Workshop Gone Awry

May 26, 2005

Yesterday we had a great workshop by Laura Wasiloski. If you don’t know Laura, she makes fun colorful quilts like this one with crazy little birdhouses. She gives very funny lectures about her quilt-making and sings her own hilarious songs about irons, scissors, quilts, and anything else you can think of. We were treated to TWO different lectures on Tuesday, and I still can’t get those songs out of my brain. I can’t sing them as good as Laura though.

The workshop however went seriously awry, but not due to anything Laura did. Apparently it started out smoothly, but I wasn’t there for the beginning. I had a hair emergency.Actually, it wasn’t a serious one, and to be truthful it wasn’t even an emergency, but that’s what I told the class so as not to seem impolite when I walked in late. It’s just that after my usual morning yoga and breakfast, I had a sudden urge to go south and listen to rodeo stories by my hair stylist.

After my hair emergency was over, I walked into class and it ran smoothly for about an hour. People were energentically fusing their rainbow hand-dyed fabric kits by Laura. And then it happened.

First I should probably explain what fusing is for those who don’t know. Fusing is ironing on a dry paper-backed glue to the back of fabric. After it’s ironed on, the release paper is peeled off, and you can then stick the fabric to other fabric by ironing it together. This class Laura was teaching uses lots of fusing which mean lots of ironing. In the photo above, Emmie is demonstrating the proper fusing technique. Notice the firm grip she has on the iron. Emmie’s a pro.

Anyway, so then it happened. All the lights went out. Not from too many irons on the system, but from a power pole that got knocked down in an accident. The whole block had no power, including our Guild workshop room at a spooky place called North Town Mall.

Although Laura assured us that in some primitive cultures, people used to fuse fabric with hot bricks, we had no bricks and no hot coals to warm them. So instead of sitting in the dark, we all went out into the atrium and practiced free form fabric cutting under a skylight. Then we went to lunch.

After a long lunch of Hibachi Chicken and sushi at one of my favorite places called Little Tokyo, we returned to the North Town Mall to find that our classroom looked like this.

So it was back out to the sky-lit atrium. This time Laura entertained us with more songs and a special display of art quilts on the vacant lunch koisk outside our classroom.

When I saw the vacant sign about Laura’s head I couldn’t resist embellishing the photo…”Laura’s Fresh Fused Quilt Snacks.” Get ‘em While They’re Hot!

Finally the power did come back on, and we all worked furiously to get our “Woodcut Quilts” done. I didn’t have time between making mine and buying up a bunch of Laura’s wonderful hand-dyed fabrics and threads to take photos of everyone’s work, but some of the more entertaining concepts were Merrilee’s “I Artichoke The Person Who’s Talking Too Much,” and Maureen’s “My Garden Gone to Pot.” Then there was Lucy’s shoe bottoms…

I did a small quilt top about my Kokeshi dolls. Kokeshi are little wooden Japanese dolls that I collect. Actually I only have seven, but I’d like to get some more.

I’ve been taking photos of them and would like to do a series of little quilts about them, because to tell you the truth, I’m sick of cutting out PaMdoras. I need to add a few more flowers to the doll’s kimonos, but it’s a good start and now I’m off to Quilt National for the weekend!

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Uncommon Threads - May Meeting

May 22, 2005

We had a great meeting last Thursday of our art quilt group, Uncommon Threads. Everyone seems to have been busy, both getting work done, getting into shows or getting commissions.

Above is Lucy Silliman’s piece that she did in a Yvonne Porcella workshop. We all loved the bright colors and Lucy’s great quilting with the rainbow thread. The stripped edge is a fused border layered under her binding. Lucy also has a quilt in the June 3rd opening of the Kansas Art Quilters “Layers and Upon Reflection.”

This is Emmie Seaman’s quilt (Emmie is on the right) that was just published on the cover of the Kansas City Star magazine for Block of the Month. I think she mumbled something about running out of white for the background!

