They don’t like derivative art, they don’t like art that is solely about technique and they do want something that is totally personal and meaningful.

They want the artists to think deeply and out of their thinking create something that communicates something very personal and meaningful from their own lives. One of my more successful series of quilts was based on a photograph I took one terrible day in my life. Looking back over the snapshots from that time, I could see that that one photo summed up some of the feelings I’d experienced that day. But this is hard to generate de nouveau! How can you say – I’m going to have an awful day next week and I’ll be sure to have my camera with me?!!

I notice that relationships are a key theme in the artwork that is considered special. It’s interesting that it’s an issue rarely addressed in art quilts. Other current themes, according to Robertson and McDaniel in the book: Themes of Contemporary Art are: identity, the body, time, place, language, science and spirituality. Some of these I have seen in art quilts – language particularly, the work of Robin Schwalb comes to mind but there are many others. Here is Robin discussing the power of art to express emotion:

In my next blog I’m going to review a book I was just sent – the publishers must have read my wishlist because it was on there! But in the blog after that I want to revisit some of the themes that Robertson and McDaniel have delineated and look at whether or not the quilts I’ve made would fit into any of them.

To be creative is to think! To think is to be creative! Send me your creative thoughts……

And , if you have been, thanks for reading! Elizabeth

Quilt University

2011-11-25T07:06:00.001-08:00

I’m starting two 4 lesson classes at Quilt University in January: Inspired to Design in the first week and Working in Series in the last week. I just received a note from the Dean to say that

“Registration for all January classes is now open. Because the winter months are our busiest time of the year, many classes are filled by the time we send the January newsletter. If there is a course you are especially interested in, I hope you will find time to visit the site and register early so you will not be disappointed. '”

Taking a class online in the winter is great because you don’t have to turn out in the wet and cold!

If you haven’t taken a class with me before, I’d start with Inspired to Design. It covers some of my design methods right from the beginning: all the steps from choosing an inspiration, through drawing designs, choosing a color scheme, cutting out the shapes and pinning them together on the design wall, sewing together, machine quilting and finishing.

Working in Series is for people who are at a stage where they feel as if they want to go further into this wonderful art form and develop their own style, their own voice.

I think it would be too much work to try to do the classes at the same time, and I’m sure they’ll both be repeated in the Spring so I don’t recommend that you sign up for both.

It’s fine to repeat a class, in fact I would think you’ll probably get more out of it the second (or even the third) time around; there’s a lot of information to digest and the Discussion Forum is very active.

The fun thing is that people from all over the world take the classes, so you learn what quilters on every continent are doing, what their inspirations and concerns are. If people don’t speak English they use translation programs.

The cost of the classes is very reasonable (under $40 per course) and I have kept the supply lists to things nearly everybody already has in their sewing rooms.

I look forward to meeting you in class! Now…back to the sewing machine! If you have been, thanks for reading! Elizabeth

PS After Christmas I plan on developing a new class, maybe for later next year, do let me know what kind of a class you would like. What’s the class you’ve always been looking for and never been able to find? I have some ideas, but am very interested in what you might want. Thank you!!

PPS If you're thinking of a special present for yourself or somebody else, please take a look at the pages listed at the top of this post! Thank you!

Interesting but not fulfilling

2011-11-23T06:35:00.001-08:00

Well the four day show and sale (see last post) proved to be an interesting little tidbit, but not exactly filling or satisfying in any way!

Here is a couple of photographs that demonstrate this:

Notice the vast amount of interest being given to the quilts by these customers!! One is looking at t-shirts and the other at jewelry. The overall impression I got from the public was that while they loved the quilts, what they really wanted to buy was either stuff with which they could adorn themselves rather than their walls, or, “safe” useful items to give as gifts. I really think you have to be in the art world in some way to want to own some art and also to feel that art is a worthwhile expenditure. I did sell some items: the two quilts I had discounted heavily, a couple of watercolors and one of the shadow boxes which is great. But every piece went to an artist or an art teacher.

Is this a reflection of art no longer being taught in our schools? If you’ve never made art you don’t realise its worth both in monetary terms and in how much it can add to your life? I think this is probably so. I know there are things of which I have no appreciation (sports for example) because I grew up in a totally sport-free environment. Also I am “eat-to-live” rather than “live-to-eat” having had a father for a cook who thought that the way to fry rice was to empty a box of it into a frying pan. “What’s for tea, Dad?” we would ask when we came home from school. “It’s a mistake” he would reply! We learned a lot from all those “mistakes” we ate!

I also think the lack of awareness of the value of art is a result of television. We are bombarded from birth with advertisements many of which suggest that improving how we look (by virtue of the products being advertised) will bring us sex, money, fame and success. Have you ever seen real paintings, or beautiful artifacts or art quilts being advertised on television?? Have you ever seen a well endowed young woman (or man for that matter, though endowed somewhat differently!) draped over an art quilt?

Furthermore, now that the financial crisis is upon us I notice that communities (ours included) are saying oh one place we can easily save money is the one percent for art idiocy that we used to do. So there will be even less awareness of art in our futures, and, more importantly, in our children’s futures.

And are those one-percenters buying art? Or are they buying more and more houses in exotic places, so many that they don’t know how many they actually own?

However, I am most grateful that there are few artists and art lovers around who do still appreciate art!! Thank you so much for your encouragement! And now, back to the sewing machine….if you have been, thanks for reading! And do write in with your comments, the cogitations of others are much more interesting than my own! Elizabeth

PS C&T just brought out a nice little postcard book: 30 “architectural quilt” postcards of which 7 were ones I made I’m happy to say – though I couldn’t stretch them to include any of the industrial architecture!

