commonalities

We had a well attended opening Friday night; downtown Decatur really hops on First Fridays. And the show looks great--Sue Powell did an excellent job of hanging it--and of picking the artists for it.




This picture shows the work of four artists--, Leandra Spangler, David Johnson, Peggy Wyman, and me.

What struck me most as I viewed the show for the first time was how well the work went together--palette, visual language, style. There are five distinct voices at work here, but five voices that are able to communicate with each other.



Here Leandra's vessel relates almost perfectly to the blue slashes in two of my pieces--the free form shape of her vessel (for which she first wove a reed basket, then covered with handmade stamped paper and paint) even echoes the free form slashes I cut out of silk.



Again Leandra's vessel brings out the firey orange in my piece on the right, and Ann's framed pieces on the left. Peggy's pine needle objects echo the color and shape of Leandra's piece. David's kimono shaped tapestry on the left connects to all the pieces.



And here again my piece and Leandra's play off of each other.

Sue chose all of us from the internet, without actually seeing any of our work in person. I think she did a marvelous job of picking five very compatible artists. Thanks, Sue.

Breaking news...

Two news stories of interest to my followers:

1. I have been selected as one of SAQA's Featured Artists of the Month for the month of March. Not sure what it all means, as they're working their way through all the Professional Artist Membership, but maybe new eyes will see my work and like it.



2. Yesterday I delivered my pieces for the show Fibers by 5 at the Madden Arts Center, 125 N Water Street, Decatur, Illinois. The show runs from March 4-30. Gallery hours are M-F 9am-4pm, and Saturday 10am-2pm.

The opening is this Friday night, March 5, from 5-8pm, artists talk at 6:30pm.

The other artists are my friend Ann Miller Titus, David Johnson, Leandra Spangler, and Peggy Wyman. For an article about the show, look here.

So lots of things are happening with my art at the moment. Guess I need to ignore the sunshine and warming temperatures and head for the studio....

moving to the 21st century

Here's a quick video Ann and I made at our show, discussing the differences in our techniques:




Kind of cheesy, but not bad for a first attempt at utilizing the interwebs, huh?

Fine Line Opening this Friday

The wait is almost over. Our show at the Fine Line Creative Arts Center opens this Friday night, January 8, with a reception from 5:30-8:00pm. The center is located just off Randall Road in St. Charles, Illinois.

Artwork will remain hanging until February 12, and can be seen during normal business hours at the Center.

Even though Ann and I have played together for years now, it still amazes me how different our work is and yet how well it hangs together. Maybe it's both of us growing up in the Midwest, maybe it's the long interchange of ideas, maybe it's just a coincidence.

Friday night promises to be a cold night, but the opening reception will be warm!

getting ready for the Faire...

My big art event for the summer is this coming weekend--having a booth at the Midsummer Arts Faire in Quincy, Illinois. It's the only one I'm doing this year, mainly because I missed the deadline for some others.

But I've been spending a good deal of time getting things ready for the booth:


These are cotton shirts I dyed. I also dyed silk scarves to sell. And spent time mounting pieces and cutting mats and framing things. Lots of little, non-creative stuff. The results are ready to go:




I don't mind so much the matting and framing. But I find that I sometimes resent the time spent dyeing scarves and shirts--and yet I need to have them to assure that I get my investment in the art fair back. For some reason, people seem to be able to rationalize or justify spending money on something to wear. But not so much something that just hangs on the wall.

Never mind that art nourishes the soul, evokes emotion, soothes the savage beast. This frustrates me, enough that every year I question why I do art fairs. This particular one has an easy side benefit, in that I will see a lot of old friends. But if I have to make stuff I don't want to make in order to be able to display the stuff I do in the off chance that someone will buy my ART-- not my craft--why am I doing it? Sometimes the answer isn't real clear.

That is all.

vacation over...

Well, I'm back in the saddle again after a few days away. This picture of Lake Barkley, Kentucky, at around 5:15am one morning last week illustrates the whole vacation--calm, laid back, peaceful. A good break.

But now it's back to making art, getting ready for the Midsummer Arts Faire in Quincy, Illinois, June 26-28. And I have three pieces at the Quad State Art Show, also in Quincy, opening Friday, June 5. And then there's that list of other things I've been meaning to try....

I did carve some rubber stamps and do some sketching and planning while I was sitting on the porch admiring the view. But now to follow through....

That is all.

opening report

The opening of Ann and my show was a big success, and lots of fun. We had a big turnout, and I even sold three small pieces. As usual, our work--even though it's different in a lot of ways--looked great together:






Two rooms of fiber art. A chance to catch up with old friends. Can't beat that.

And the rest of the weekend was fun, too:



But more about those in another post.

That is all.

Two Roads Show

My new show, with Ann Miller Titus, is now hanging in the Gray Gallery at Quincy University, Quincy, Illinois. It will hang through the month of February.

If you can, please join us for the opening reception on this coming Sunday, February 8, 2009, from 2-4pm. Both of us plan on being there to greet old friends and talk about our work.

We chose to have a two person show because we think that our work looks good together, and that the presence of both strengthens each. We play well together (in fact we have a 'play date' scheduled for this Saturday afternoon), and work together well. Having a partner in art is a very good thing.

That is all.