Emmie also has a quilt in the Kansas Art Quilters “Midpoint” that opens June 2nd, and so does Susan Leslie Lumsden who is in the group but not at this meeting. But we know from her emails that she’s been traveling to lots of national art fairs to sell her quilts and she’s won several Juror’s Awards.

Merrilee Tieche just finished this quilt which is a commission for St. John’s Hospitals. Rhinestones simulate little air bubbles coming out of the fishes mouths. Merrilee calls it “He’s Got His Mother’s Eyes.” She’s got a great sense of humor that shows in her art.

Sadly, I had my “Robbery at the Lingerie Boutique” only half assembled for the meeting, but the group gave me such a vote of confidence that I could finish it in time to submit to the Viking competition, that I did indeed finish it the next day.

Just when I thought we’d tapped out all the talent in the area (this isn’t Chicago you know), some new people showed up and wowed us with their stuff. Above is Arleta Johnson’s quilt that’s an innovation of a traditional quilt pattern that I don’t know the name of.

Arleta said she had recently moved to the area and was looking for friends. We gladly volunteered. This quilt is a 9-11 quilt called “Aftermath: Fire, Smoke, and Ashes.” But the big surprise is the back….

Can you believe this is the back? Arleta seems to do this with all her quilts, says so when she quilts it, she actually gets two done at one time?????!!

Another newcomer, Dianna Callahan teaches fiber art at a college in a city near here. She’s active in our local Visual Artists Alliance, but I think was seeking more connection with other fiber artists. This piece is called “Fantasy” and used a wide variety of fabrics and found ornamentation from vintage clothing.

Unfortunately Lettie Blackburn was too late to make the meeting, but she brought her newest piece to show so I got a photo of it. I forgot the title, but on the back is the Robert Frost poem that inspired it. I cropped the photo so you could see more of the image, but the quilt is nicely framed with a white mat and sleek black frame. This quilt is in a local show at the Performing Arts Center, and Lettie also recently won a Juror’s Choice award at another show she is currently in.

Another member who couldn’t make Thursday’s meeting is Rosemary Claus-Gray. Above is one of her framed pieces and she is currently having a solo show called in Cape Girardeau, MO. You can see some photos of the exhibit here and here.

The group is all a-buzz because Tuesday we will be treated to two programs by Laura Wasilowski and on Wednesday, Laura will be giving her Woodcut Quilts workshop. Then Merrilee, Kathy Kansier (who will be the professional appraiser at the Studio Art Quilt Associates Conference), and I will be traveling on Thursday to Quilt National and the SAQA conference.

And the next week is the Surface Design Association conference in Kansas City which is only about three hours from here, some of us hope to make it to the shows there too. Stay tuned!

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Kinetic Man Sculpture Dedication

May 21, 2005

Lots of kids, big and small, showed up for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of Kinetic Man. There were free ice-cream sandwiches for everyone…

and everyone got a turn to make K-Man move. I think the little kids like the fact that it’s just a little bit hard for them to turn the handle because it makes them really feel like they’ve accomplished something.

For more photos from yesterday’s event, go to RuBert Studios blog.

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Raining Fire

May 20, 2005

After I got my Viking entry in the mail, I went back to the K-Man site with dinner for the guys and again later to take them some jackets. There is an awesome aspect to the site for the sculpture that we didn’t anticipate.

When the baseball games across the street end, the finale fireworks explode right behind K-Man’s head. I took the above night photo, but didn’t get a good photo of the fireworks when they were exploding I was still driving up the street, watching firey chucks of lava fall on my truck and got a burning spark in my left eye.

I wonder if they’ll quit blowing fireworks inside the city if this happens again? Hope I get a good photo before that happens.

p.s. Had a great meeting of our art group yesterday–some new people showed up. Hope to post those photos soon.
p.p.s. It’s two in the morning, and Russ is still out working on K-Man. I could only hold the flashlight so long, then I took a nap in the truck and came home.