What I’ve been getting up to

2011-11-15T07:36:00.001-08:00

When I visited Cindy Friedman in Philadelphia after the Art Quilt Elements jurying, I saw a lovely little row of shadow boxes in her living room. They looked like so much fun I thought I’d try my hand especially as I’m going to need small work for the Studio Group Sale which starts in 2 days!!

If you’re in Athens any of these days come and visit us – I’ll be desperately ready for a chat!! the show is at the ATHICA gallery which is in the Chase St Warehouses, Tracy St – basically just behind Boulevard.

So two needs coincided: the need for small work for the show, and the need to try out the shadow box idea! Especially with silk…I was just about to drop a box of silk scraps off at the thrift store (where I’m afraid I probably took the quilt I lost – I’m such an avid chucker outer!)….I snagged back my box of silk and cut it up into these little fellows and they came out quite well surprisingly!

Above two neighborhood pictures and below two birds…

Forgive the reflections – I have no idea how to photograph through glass! Now I must decide what to charge for these little fellows. Unfortunately even though the boxes are only 8” x 10”, they cost $14 each (shipping or tax, they get you either way brings the price up). Then there’s a couple of hours of work involved with each one. In Philadelphia, they sell for $125 apparently, but this isn’t Philadelphia!!

so…any suggestions?…….and I’d love to see you at the show!
If you have been, thanks for reading…..Elizabeth

Cluck cluck cl cl cluck!

2011-11-09T07:41:00.001-08:00

When does working in a series become working to a formula?

I’ve certainly see this happen time and again with those so-called best sellers of the NY times variety!! (by the way, I’ve read that they’re only “best” sellers because when the publishers ship masses of them off to airports and the like, that’s considered a “sale” – the fact that they are then pulped (or turn their readers brains to pulp, one or the other!) is irrelevant!)

It’s definitely good to work in a series - for many reasons: to develop your own voice, a signature style, to really plumb the depths – and the heights (one would hope!) of your subject, to become excellent at that particular technique (compositional or technical) and to reach the point where the ideas are fresh and different and therefore much more engaging.

But if you go on and on and on and on, I really do think that often the work gets very stale and formulaic. How many times have you flipped through a catalog, seen a quilt and said “oh it’s a so and so, seen that a million times before, why on earth does she not do something different?”!

If you’re going to work to the same parameters, it’s still important (perhaps even more so) to come up with new ideas all the time. The viewer is important, I think few would deny that. And those that do are probably either kidding themselves, not very self-aware or like Narcissus ( for whom gazing at his own reflection in the pond was enough for his whole life). We want people to see our work, we want to convey a message however simple. We want them to stop and look and listen. We don’t want to hear that hackneyed phrase which I loathe: “been there done that” . A phrase nearly as bad as “stepping up to the plate”; actually since I’m not a sports fan and had never heard of baseball growing up, the plate stepping exercise to me was something that maybe Alice did after swallowing the Drink Me potion! – so it was a bit more interesting the first 2 or 3 times I heard it.

You’re not going to stop people in their tracks, you’re not going to develop your own vision further, if you keep on making the same thing. Okay you changed from a cool beige to a warm one – not enough!! You added a line here a line there, or flipped the design upside down….so? You gave us the 50th tired old chapter in the series – remember it’s only the few that feel that 49 verses of On Top of old Smokey are 49 times as good as one verse.

People are still queuing up to buy your work? Well maybe that’s because you are using the same marketing tools as those NY Times publishers! Good luck, but you’re now singing flat.

No more old tired hens boiling in the quilting pot, please!

If you have been, thanks for reading!! And all comments (except those using phrases about stepping upto plates, saucers or anything else) SO very welcome!! Elizabeth

How to get rejected from a Quilt Show, Part 2

2011-11-04T13:49:00.001-07:00

In Part 1 a few days ago I wrote about several important things you should remember when you enter an art quilt show. Here are some more things to bear in mind!

6. Maturity: ageing in place. Whatever you do, be very careful to make sure that your ideas have matured well in the market place already; stale bread makes excellent toast, fresh bread can upset your stomach or even give you piles* if you sit on it!

7. Midnight vitamins. In the middle of the night, it struck me that if you’re actually going to go to the lengths of composing the shapes in your quilt, make sure they are set out separately and boldly, like the teeth of someone with advanced scurvy. Every tooth has its own space and is therefore of considerable prominence.

8. The importance of an art education. A neat thing to do is to copy a famous artist’s work – the jurors will never notice that Andy Warhol or Monet has done it before

9. Drawing ability. If you’ve done a drawing and it didn’t work out quite right – make a quilt from it!! A bad drawing is an excellent start for an interesting quilt.

10. The natural look is in. Whatever you do, don’t make any attempt at designing the quilt. You want it to appear as if the various patches and sections have been slapped on higgledy piggeldy, that way it looks a lot more natural.

11. Working in a series. Jurors really like being able to recognize a quilt as being part of a series; if you’ve had success with something before, whatever you do don’t try to change it. Stick to a proven formula – look what happened to Coca-cola!

12. The post modern movement. Jurors particularly like a generally lumpy, unbalanced and muddy appearance to a quilt. This is called “post modern” and is both avant garde and garde derriere (as in watch your back or, beware of sitting on warm substances).

