A Quilt-centric Summer.....

Sometimes all deadlines seem to collide into one small window, right?   Usually, it seems to happen near the holidays but, for me, it happened in June.  Many deadlines came to a head, and a few unanticipated opportunities that I simply could not pass up.  So, what I am trying to say is that, at times, I am my own worst enemy.  It seems that a good deadline is often needed to propel me across the finish line with some of my art projects.
I will write a separate post about traveling to Cleveland to tape two segments for "Fresh Quilting", but I wanted to write about the studio activity surrounding that and other projects.

First, I wanted to show you our little "quilt-turning" while the San Antonio Modern guild 

had its retreat in Kerrville at the Creations retreat center.  Have you heard about it?

Creations is an amazing quilt shop:  so well-curated!  They purchased the house across their shop parking lot and renovated it into a fabulous retreat center.  We love driving up there twice a year!

The "camp counselors" organized this quilt turning and each attendee brought a quilt to discuss.  We toured each others' rooms to see the quilts.  Fun!

I was surprised and thrilled to see Urban Artifacts was being carried in the shop!

I reside on the same shelf as Marcia Derse, and that gives me a lot of joy...

I knew Marcia's fabric would play well with mine, and vice versa.

 Okay, so I probably didn't really have time to go on that retreat but I MADE time to go because I love my sister guild-members and I didn't want to miss out on the fun.  Our guild is the best, people.
There is such generosity of spirit, acceptance, and mutual support with very little "drama".  I am a happy member.

Hi from the studio!  I'm standing in front of part of my very-full design wall.

These UFO's are haunting me...

Now, here is what I worked on back in my home studio:

"Hedgehog Social" is a digitally-printed piece that is based on a quilt I constructed

last year.  I took the photo of the quilt and altered the colors in PicMonkey, 

then printed FQs on the Spoonflower site.

The beautiful graffiti quilting is done by Joanna Marsh.

The theme of the month was:  facing the quilts!!!

Joanna Marsh, of Kustom Kwilts and Designs did the marvelous quilting

that I denoted for this piece, as well as the beautiful graffiti-style work on the Hedgehog quilt

and all the obsessive matchstick quilting that I requested on the others below.

Her work is just amazing and I am grateful to be able to collaborate with her.

This is another digital piece, part of a series that has begun this summer.

It is called "Summer of Love: Psychedelic Produce" (I know... it is a bit crazy)

This is an altered image of a cross-cut Napa cabbage.

I improv-cut and re-pieced the central portions of all four cabbages.

If you look closely you will notice that there are two tones of pink and two tones of yellow, a "glowing" one and a "flat" one (hello Nancy Crow-language).

I love the way this little subtlety makes the quilt sparkle.

Isn't the quilting amazing?!

Here is the back, a custom-printed Tula Pink fabric.  Gorgeous!

I love to put facings on most quilts as I love the clean edge they create. 

My facing has a curved corner.

This piece was created with solids sent to me by the sponsor of my segment on Improv Piecing

for "Fresh Quilting" series 200.  The quilt was ruler-free cut with a rotary cutter and machine-pieced.

Joanna quilted it with narrow matchstick lines that are slightly organic.

By the way, my new and perfect batting combo for pieces that will go to shows is this:

Quilter's Dream Orient (a silk/cotton blend) as the base, topped with Quilter's Dream Wool.

This combo is lightweight, will quilt to a very low-loft, and the wool prevents creasing during shipping.  It is just what I have been searching for.  Most double-bats get so weighty! 

This is just great.

This quilt is another digitally printed image, altered in PicMonkey and printed FQs from Spoonflower.  The image was taken under the pier at Wrightsville Beach NC when I traveled there

to stay with a friend after Quiltcon Savannah.  I created the negative space borders to reference

the architectural details seen in the pier.  I love this quilt!

Same batting:  Quilter's Dream Orient topped with QD Wool.

Organically matchstick quilted by Joanna Marsh.