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Kinetic Man Announcement

May 19, 2005

At sort of the last minute Russ decided that he’s like some announcements sent out to 400 people about a sculpture event on Saturday. Or was it sort of last minute I actually listened to him. Or was it at the last minute, I actually had an idea and inspiration of something to send out?

Regardless of why, last minute means that I design something, print it on the laser printer, cut, fold, stuff, address, lick, seal, and stamp it all by myself. 400 times. So you can see what I’ve been doing for a large part of the last two days. The fun part was drawing the kids and the mechanical gears that look like flowers or snowflakes.

I put his web site address on the back, so that means I also had to frantically update his web site (I actually just did the front page, someone else did the interior site and I still haven’t gotten to that) and I also created a new blog for RuBert Studios to show the daily stuff going on in the sculpture part of the studio. I admit I back-posted some stuff, but basically just dated the posts to match the photos I’ve been taking for a while now. Check it out for installation photos of Kinetic Man yesterday!

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Hey, Where Did Everyone Go?

May 18, 2005

Honestly, last time I looked this room was full of people. I was only gone a day.

Oh here you all are, hiding in the corner. Not afraid of needles are you?

I’m just kidding again. I took off all my cutouts because I was ready to start quilting, and I’d rather do the background first than go around all those little shapes. I like quilting because for me it’s like drawing with the sewing machine, and I love to watch the change in texture of the fabric as I quilt. It makes me think of hammered metal where someone tap, tap, taps sheet metal into a completely different form, like a tea pot or a bowl.

It’s been hard for me to stay away from studio while I’m in the groove. People ask me if I help Russ with his sculpture. I tell them that I don’t weld or grind or that kind of stuff. But if you’ve ever watched a movie all the way through to the credits at the end, that’s what I do. The weird stuff in the background that no one realizes happens like the catering (sandwich runs actually), finding tools and contractors in other cities, planning for emergencies that hopefully won’t happen, watching to see that no trees or animals are injured in the process. But what takes up the most time is the constant PR. I’ve been a bad wifey this year and only worked on my own stuff, so now it’s time to play catch up!

But I’ve been getting into the studio at the end of the day (last night it was 1:30) and am happy with how “A Robbery” is progressing.

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Mannequin Construction Ahead

May 14, 2005

Yesterday I had a great time making little mannequins out of fabric. When I thought up a quilt design featuring lots of mannequins and a dress form, it was no accident. I’d been wanting to do something using them for a long time. Mannequins are so different if you think about it. They come in all sorts of colors and can be realistic, but sometimes are very abstract and have really weird hands and necks. I like the older classic-looking ones which I guess we sort of collect here at RuBert Studios.

But back to the task at hand. I wanted to show some more photos of the mannequin construction because I’ve been getting a lot of questions…

To assemble a mannequin with stockings on, I’m using iron-on Wonder Under to fuse the colored fabric onto the black fabric that I will cut later to make the black outlines. We’ve got an overlap problem, so you see I cut her arm off at the shoulder. It’s okay, hair will cover that cut. You can see the backside of the hair piece with the outline transferred from the WU.

I cut everything with scissors. I used to not understand what was so great about Gingher scissors until I tried them. I thought they looked old fashioned and wouldn’t be comfortable without some cushy plastic handle, but what I found is they cut through fabric as if it were butter and handles are so well made you don’t need any cushy padding. So I happily used the big dressmaker shears for the last year.

Recently I added the smaller ones, I think they are called the 5″ size which now I’m using for most all of my cuts except the big ones. These are wonderful also (the four inch were too small for me). They are lighter and easier on my thumb to open and close, which sounds like a trivial thing, but after cutting things for seven hours it can be a big deal. I actually asked my doctor if I had a brain tumor (did I mention I’m a hypochondriac?) before I figured out the pain in the base of my skull was due to excessive cutting, drawing, and mousing.