13. Eve’s dilemma. The best work has no substance. Substance is so stuffy and hard to digest. It’s vital that you don’t expect the jurors to think, thinking is the root of all evil. Furthermore, wishing for knowledge led to that first lady’s downfall!

14. Fast and Easy is the B(u)y word! And don’t worry about craftsmanship; that idea is so yesterday!! The important thing is that you made the piece Quickly!! Preferably while standing up eating a hamburger, watching chat tv and painting your toenails. The better the idea, the more important it is to execute it poorly.

15. Cross pollination. Don’t confuse a genuine naiveté (shudder) with a cross between folk and hallmark. Hybrids of that nature are very acceptable and will win you plaudits (somewhere at least) all the time.

16. Cloth? Fabric? Textile? Merely a substrate. Don’t even think about the medium and how it plays with the idea; the cloth is there because you like to pet it, and you can make anything with it that you wish. It doesn’t have to be justified.

17. Exercise the jurors. A lot of different ideas in one piece is very exciting, that will definitely get the jurors jumping up and down and exclaiming.

18. Necessary cautions. However, it’s very important not to take one idea and push it as far as you can, after all you might fall over, and then you’d be in the drink. Don’t take any risks!! Quilt insurance does not cover them.

19. specifications. “they” say a lot of pieces get rejected because they’re entered into the “wrong” show and actually suggest you find out the kind of work that that particular show is interested in! Well, this doesn’t apply to you! If your work is good enough (and you know it is!) even if the show specifies they only want red pieces and yours is blue, don’t worry about it. If that particular art center or gallery has only ever shown large pieces and yours is small, that doesn’t matter either – because if you’ve worked hard at making it, especially if it’s got a lot of beads on it, it will be bound to be accepted.

20. The name of the game. And finally: the title!!! It should have at least two meanings, jurors love puns and the more strangled they are, the better. Sentimentality is excellent too.

There are so many ideas I could give you about entering a show, but I’ve limited myself to these few. Together with the suggestions I made in part 1 of this post, I think your future is assured! I just hope mine isn’t too!

If you have been, thanks for reading!

Elizabeth

*hemorrhoids

Entering Art Quilt Shows Part 1

2011-10-30T07:20:00.001-07:00

Last April 1, I posted a piece about a new quilt show and since then I have been cogitating upon what advice I might give to entrants. I came up with so many different ideas, I thought I’d split them into two posts. These are some of the very important things to remember when entering a show.

1. The quality of the photograph: Remember the juror has very little time to look at your piece, so you really don’t need to bother too much about how the photograph looks. If the instructions say the image should be “300 ppi” that really is just a “serving suggestion”, you don’t need to bother about it much. Any number that has a 3 in it will work.

2. Principles. Be sure to have some. You’ve probably heard about the “principles” of good composition…well, when it comes to choosing which pieces to enter a show, be sure to get them right.

Harmony or unity simply means that all the different pieces of cloth are joined together. Variety or tension is an indication of how tightly the stitches are pulled together and is best ignored. In a detail shot, you can show the judges just how well you ignored tension! A pulled out stitch or two or a nice lumpy seam is exactly what they’re looking for.

Balance and proportion are guidelines only if you are actually going to wear your quilt whilst climbing a ladder. You want it to hide the naughty bits as you go up, and to support your weight if you fall down. Otherwise, this “rule” is just another piece of bureaucratic flimflammery!

You’ve heard them talk about getting rhythm and movement into a piece? What that means is that you should be sure to repeat a shape you like several times. Keep those shapes identical and the same distance apart, think about a funeral march: dum dum dum…whatever you do don’t put in any twiddlededees!! Asymmetry is anathema.

Movement means that you’ve got to do all you can to make this quilt stay in place. Think of it being like a target. All important elements should be slap bang in the middle and if there are secondary objects – one on each side, exactly balanced is a very good idea.

And I’m sure you’ve heard some misguided fools talking about economy and simplicity? I know I have!! What idiots they are – everyone knows more is more. Stick everything on that baby you can!! Jumbles are good! Everyone loves a thrift store much more than an austere gallery. If the different parts of the quilt are ugly, jumbling them all up will really add a certain something to the piece! A “je ne sais quoi” that could be your “piece de resistance”! (you’ve heard of resist and discharge processes, this is where the resist part is important).

3. With purpose aforethought. It isn’t important for the jurors to have any idea of what your purpose was in making this quilt. In fact you don’t need to have any purpose. It’s much better if you think now it’s time to use up this horrible pink fabric with purple dots, it’s been hanging around in the closet for too long. It’s very important not to have any meaning to a piece, the less content the better. It’s all about form!

4. Crime de passion. Jurors really don’t like genuine emotions, so distressing. You’re much safer with saying something that has been said before. A different point of view might be a little confusing to them. Stick with the obvious and water it down if you can.

5. Containment. It’s very important to make sure you have a good solid border around your piece. A dark color is preferable, and the more borders the better. You want to make sure the central motif is firmly nailed into place. The softer and more delicate it is, the heavier the border should be – you can never be too careful!

Be sure nothing will get up and have any spirit; at all costs, the piece should not have any life or movement to it. That’s very disconcerting and might put the jurors right off their stride, it could even wake them up. Lifeless work is much better.

Part 2 of this sage advice will appear in my next blog; I do hope you feel that the ideas are helpful! So, if you have been, thanks for reading! Elizabeth

Quilt goes walkabout

2011-10-28T11:27:00.001-07:00

Has anyone, perchance, seen this quilt?