This quilt, called "Interchange I", is a ruler-free improv quilt I constructed 

as part of a Nancy Crow workshop called "Sets & Variables".  This had a specific 

set of parameters that I had to adhere to:  size and two blocks were high contrast value, 

the two others were to have colors that were of the same value.  It was

quite challenging!  The quilt was longarm quilted by the wonderful Gina Pina from Austin.

This quilt has a single wool batting and the quilting echoes the basic shapes of the 

composition in 1/2" lines.  

I need to get a full image shot of this quilt, another from the Improvisational exercises workshop,

an advanced workshop with Nancy Crow.  This may be one of my very favorite quilts ever made.

I love this quilt so much.  It is very special to me, and I am just teasing you with this "quilt pile"

on my sewing table.  I was frantically putting the facing on it before I went to tape the 

"Fresh Quilting" episodes.  You will see it hanging in that blog post....

Next up: a detail from  "Resist Tyranny", a curator-piece I constructed to be part of 

an exhibition called Threads of Resistance.  

and here I am in Lowell at the New England Quilt Museum, standing in front of the quilt.

At the reception held at the home of my friend Sue Bleiweiss, on the right.

L-R:  Judy Coates Perez, Michele Muska, myself, and Sue.

So.  That was a LOT of quilt finishing inside the month of June.  Plus, I went to Los Angeles for a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, flew to Cleveland for the taping of Fresh Quilting, and squeezed a quilt retreat into the mix.  Hey, it keeps me out of mischief.

Affinity For Improv and Love of the Line

I am exploring some new territory in my recent work.  This is one of those intervals that may appear to be coming out of nowhere, but in reality, this has been on my "list" for some time.

It started last spring when I went to study at the Crow Timberframe Barn with Carol Soderlund.  I got to do two things at once that I had been dreaming of and it was a great experience.  It started me on a path I have been thinking about since the late 80s:  studying with Nancy Crow.

The reaction I get is usually something like this:  "I don't understand. Why are you doing this?  This doesn't seem like a place your work is going...." and on.  Yes, I get that people don't see it as a natural progression of the work I was doing two years ago.  I'm quite fine with that.  This exercise has multiple goals:
To study with an artist whose work I admire a great deal.  
I want her to challenge my point of view.
I expect it to be difficult.
I expect to struggle, and probably to fail multiple times.
My goal is not to make work that resembles Nancy's, rather, it is to see what is possible by adding the information she gives me to my own aesthetic.

I can't wait to see what shakes out of all this!

One revelation:  free-cutting fabric selvedge to selvedge with a rotary cutter to expose the gestural line in cloth.  This really excites me!  I feel so close to drawing when I do this:  I'm pulling the rotary tool toward me versus the traditional method ofpushing it away.  No ruler!  It allows more control and  is deeply satisfying.

I created this quilt which is my curator's piece for the soon-to-be "Affinity" exhibition (for Dinner At Eight Artists in Houston at the International Quilt Festival) using this free-form method of construction and I'm pretty happy with the results.  All the quilts in the exhibition will be 40 inches square.

With the exception of some of the black and gray, the rest of this fabric was hand-dyed by me.

I enjoyed the process of free-motion quilting this piece on my Bernina 750QE.

I hope many of you will be at the International Quilt Market & Festival this fall in Houston, TX.  Please look me up!  I'll be there!  

A Little Thank You.....

from the Quilt Alliance

This is the time of year that many of us reflect upon the events of the year as we head into the holiday season.  As an artist who makes quilts I like to reflect upon my path and give thanks to some of the individuals who made a difference along the way.  There are so many!  

If you are like me, there are a few standouts:  those instructors or perhaps even a family member who influenced you to become an artist.  