SAQA One Square Foot Auction

Monday, November 10, marks the beginning of the SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) Reverse Auction of one square foot pieces of art. My donation, shown above, will be in the first set auctioned off.

The piece is called Bryce Canyon, and was inspired by the national park of the same name. The peachy background was hand dyed and stamped with hand carved stamps, the 'hoodoo' shapes are painted fusible webbing, the blue sky marks the vivid contrast between sky and land in the low humidity southwest. The y shaped dark piece is taken from a photograph we took of a pine tree with exposed roots that stands on the edge of the canyon--a striking enough sight that we later found postcards made of the same view.

I've belonged to SAQA for a few years, in fact have been juried into their PAM (Professional Artist Member) group. They do a lot to promote art quilts as art, as well as offering lots of exhibit opportunities. Please check them out.



This piece, now entitled Lake Cooper 2, has been juried into Form, Not Function. This show occurs at the Carnegie Center for Art and History in New Albany, IN, from January 9-March 7, 2009. Although I've never been in person, from what I have heard and seen it is a show well worth going to see if you're anywhere near southeastern Indiana.

That is all.

A Good Day to Dye

I've finally started getting ready for the Midsummer Arts Faire in Quincy, Illinois the last weekend in June( the 27-29)--after all, I have 10 whole days left. The big stuff is done, now I'm just getting the small stuff ready for the booth.

One of the things I'll be selling is hand dyed silk scarves. Lately I've been playing with pour dyeing--I hang the cloth on a clothesline (outside) and pour dye on it. I go up and down the line, adding bits of different colors. The fact that the silk sticks to itself helps produce great 'happy accidents.' These scarves, which no longer look just orange, are now batching in the laundry room.

I also played with some of the stamps I have carved, dabbing fabric paint on them and stamping them on various pieces that needed something more. (thanks to Kathy Sands for advice). I like the results and will probably do more of this:



So if you're in the area, stop by my booth. I'll be the one right next to my friend, Ann Titus--it'll be a high fiber area.

Two, count 'em, Two solo shows

The first of my two solo shows in the Month of May is hung, and it looks pretty good (if you ignore the shaft of sunlight moving across one wall--the windows look darkened, I'm only a little worried). This is in the Fairfield (Iowa) Arts and Convention Center (200 North Main). The opening reception is this Friday night (May 2), 6:30-9pm, as part of their monthly First Friday Art Walk--a great event, in which several local businesses and galleries within walking distance of each other hold openings. I think that this month there is a theme of Fiber Art.

My second show will be hung tomorrow, at the Quincy Medical Group, Quincy, Illinois. It can be viewed during normal business hours.

So I feel like my hard work of the last few months of making art has paid off--I am able to mount two, albeit small, solo shows at the same time. That's a good thing.

Check them out if you get the chance.

The Dull bits

Where has the time gone? What have I been up to? Well, aside from spending last week nursing a sick husband, I was getting ready for not one, but TWO solo shows in the month of May. I almost didn't accept the second one because of the timing, but I thought a minute and realized I finally have enough work to pull this off.

That's partly because I spent a lot of the last few months just making art. It doesn't feel like it today, but the pile speaks for itself. The problem is, I made art and stopped there. No framing, no matting, no sewing on of hanging devices.

So I spent the last couple of days figuring out what piece goes where, making prices lists to submit to the venues, figuring out what goes in what frame. Boring, but necessary.

Oh, and the two venues? One is the Quincy Medical Group in Quincy, Illinois. They have a large skywalk connecting their two main buildings, the work will hang there for the month of May.

The Fairfield (Iowa) Art Association will host the other show in the Fairfield Arts and Convention Center. There will be an opening reception (with me in attendance) on Friday, May 2, 6:30-9:30pm, in conjunction with the Fairfield First Friday Art Walk--a big local event held monthly.

In between the sick, the getting ready for this, a quick trip to the International Quilt Festival in Chicago next week, and a vacation with family to Lake Barkley, KY, this is shaping up to be a quite busy month. I'm anxious for May, when I can seriously make art again.

But I am feeding the muse--making a small piece every day, playing with some new techniques when I have an hour or two. There are a couple of bigger pieces on my design wall right now, but both are kind of stuck--not telling me how to continue with them--waiting for me to find my way back to them. I will. Just not this week.

Form Not Function

This piece, Strata 2, has been accepted to the Form, Not Function show at the Carnegie Center for Art and History, New Albany, Indiana. The show will be open from January 11-March 8, 2008.

While I have entered this piece in a couple of shows, it's never been accepted before. Anther one rejected by this show was accepted by another. Things like that keep me from taking any acceptance or rejection too seriously--it's all in the eye of a particular judge putting together a specific show. It is out of my hands.

Art Quilts XII Acceptance

I got the happy news while away for the weekend that my piece Brown Eyes was accepted into Art Quilts XII in Chandler, Arizona.

Balancing Act

For the first time in my fiber artist life, I got three pieces into a single show, a SAQA sponsored show called 'Balancing Act.' The show runs from August 28-September 28, 2007, at the Lawrence Street Gallery in Ferndale, MI. Here are the pieces that got in:











Now I have to get busy and put hanging sleeves on them...

new show

I have had an opportunity come up at the last minute to have another solo show. For the month of April, some of my fiber and watercolor pieces will be hanging in the lobby of Blessing Hospital in Quincy, Illinois.

Hope you can stop by.