It seems to have gone walkabout! I can’t find it anywhere and wonder if the poor thing got left behind someplace.

It’s called Lavender Gothic and is about 45”h and 32”w

Unless it’s managed to creep right inside another quilt, it’s not snoozing away on my quilt rack, nor is it hanging anywhere in the house.

Have you ever had this happen to you?

Thanks for looking!! Elizabeth

The experience of the art fair

2011-10-23T17:06:00.001-07:00

On Saturday I took part in an art fair – these are not for those who are sensitive, easily bored or optimistic about making a fortune! Most dishearteningly, no one bought any art I’d created, though some t-shirts and scarves, I’d experimented with, were sold for bargain prices….

However, even men stopped to look at and comment upon the quilts (as opposed to odd men, though I suppose there were a few of those too!), because they were surprised at the images they portrayed.

This last couple of years, frustrated by the easy charm of landscapes and despairing of descending into trite tweeness, I began to look around me for something a little gutsier as inspiration for my quilts. I became fascinated by industrial landscapes – especially the ones that are disappearing so quickly in the western world: the steel mills and their immensity, the collieries with the winding wheel macabrely echoing the sinister wheel of fortune – O fortuna!

My first industrial landscape quilt was sparked by a glimpse I had across Hamilton Bay, Ontario of the Hamilton steelworks...I was being driven by on an overpass, heavy traffic, couldn't stop...got off further down and found a quiet road underneath but couldn't see the steel works - even standing on the roof of the car!! So tantalizing! I kept getting glimpses of this bizarre landscape across the lake but without a boat or a telescope..and I had neither…couldn’t get close enough. But sometimes an image just sticks in your mind, and a year later, I was able to persuade someone to take me out sailing with him and I got all the photographs and visual references I needed!

My first quilt based on these views was Rusty Answer (41”w, 24”h)(see below)…I loved the sense of distance across the water so opted for a deep foreground, highlighted by increasingly dense stitching. I used one strand of embroidery floss for the lines closest to the plant and then gradually increased the number of strands, ending up with 6 in the rows “nearest” to the viewer. In the late afternoon light, certain sections of the steel plant had glowed – I’d seen this from the overpass, so even though from the water everything is a uniform grey…I added in those beautiful warm colors.

The next piece (Heavy Metal 41”w, 42”h) was a close up. I wanted to emphasize some of the textures I had seen. The large grey areas, therefore are quilted with a pattern stitch to bring this out…also the water in the foreground is quilted with a metallic thread so that it glints as you walk by.

Then I thought it would be interesting to go in even closer and, with inappropriately pretty colours, reveal my second theme of the environmental problems caused by thoughtless industry. This is “What Pretty Smoke!” (36”w, 43”h). This was one of the quilts I showed at the local art center yesterday.

One of the most impressive things about the site was the width of it…so I emphasized this in Steelyard Frieze (68”w, 35”h). Scale is so often very important as I discovered when I was a juror. Intimate things need to be small, yes, but if you’ve got a big message or a big subject, the quilt has got to be big too! This quilt is currently hanging in a power station in California in a special show called the Power of Art!! then it heads upto the Hamilton Museum of Steam in Canada. Great venues for an industrial piece.

The more I made the more I came to appreciate the strange beauty of industrial sites …I remembered years ago having seen an old cement factory in my home town of Athens, GA, …so I rediscovered it, lots of photos…and 3 quilts! Here’s the first one: Cement Works (42”w, 40”h)..

The Cement works are directly opposite the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (ATHICA) where the Studio Group (of which I’m a member is having their annual 4 day show and sale (we hope the latter noun is as valid as the former one!)}Nov 17-20. It will be fun for visitors to see the Cement Works both outside and inside the gallery!

Here are the Cement Works again…..

and again…

……..maybe at the Athica show and sale, the men (both even and odd) will be looking for surprising presents for their wives, girlfriends, partners etc!!! You never know!

Mind you, four days we’ll be sitting there…I’ll have to take a kettle and a teapot with me..there’s no getting away from it! Come and have a cuppa! Meanwhile, if you have been, thanks for reading! Elizabeth

A fun day in Athens, GA

2011-10-19T12:42:00.001-07:00

Eighty artists selling original work will be at Lyndon House Art Center, just off Hoyt St in down town Athens on Saturday October 22.

Hoyt is parallel to Dougherty and one block North.

If you’re in the area and have never visited Lyndon House this is a fun time to do it!

There will be a full schedule of live entertainment during the day of the market beginning at 10am on the outside steps/stage area of the LHAC.

We will also have indoor entertainment throughout the day. There will be several food vendor trucks selling a variety of foods and drinks on Saturday. An eating area will be available in the Community Room of the center. Tours of the Lyndon House (an ante-bellum home that was used as a hospital in the Civil War), artist demonstrations, and children’s activities will all be going on to create a festival atmosphere.

I’m going to be there with quilts, postcards, shibori dyed t-shirts and watercolor paintings (both framed and unframed, so the price will be right!) along with 79 other folk representing every art you ever heard of! And probably some you never knew about!

The fun starts at 10 am and continues till 4 pm. Come and visit us!

Look forward to seeing you! Elizabeth

Sailing…while rethinking the F method….

2011-10-17T16:30:00.001-07:00

I had a great time visiting with the Art Quilt Elements committee in Philadelphia this last weekend. I toured the Wayne Art Center where the 10th anniversary AQE exhibition will be held next Spring – two gorgeous galleries and lots of lobby space too. Even if they hang my quilt in ladies’ loo, I’ll be quite happy because it’s also super!