You can also see my little trash pail on the table. I got this idea from Rachael Ray, the 30 minute chef. She uses a trash bowl on top of her counter to keep the work area clean and the concept works very well for sewing too, especially because leaving little scraps of cut and fused fabric around on the work surface can be disastrous. You’ll end with some little thing accidently ironed and stuck where you don’t want it to be.

Since at this point all the fabric has fused backing, I’m working on top of the release paper wich is what holds the Wonder Under until you iron it and pull the paper off the back of fabric.

This way when I’m all done with the assemblage, I can peel it off the release paper like a hot little pancake and then play around with it until I’m ready to permanently iron it to the final project.

Here’s some other photos of thing that keep me amused in the studio. From Egghead…

To Glam Girl. Oh how little things like some hair are important to us all.

And no, I’m not telling your how I put the face on her, at least not today. It’s something I figured out all by my little self and some day I might, but today I’ve got lots of deadlines. Here’s a little lingerie thing I also made yesterday. I’ll probably embroidery some laces up the front. I like to leave some little things to embellish by hand for variety.

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Bra Shots

May 12, 2005

It has come to my attention that Stitchy McYarnPants has posted links to Melody’s and my blogs, so I need to get things up to snuff around here. If you don’t know Stitchy, check out her archives of the Museum of Kitschy Stitches (MOKS), they are hilarious. She does things with vintage magazines I only dream of.

Sorry for the confusion on an earlier post. I had a leftover PaMdora hanging around the quilt in progress to keep me company while I work, not as part of the quilt. The real PaMdora according to plan is clad only in a bra.

For those of you who seem interested in seeing the naked truth, here’s a close up of the flowery fabric. Unfortunately, that’s about as risque as it gets since PaMdora seems to wear something that’s sort of a cross between an 1950’s style brasserie and a sports bra.

Since Myra asked, the figures here are all cut out of fabric, not printed. The stripey orange shirts are cut from a Jan Mullen fabric and the diamond yellow desk is a Jane Sassaman print. Mostly I like to use plaids, stripes, and polka dots. And lots of black in the background to make the black outlines.

I’ve got a small stash of hand-dyed fabric, but since it is rapidly shrinking, I’ll probably start trying to dye more this summer. It helps to have a wider range of colors. I don’t really like PaMdora in this purple since she looks a little ghostly, so I borrowed a pink head to see what it looked like….

Eekk! It’s a frightening hybrid PaMdora! But now wouldn’t she be good if she grew some little claw legs or maybe robot arms. Anyway I need to not always be stewing about color choices and re-doing things that are done. Finish everything else first, then come back and re-examine this area… That’s the plan anyway, but I couldn’t resist posting the pink head.

I’ve finally gotten some new cd’s to listen to while I work so I don’t keep playing the same old Bare Naked Ladies and Dave Brubeck’s over and over and over. Here’s some new ones:

Beck - Guero (already rapidly becoming another one of my overplayed disc, especially the track “Black Tambourine”)
Moby - Hotel
Pink Martini - Hang on Little Tomato
Rachael Yamagata - Happenstance
The Blind Boys of Alabama - Atom Bomb I can’t believe these guys are all over 70. They are gospel singers who sound so comtemporary.

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Better in Fabric

May 10, 2005

These guys look a lot better in fabric.

I like playing around with them when they’re fused together but not attached to the background because it’s like playing with paper dolls. Sometimes it seems a shame to sew them to the background because they look pretty good without any stitching.

After looking at my original drawing for only two days on the blog I was bored with the color scheme and was also a little worried about having bright red as a background. So I decided to fight fire with fire and pulled out the really bright yellows. An armless PaMdora looks on as the quilt progresses…

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Meditation on Sounds

May 8, 2005

Today after my yoga practice, I opened the front door and sat near the doorway to meditate. This is one of those wonderful spring mornings that makes me feel like I could go outside and soak up all the green goodness in the world into the pores of my skin.