Here are a few of mine:

A rare photo of my grandmother working on a quilt at her sewing machine.

circa 1968

My grandmother, Maude Alice Mundell Tucker.  By the time I came along she was no longer a farm wife.  Instead, she had become the town seamstress in a small north central Kansas town.  She made every piece of clothing I wore until I convinced her to stop making double-knit pantsuits for me (I tended to be more of an Esprit de Corps-girl).  But my grandmother always had a quilt upstairs in the frame.  Unfortunately, I did not learn to quilt from her, but her love of textiles and quilts absolutely influenced me and drew me in.

Edith York.  Edith worked on the night shift in Labor and Delivery at the hospital where I practiced as an RN from the late 70s through the early 90's.  She was the second quilt maker I was influenced by as she would come into the lounge and work on her quilts before her shift began.  When I expressed interest, she encouraged me, even suggesting that we attend a block of the month series together.  I consider her my first real mentor.  She died a few years ago, and I miss her.

Ardeth Laake.  Ardeth is my husband's aunt.  Also an RN, I took a real shine to her when I married Tim.  Ever-humble, she was probably one of the most amazing quilt makers I have ever known, to this day.  She was a needler for Elly Sienkiewicz, the renowned author and creator of so many Baltimore Album quilts.  Ardeth attended the IQF with me in 1992 and it was the first time for both of us.

Libby Lehman.  When I attended my very first International Quilt Festival in 1992 I listened to her speak as part of a lecture series that also included Debra Lunn (another artist who influenced me to begin dyeing my own cloth, but that is another conversation).  Libby's unconventional take on creating quilts that had traditional roots really turned my head.  Later, when I was able to take a workshop with her I realized what a patient, giving instructor she is.  I like to believe that her style of instruction has influenced my own.

Hollis Chatelain.  Over the past 10 or 11 years I have taken an annual series of workshops with Hollis.  Taught in a series, these range from drawing, color theory, design, and more.  Hollis teaches them in the style of a college intensive.  For 5 days every year I buckle down and leave my ego on the doorstep.  As a result, I have learned to look at my work and consider it from a very different point of view.  The days are tough and the hours are long.  I always think of a line from the film, "A League Of Their Own", when Gina Davis says she is going to quit because "it just got too hard".  Tom Hanks responds, "Of course it is hard.  If it wasn't hard everybody would do it.  It is the hard that makes it GREAT".  I think that describes my time with Hollis.

Nancy Crow.  Although I have just begun to study with Nancy she is an artist I had admired and respected for as long as I can remember.  I took my first-ever weeklong workshop with Nancy in October of this year and I can honestly say I worked harder than I have ever worked and I adored every second of it.  I plan to continue studying with her and look forward to seeing how this influences my own artistic path.  Her passion is contagious.  I love her directness.  I think Nancy and Hollis are similar in their no-nonsense, direct styles and I find it quite refreshing.  I respect their honesty and their individual artistic voices.

Jane Dunnewold.  Although Jane is not mainly known as a quilt maker, she has made many quilts and has certainly influenced a legion of them.  She is really the mother of the art cloth movement.  I cannot really say enough about how she has impacted the scope of my work as an artist.  In addition, I have the good fortune to call her a close friend.  Her gentle style of instruction, her ability to summarize her thoughts and make sense of complicated information is truly admirable.  

My respect for each of these women knows no bounds.  I have so many more I want to add to my list, but these women influenced me at some critical juncture in my own path.  I urge you to consider who is on your own personal list.

As a board member of the Quilt Alliance I have opted to honor my personal mentors by making a contribution to the the organization.  What better way to honor them?  The mission of the Alliance is to preserve the stories of quilt makers and their work.  Stories of people who have made a contribution to our unique subculture no matter how small or widespread that mark might be.
Here is Tess Harper's lovely poem memorializing two of her personal quilt heroes.

Won't you join me by honoring your own with a $25 contribution?  If you do you will be eligible to win several wonderful prizes so it might be an early Christmas gift to you, as well.  Thanks in advance.

I would love to read who has influenced you along your path.  Please leave a comment here and be eligible for another giveaway!  I will draw a name from the comments left below on 12/15 at midnight.  Leave a comment prior to be eligible for the drawing.  Happy holidays.