As well as seeing lots of quilts and indulging in lots of quilt chat and gossip, I was also introduced to the best f**ing I have ever seen!!! As you know I’ve always eschewed this activity with great vigour but now I have to rethink having seen Cindy Friedman’s shadowscapes.

Cindy fuses silk organza onto pieced silk backgrounds creating glowing light filled scenes. There is none of the flatness and glueyness that I have seen in other fused work. The hand of the quilts is soft and luscious and the fabrics work together as one beautiful surface. Cindy achieves this by going over the fused piece three or more times to remove every last trace of glue that is not absorbed by the silk fibers. The work is meticulous and gorgeous! She very kindly and generously showed me step by step just how she achieves this – not that I think I could ever come anywhere near her expertise (she’s been at it for a long time, she told me!).

Here’s a detail:

On the left is a typical first piece. Cindy collects photographs taken in strong sunlight – many from her frequent trips to Botswana – which show deep clear shadows. The image is converted to a silhouette so there are no distracting details. Then using Photoshop she can play with the secondary designs created by the pieced backgrounds and the repeats of the figures+shadows (as you can see below). Do check out her website for more detailed pictures.

I’ve never seen such beautiful fusing!!! I might just be going to don a disguise to sneak into our local fabric store and pick up some of the hitherto despised fusing material myself!!

I was also exceedingly well wined (well actually beered!) and dined by Deborah Schwartzman and, very excitingly, taken sailing on the Hudson River by New York City by Carolyn Lee Vehslage – what a great weekend!!

I was in Philadelphia because I was privileged to be a member of the jury for Art Quilt Elements 2012 with Sandra Sider, president of SAQA, and David Revere McFadden, chief curator at the Museum of Art and Design. It was a really great learning experience and I’ll be writing more about it later. Suffice to say – if you didn’t enter this show, you should have! It’s the leading East coast quilt show and 2012 will be the best ever. This year there were the greatest number of entries they have ever had - from many US states and several foreign countries. SAQA and SDA plan a joint conference to coincide with the opening of AQE 2012 at the end of March and Philadelphia will be bursting with fiber art!

And now, to take off the six (yes, six!) layers of clothing I wore for the sailboat, don my wig and dark glasses and head down to the local quilt shop. So, if you have been, thanks for reading!! Elizabeth

Great Week at Arrowmont

2011-10-09T17:10:00.001-07:00

Teaching workshops is so rewarding when you have motivated, hard working and insightful students as I was lucky enough to have at Arrowmont (Tennessee) this last week. Here are a few photos, some taken by me and some by Frances Arnold. Alas a few folk got away before I could get a picture of their work, so regrets to all of them for my tardiness.

This is the setting for Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg TN, looking south to the Smoky Mountains.

Gatlinburg at night……wonder if there’s a quilt in here somewhere?!

Setting up for the workshop……

Rosie gets to work on her piece – note the ladder!!! She’s using a combination of weavings, arashi and clamped resists.

Denny’s piece was inspired by DNA, and she had a second one all pinned out, but alas didn’t get a picture!! As you can see I was running to get this one (hence the blur)! Great shibori insert in red.

Elaine’s piece inspired by the autumn leaves, wonderful subtle use of her shibori fabrics….

and, below left, Linda’s piece inspired by the ski slopes. It shows clearly the great value of very soft minimal shibori. This was done by pre-dyeing only the string.

Frances’ archway piece….again a very subtle use of shibori. Shibori fabric is so strongly patterned it can overwhelm a piece and you have to be careful and sensitive about its use. Great sense of depth in this quilt.

We were all wearing the shibori by the end of the class!!

And finally – the gorgeous fall views coming back south over the Smokies…..

yes it really was like this!

Look at all that delicious aerial perspective!!!

This week I’m off to jury Art Quilt Elements and I think this will be a fabulous way to learn the strengths and weakness of art quilts; I’ll report back on my thoughts about the process rather than any specific pieces, I know I am going to learn a lot and there will be a great deal of cogitation!! After that there are art and craft sales locally in which I’m participating for the first time…I’ll give details as we get nearer the time. But before all that, I’m off up again to the North Georgia mountains to do some hiking, just too beautiful to miss…maybe I’ll see you there!

If you have been, thanks for reading! All comments vastly encouraged! Elizabeth

Off to the Smokies

2011-09-30T06:51:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow I’m headed due North, up into the Smoky Mountains which stretch across Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas. I’m going to teach a workshop at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts which is a wonderful place. They have classes in spring, fall and all summer long as well as many conferences and local events the rest of the year. I’ve taken about 15 different workshops there (a good portion of my art education!) and have taught there myself about half a dozen times. What’s really great about it is the mix of different classes at the same time. You might have breakfast with woodturners, lunch with jewelry makers and dinner with photographers before walking through a gallery of ceramics and enamel work to attend a Power point about painting! And that’s just the first day… Plus their facilities are really super, no messing around in hotel bathrooms!! Instead, the textile studio has five large sinks, a full size area for washing down screens, large print and dye tables, washer and dryer etc etc plus (best of all) a whole wall of windows looking out over the mountains.

I’m teaching a class on tie –dye – mainly arashi (fabric tied or twisted onto pipe) but also we’ll take a look at clamping and some stitching and some co-ordinating gradations. Then we’re going to examine all the ways the gorgeous fabrics we’ve made can be used in quilts. Jan Myers-Newbury has very generously sent me images of her outstandingly beautiful new work. She is definitely the high priestess of this art!! Very inspiring. Her work is very abstract and also references traditional quilts.