Except it’s raining, so I sat in the doorway and looked out. Our front door looks out onto a small screened in porch, then out to a big grassy area with massive old oak trees, then across a small private road to my neighbor’s rock wall. As I looked further, I realized I could just barely beneath the oak branches and the rock wall see my neighbor’s front steps and part of their doorway.

I’ve been trying to learn to meditate for what seems like a long time now, but really have had no clue what that means. After reading An Accidental Buddhist and some other books, I’m starting to understand that it just means sitting–sitting and being aware.

As I sat in the doorway, I became aware of how many sounds I could hear. A dozen different birds, wind in tree branches, rain hitting oak leaves, rain water tricking down gutters and downspouts, a motorcycle in the distance, a train far away, the wind chime on the porch, and my iPod playing some simple flute music in the house.

I began to wonder what makes some sounds pleasant and others not. I wish I knew more about the science of sound. I know that sound is vibrations in traveling through the air and hitting my ear drums and some tiny little bones in my inner ear. But I don’t know why the sounds this morning would make me feel calm and peaceful as compared to Friday.

Friday I had to go to oncology for another shot since my beta levels have not gone back to normal. I was prepared for it to be like last time, with maybe one other person there, but relatively quiet so I could read and relax after the shot while the nurses watch my reaction to the medicine.

Instead it was very busy. There were lots of people, most of them looked like they were there to stay for a long while since they were hooked to iv’s and were watching tv or reading. The tv’s were somewhat loud, but the worst was the ringing of the cell phones and the loud conversations that followed.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my cell phone. It allows me to be where I want when I want and not have to sit in an office somewhere. And I wouldn’t deny that freedom from anyone else. But as I sat in my recliner and tried to read Being Peace, a book about learning to live a compassionate and peaceful life, I wondered why I wanted to go smash everyone else’s cell phone. I tried to tell myself that all these other people were probably a lot sicker than me and needed my compassion, and I felt that for the people, but not for the cell phones. The obnoxious ringing tones, and why when people answer their cell phones, do they seem to talk much louder than they do to the person sitting right next to them?

Anyway I shouldn’t end on this note, otherwise it will spoil this great beginning to a new day. So I need to put my oar back in the water and steer myself back to this moment right now, thinking about all the beautiful sounds and vibrations in the world that I can hear right now. Flutes, birds, rain, and wind. And maybe the sound of an omelet cooking in a pan in the kitchen.

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Robbery at the Lingerie Boutique

May 8, 2005

When I saw that the Illustration Friday theme for this week was Mischief, I was happy because I had already started this drawing. There’s plenty of mischief going on here, and lingerie itself seems to be all about mischief. It got to be pretty fun when I decided to add the Channel 5 Eye Witness News Team. You can click on the image for a bigger version.

I thought I was doing pretty well drawing bras, but then I saw Julie’s art bra on her HighFiberContent blog. I guess I need to get more into embellishment if I’m going to be really Hot, Hot, Hot.

I had trouble naming the lingerie store. Lingerie Boutique sounds a little too tame. Tried Lingerie Land but it sounded too much like a miniature golf park, but hey wouldn’t that be a fun one?! Tried to think of a spoof on Victoria Secret (which where by the way is where I got my models for my mannequins) but couldn’t. Any ideas?

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Photo Booth Bandits

May 7, 2005

Since I mentioned my niece and nephew the other day, I thought I’d show you some photos of them. Russ being a product of KCAI where he specialized in performance art besides his sculpture, is good at orchestrating four people inside a photo booth to get an action-packed set of photos in the forty-some seconds they allow you. It’s the most fun you can get at the mall for $2.

If you like photo booths, you’ll love this magical movie Amelie. It’s one of my all-time favorites.

We rented House of Flying Daggers last week, and it’s a gorgeous but tragic movie. Fabulous costumes throughout and the ladies of the House of Flying Daggers wear the most beautiful green crocheted sweaters under their grassy green kimonos.

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Nana and Me

May 5, 2005

My grandmother passed away on Sunday, and yesterday we went back to the town where I grew up for the visitation and service. It was a beautiful service, and good to see my parents and cousins, my brothers, my niece and nephew. So many people came, because she was special to many people during her life.