I’ve mainly used shibori fabric in a much more impressionistic way, cutting out the beautiful leafy shapes and collaging them. Though I must admit this is a bit laborious!! There are several other well known quilt makers who work with shibori and we’ll look at many of the ways in which this fabric can be used.

I’ve got lots of examples that we’ll talk about in a fairly long Power Point. Then it will be time to sit down, do a few value sketches and design some quilts….after which …out with the scissors and rotary cutters!!

Snip snap, stitch stitch…. and I’m hoping we’ll have a great array of quilts tops before the week is over….I’ll take pictures and post them!

I’m afraid this class is full…but I’ll probably be doing it again some time…or if I live within driving distance of your guild and you have good facilities…we could talk!! or even a small class here…all sorts of possibilities!

If you have been, thanks for reading!!! Elizabeth

One of my favorite You Tube videos

2011-09-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

Edrica Huws is one of the most inspiring makers of fibre collage pieces, or patchwork or quilts (whatever you like to call the work). For people who feel that realism of any kind in this medium is to be avoided at all cost, Huws' work should be an eye opener. Realistic work is so often considered to be nothing but 'twee kitsch whereas abstract work is thought of as being "pure". Of course neither is true, you can have bad and good examples of both! Unfortunately there is a tendency for overly cute schmaltzy easily digested realistic work to be very popular, just in the same way that jelly doughnuts with cream and powdered sugar and sprinkles on top are popular!! Or double size cheese hamburgers and giant sodas! Or Elvis on velvet, or the blue lady similarly enthroned, or three plaster flying geese above the fireplace. Familiar, requiring no thought on the viewer's part, sweet to the untrained palate. There are such indelicacies to be found in every medium: painting, quilting, clothing, cooking, gardening and so on.

So please...put on your most elegant clothes, eat a beautiful meal, plant a texture garden and enjoy a video of wonderful pictorial fiber art:

If the above link doesn't play for you, then select and paste
http://youtu.be/Tw58LOGkULU
into your browser.

There are several other you tube videos about this artist, but I love this one because of all the Welsh language which normally you have to visit a pub in North Wales to hear!!

Pictures can be inspiring!!
Elizabeth

What we can learn from teaching

2011-09-21T07:10:00.001-07:00

I teach a couple of workshops: Working in a Series and Inspired to Design. In both of them I’m urging the participants to think, think, think about what it is they want to make work about.
What do certain inspirations actually mean to them? Why do you react to this, and not to that?
After a while, inevitably, you realise you have to ask yourself the same questions.
Teaching is also a journey of self discovery for the teacher as well as for the students.

I’ve particularly focused on the idea of looking for leitmotifs both in one’s own work (over time) and in that of other people’s work to which one is intensely drawn(no matter the medium). Looking back over my work, and over all the images I have pinned up on the wall, it came to me that what I really love is a strong beauty, a powerful beauty. Dynamic diagonals, bold contrasts, robust well-knit clear simple underlying structures. I also love the beauty of age. I think this is because as age encroaches, the softness and prettiness, that is charming but often without substance, diminishes and the real strength and bones appear (if there are any!, if not ----collapse!).

My first series of quilts was about windows and in those I was really focused on light; the power of light, the contrast between light and shadow. The quilts on the left, Warm Light is a typical example from those far off days!.

I must have made a dozen or so window quilts before it occurred to me to put the windows into buildings and old streets – always old building, old streets – showing the effects of time..but not time as an enemy and a devastator but rather as a beautifier. The important of light still dominated, however.

And then many old streets later…I got into surface design in a major way!! You all know how addicting dye is! Dye and chocolate! I love screen printing because of the magic that happens, that wonderful surprise moment as you lift the screen and peek underneath to see what amazing image has suddenly appeared on the white white blankness. And screen printing is quite a strong muscular activity – especially as I love Big Screens! Most of mine are home made, big chunks of wood stretched with sheer curtain material –and, by the way, I was very interested talking to Joy Stocksdale (one of the most amazing screen printers of all time) the other day to learn that she too uses sheer curtain material on her screens.

So now I was combining a very physical surface design technique (not for me the size one paint brushes and tiny pots of thickened dye or pigment!) with complex powerful piled up cities.

What next? Next came the series based on shibori – another very physical surface design technique – twisting hard, ramming down, binding and clamping till the fabric shrieks!!!

and then, and then …the power of red, of black and white, of industry…but of that, more in the next post.
Do write and tell me what you have learned as you look over your own oeuvre or someone else’s.
D’you see themes, light motifs, recurring ideas?
D you think these are part of the essential nature of the maker?

And, if you have been, thanks for reading! Elizabeth

Into the Mainstream

2011-09-13T13:04:00.001-07:00

I always remember someone at the local fiber guild saying “we don’t want quilters in this group, they have their own group”. I felt pretty miffed at the time, but there is a tendency when you’re into something as big as quilting to be quite homogenous and homoartistic in your contacts and colleagues. I think it does us no good, however. We don’t learn about art as a whole (I’m always amazed by quilters who’ve never heard of very well known painters), and they don’t learn about us. It’s also so much fun to be mixing it up with other –ers! (like paint-ers, and jewel-ers and pott-ers).

So I joined a plein air painting group! One thing I learned is that it’s so lovely to be outside on a cool September morning…something I never do with my sewing machine! especially not in the middle of a field of sunflowers…how many of you have dragged a machine into a field??? not many, I’ll be bound!

And here we are staking out our patches, most people crouched under the big oak tree for shade…

Some “old timers” bring truck loads of gear! These painters can be worse than quilters!! I’ll never forget Violet and Connie (veteran workshop takers) dragging in about 100 large bags of fabric for the Nancy Crow class at Arrowmont! (and that was before NC required it!!).

some like to stand up…some prefer
the comfort of a folding chair…

critique time!!One nice thing about painting is you can get from the blank paper to the critique in the space of a morning….this poor lady did not know I was going to put a photo of her bottom on the internet!! Beware if I’m behind you taking pictures!!

And this was my picture…I incorporated several different views into one, something I’ve been trying to do with the quilt designs too so this was a great exercise in composition and design.

and then of course there’s the post critique refreshment at the local hostelry!! These plein air painters have it all worked out! There IS a lot to be learned from joining an all medium art group!!!

If you have been, thanks for reading! I look forward to meeting some of you in a field one day!! And please do write with stories of fraternization!! Elizabeth

More on Color: common mistakes in art quilts

2011-09-06T08:03:00.001-07:00

I’ve been thinking more about color as I’m making notes for a chapter some day…..
Everybody loves color and quiltmakers can’t wait to get to it! In my workshops I try to persuade folk to judge a design by its value pattern, but alas the seduction of the color addiction has folk slavering and shaking – “oh color more color I’m so deprived, when can I get my next fix?!!”
And color is such a visual feast! I’m just as bad as everyone else for wanting to gobble it up, for making sure I’ve got the biggest dollops on my plate!!
The children always ask “but when will we get there?” and the quiltmakers say “when can we use color?” with the same plaintive tone!!

Here is a quilt I made that has a lot of color:

The design for this quilt, however, didn’t have any color in it – it was a black, white and grey value sketch. So let’s look at this piece desaturated i.e. without any color:

One thing that is evident is that I have quite a range of darks and lights…several of the darks run together to form interesting shapes (though I probably could have used to have done more of that and it would have been stronger). There are just a few lights – this is because my main theme was the first light of a new day just beginning to catch the buildings…and that fits the theme. The sky also is a mix of darks and lights just as you see at dawn (I’ve been walking a lot at dawn this summer! 100 days over 90 will do that to you!) which again is very relevant to my theme.

Now how would this quilt have looked had I not had this strong value pattern underpinning it:

Well…it looks like I dropped it in dirty dishwater!! dragged it through the mud…even so it’s rather hard to reduce the contrast in a piece that has a lot of contrast enough to make it clear that all mid tones are a bit dull!! But I think you get the idea.

So…avoid the mud puddle!!

but what if I was one of those color junkies that uses all saturated color?

well …..look:

Now, do not tell me you like this!!! I’ve had to get a pair of sunglasses on to even view the screen!! too much saturated color definitely spoils the broth, ruins the child and leads to sensory overload! And I’ve seen plenty of quilts like this!

Very interestingly, reducing the intensity of the color actually isn’t so bad, at least not to my neutral loving Armani clothes desiring self:

There’s something both restful and mysterious about all those beautiful neutrals….but of course I know it wouldn’t sell and probably would never catch the juror’s eye in those tachistoscopic presentations they have to choose work from. But this image does show, I think, that a good design doesn’t need color to work – it does need value contrast however. If I subject this to the mud bath, I get:

It looks something like what I had to drive through on foggy days before they began to work on clean air. Of course, this is what the politicians and big business want us to go back to; this is how China is doing so well economically. However that’s another issue!! sorry to bring it up, the picture just reminded me.

Another thing to watch out for in designing with color is the balance of color temperature. It’s best to have a distinctly warm feel, or a distinctly cool one. My original idea (the first picture above) was that the overall temperature of the piece would be warm, a warm fresh new day. But what if I was uncertain and had an equal mix of warm and cool colors?

Doesn’t that look so weird and unsettling? it’s looks as if I’m uncertain about my message. And the equal balance just doesn’t look “pulled together”. Part of this too is because once you have an equal number of cool and warm colors, you’ve also probably got more colors than you need – too many colors is far worse than too few.

Color is a complex dish!! You need to make decisions regarding value, hue, intensity and temperature to get it just right. And now for a cup of tea – I need to get the temperature, the freshness of the water, the steeping time just right! and it’s got to be in my favorite mug too!! Think on!

If you have been, thanks for reading!!
And do comment on your reactions to these variations on a color theme…… Elizabeth

Using Color

2011-08-28T12:04:00.001-07:00

Of all the ways of using color contrast in quilts (and other mediums), the one that seems to confuse people the most is that of temperature. Color varies in a number of different ways: hue, value, intensity and temperature. Some would argue that temperature isn’t a true variable since a color’s temperature is always relevant to another color rather than being purely warm or cool on its own. However, in quilt making we are working with lots of colors, so strict theoretical categorization is not an issue – and, furthermore, it’s not on the test!!

Hue, of course, is straightforward: red, yellow, blue etc whether you like the traditional 12 step color wheel or the Munsell 10 step one.

Value is how light or dark a color is: pale blue versus dark blue, etc.

Intensity is how saturated a color is: the richest colors are the most saturated, the most intense. These are nearly always of medium value. Which makes sense when you think about it…in order to make a color paler, you use less dye and so it is less saturated. In order to make a color darker you either add black, or a darker similarly hued color, or a little bit of a complementary – any of these will make the color darker, but they are also reducing the purity of the color.

And temperature?