Yone was her Japanese name and Grace was her American name. She made the most awesome array of artistic Christmas cookies that you can possibly imagine. She taught me to knit, crochet, and needlepoint, but there was one thing that I didn’t know about her until I read the obituary in the paper. She went to the California School of Fashion Design in San Francisco.

I felt terrible that I didn’t know that about her, but she really never liked talking about herself or the past. She was always living in the here and now — driving her friends to church, volunteering for charity, going to her bowling league, and making things.

But the fashion design background explains her impeccable taste, her custom-tailored suits from the fifties that she gave me to wear when I was in college until my waist got too thick to fit (and my bust line never achieved). I have many fabulous hats from her collection, but they are difficult to photograph so I’m thinking about drawing some of them.

Unlike me she had absolutely no problem with clutter. Everything in her house was always tidy, and everything that was stored away in her house was in pristine condition. She was a perfectionist, but when she told me that she liked “lopsided things,” I knew that she meant she liked asymmetry like this Japanese dish she once gave me. I think it’s a bowl for ikabana flower arranging.

As her Reverend said, She was a tough lady who took a lot of hard knocks in life, but it never made her lose her joy for life, sense of humor, and love for others.

This summer in July we’ll go to our annual family reunion and take her ashes to be buried next to my grandfather in a beautiful cemetery on a hill that looks out over the Pacific ocean.

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Sand Drawings in Mexico

May 2, 2005

When I saw Pigeon Master’s drawing for Illustration Friday, it reminded me of this photo I took in Mexico a couple of years ago. We were standing on a bridge looking over a beach where the river met the ocean and looked down to see a young girl, all alone and still wearing her school uniform.

She was drawing in the sand with a stick, and she covered the beach with houses, bugs, cars and people. I was surprised that she could draw so well on such a big scale, and at the same time strangely inspired by the thought of the beach as a huge blank canvas washed clean each day by the ocean.

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Illo Friday: Ambition & Monster Trucks

May 1, 2005

Ambition…what do you drive, what drives you? I know there’s a joke in there somewhere, I just can’t quite sort it out. I have this crazy ambition to one day make an art car out of a 1973 Caprice convertible that’s sitting in the back of our studio warehouse, so I drew it and used Photoshop and CorelDraw to cover it with flowered fabric.

How did it get there? That’s a weird story — someone accidently stole our crane and the Caprice got left behind as a trade, I’m not sure how it all happened. Anyway, it’s big like a boat and rides like one too, and is a perfect candidate to become an art car.

However much I would like to always drive around in a vintage car, I wouldn’t have the patience for it. I get really mad when my car won’t start, and you can’t depend on old cars. In high school I drove a 1965 Thunderbird named Bernice, and although I loved that car, it was very unreliable.

Actually I’m embarressed to admit what I drive right now is a big red Ford F150 pickup, something I thought I needed to haul all my loot when I was going to a lot of auctions. It does come in handy for gardening and remodeling jobs, and it does seem to make guys want to talk to me in parking lots, although usually not the right sort of guys. But it’s a nasty gas hog, and I’m getting tired of trying to park it.

I probably have cars on my mind this weekend, because this was hanging around at the corner on my way to the studio on Friday.

The first weekend in May is a special time of year — it’s when Monster Trucks come to town. I don’t know why I like Monster Trucks so much, but just thinking about them makes me happy. Maybe it’s the in-your-faceness and over-the-topness, combined with the ridiculous wacky appearance of these trucks. Nice and bouncy, don’t you think?

I’ve never actually forked over the fifteen bucks to go to the fairgrounds and see them stomp each other into the ground. I prefer to enjoy the event in my imagination. It’s probably better that way.

And now that I’ve gone over the full range of possible rides, from big to bigger to monsterous, I’ll admit that my real secret ambition is to drive… a Mini. They’re just so darn cute!

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