Overall we consider yellow, orange and red to be warm. Blue and green to be cool.

Everyone understands that…but what about within a color? There are warm blues and cool ones, warm yellows and cool ones, warm reds and cool, and also warm and cool greens. What makes the difference is the little bit of color that is added to the pure hue to make it warmer or cooler.

Think of cobalt blue: it’s generally considered to be a fairly neutral blue. Add a tiny touch of green (a cool color) and you get turquoise or Prussian blue, these would be considered cool blues. Add a tiny touch of red (a warm color) to a neutral blue and you get a warm blue that approaches purple (like ultramarine or royal blue).

Here are some examples I just whipped up on Photoshop:

There’s another way of thinking about it that might help too. Think about a color wheel that has infinite subtle gradations between the colors…think about the blue gently shifting into green…and compare that shade of blue to the blue that is right in the middle of the blue range. The other end of the blue range is softly changing into violet. Compare the violet blue (with its little hint of red) with the neutral blue.

So we can look at color temperature in a non relative way i.e. red yellow and orange are warm, blue and green are cool. But we can also look at a specific example of a color and see that it can range from warm to cool within itself.

Okay! I hope you’ve got it now! And you’re probably thinking, well ,why do I need to have it in the first place?? Right?

Well….that’s because of the great value of using color contrast to make your art work stronger and more expressive. The impressionists were masters of color – principally because of their use of contrast. They contrasted hue, value, intensity and temperature. If you come into a lovely warm house on a freezing day it seems much cozier than if you come into that same warm house on a mild day. So you can make the warmth seem even better by the contrast. And of course in the currently overheated south east the same would hold true of air conditioning!

Furthermore, colors of different temperatures used together in a piece can create a sense of movement. Warm colors tend to advance towards the viewer, cool ones recede.

Cezanne was the impressionist painter who really used temperature contrast to manipulate form, space and light. He felt that if he placed dabs of warm and cool colors against each other they would indicate the light much more strongly that using the value contrast that had been so popular up until that time. Instead of using a darker color for something that was “further back” and a lighter color for something advancing, he used cool tones to make things recede, and warm ones to make them advance. Take a look!!

So much to learn and so little time…so if you have been, thanks for taking the time out to read this! And do please, make a comment!! Thank you, Elizabeth

A Quilt on the Cover

2011-08-21T11:36:00.001-07:00

I don’t know if many quilters noticed that the August edition of Art in America has a quilt on the cover: Tracey Emin in bed with her curator (note, he’s fully dressed!) under one of her iconic quilts. Inside, critic Ossian Ward writes, in a review of her current retrospective, “Emin: Britain’s famous “bad girl” (she was one of Saatchi’s YBA discoveries a few years ago along with Damien half a shark Hirst) artist reveals a depth and vulnerability seldom evident in smaller samplings of her works”.

About 3 years ago I saw a Tracey Emin show in Edinburgh at the museum of contemporary art and what struck me most about the work was its authenticity and also how well crafted the quilts were. Emin now has help to sew the quilts though she did make them herself originally: “I have a team of about six stitchers and they work for me. However, I don’t get anyone to do any sewing that I couldn’t manage myself. I do know how to do all the stitches they do – so I could make all the pieces myself, but if I did I would be a much slower artist”. Her quilts are basically wool blankets with layers of cotton, wool and felt appliqued on top with a blanket stitch.

There were a number of quilts in the show in Scotland but the vigilance of the guards only permitted me to get three photos! You can find plenty of Google images though and some of them will probably make you goggle as well as google! But the strong language for which she is well known, especially when drunk, shouldn’t deter you from the obvious validity of the messages. Yes ,she is lamenting her own life which has not been easy, but she is fighting back, hard. Too often abused children become permanent victims, Emin is determined not to be one even if this has led to what the critics so delicately and prissily (and, perhaps, fearfully?!) call vagina dentata.

A Tracy Emin quilt was part of the finale of the big V&A quilt show in London last year and there was at that time even a newspaper article on “how to make your own Tracey Emin quilt”! Presumably the editor of that particular established bastion of the 4th estate felt that a cutesy appliqued cat was what quilters reading about Emin’s work would want to have! Though it might have been much more interesting if the instructions had read “get drunk, think about some of the awful things that have happened to you in life, write them down and then cut out the letters from innocent little floral fabrics”!!! Now that might have lead to some great follow up work! It would be kind of fun to come up with a quilt instruction book like that now I come to think of it! (potential publishers please note my email ad is at the top right of this blog!)

Germaine Greer, who collects authentic traditional textiles from around the world, wrote: “My treasured textiles are not art. Tracey Emin's quilts are. They exist to be exhibited, not used. At first, Emin's sewn work annoyed me, because I thought it a coarse travesty of women's craft practice, which is another case of my missing the point. Women's craft practice is one of the subjects of Emin's work, which is conscientiously imperfect.”

So what can be learned from an art quilt making the cover of AinA and from Germaine Greer’s remarks?
And from Emin’s work as a whole and from her many shows, including a current major retrospective in London ?
Firstly, I think that we should stop whining about quilts not being accepted as art!
Secondly, that we should put our honest naked selves, the good the bad and the ugly, into our work. The stitches should reflect our humanity.
Thirdly, the images should be powerfully strong, eye catching, thought provoking, well designed and composed.
If the work is strong enough, valid enough and different enough, it will be shown!

Well, I’d better start thinking up some instructions, so on with the kettle and the thinking cap!
If you have been, thanks for reading….love to get your comments! Elizabeth