Thread Experiments

September 28, 2007

This project had to be mostly done by Thursday night because we left Friday for a big family wedding weekend. My initial thought was to quilt lines that would echo the shapes of the sand dunes in the background, but I knew this would be difficult to do well.

But then I thought of the mysteries of Egypt and hieroglyphs and developed a kind of personal symbolic language to cover the entire background. I enjoy improvising these shapes and can quickly flow them around the odd negative spaces left by the main characters in this quilt.

I wanted to use King Tut thread on the right of the sample for the obvious reason, but opted for the more subtle effect of a lighter-weight variegated thread on the left.

It often takes several test samples to find the variegated thread that will optimize the play between the background pattern and the stitching.

The Great Sphinx of Giza is something didn’t think to include until late in the game. In Egyptian mythology, a sphinx is half man and half lion with eagle wings. I thought it would be nice to give him some cat-eye glasses although I don’t know how they would stay up since he’s been missing a nose for over 600 years. When I found this painting of Napoleon and the Sphinx, it reminded me that in the 1700’s, the Great Sphinx was just a head in the sand, until someone decided to dig down a little deeper.

Filed Under process | 7 Comments

Who’s that girl?

September 25, 2007

PaMdora, CleoPaMtra, or Nefertari?

I’m having way to much fun with this quilt, considering I’m on deadline and have only be able to get into the studio a few hours each afternoon. The Egyptian head dress was hard to make, but still, too fun! Maybe it’s because I’ve always had a fascination for Egyptian art.

Here’s the new food pyramid. And since I was concerned as an icon, it may be only a national convention, I’ve thrown lots of other icons to boot. What could be more universal than food itself? On that note, it must be time for a snack….I think there’s some ice cream in the freezer.

Filed Under process | 11 Comments

Food Pyramid Redux

September 23, 2007

Finally a pot I’ve had on the back burner all summer has started to boil. If you remember, I started another food-inspired project and then stalled out. I thought the problem was color and some of you tried to help me out with lots of comments, thank you very much, especially Del who sent me to photos like this for inspiration.

So I struggled with color for a long while (that’s one reason I draw on the computer — it gives me a lot of freedom to play with the design) and stewed on rhetorical questions like… “what color is sand? What color is sky?”

Someone asked if I use a tablet. I’ve had several different Wacom tablets, but the Graphire 3 is my favorite. I like the small one because it’s portable, I don’t have to move my wrist much to draw, and anyway, size is relative on the computer.

When I wanted another for the home, they had gone onto the Graphire 4. But it doesn’t have the pen holder on top and the styling wasn’t as sleek. So I bought another Graphire 3 on Ebay. Although there are a lot for sale, they go for almost retail price, so I guess other people think the same as me.

But back to topic, sometimes when you think there’s a problem, it’s not just one. It’s several. Which in art, like in medicine or mechanics, makes it much more difficult to diagnose. When I found this strange photo called The Secrets of the Singing Sand Dunes, I finally realized my worst problem was the sand dunes were too flat. Then Russ said the vertical orientation was too skinny. And there needed to be more stuff happening, so I’ve added some new surprises for you to see later on.

Then I laid out the new colors. When the abstract foundation of color looks exciting, I know I’m on the right track. So that’s when the pot finally started to boil…

Filed Under process, technology | 12 Comments

The World of Robert E. Smith

September 21, 2007

Robert E. Smith, a self-taught outsider artist who has been featured in the Museum of American Folk Art, will be 80 next month. To put together this show at the MSU Art & Design Gallery that spans over thirty years of work, collectors loaned 140 of his paintings for the exhibition. It’s a rare opportunity to become immersed in the wacky and entertaining world of Robert E.

One of the paintings that we loaned is the basis for this downtown mural, and we won it at the auction to raise funds for the mural. But our painting is better because the artists who interpreted the mural for Robert smashed the painting a bit — ours is longer and skinnier.

But they did pretty much capture the spirit of the original painting. In this detail you can see some of the trademarks of Robert’s story-paintings — famous people like Ray Charles or Santa Claus appear frequently, as does Baby Jane, current events, and personal landmarks from Robert’s memory. If you haven’t already figured it out, Robert has been a major influence on my art.

I love the busy activity and texture of his paintings, the tiny details that you have to get in close to see, but most importantly, the humor of the mysterious stories. This painting that I had never seen before is called, “Mercy Hospital, County Jail.”

Robert sometimes records his stories on tape, attaching the cassette tapes to the back of his paintings. He also writes cartoon books, giving himself titles that he fancies such as “moody artist” or “notable folk-artist.” To see more paintings, go to the Good Girl Art Gallery.

Filed Under Inspiration, exhibitions, other artists | 6 Comments

Steven Holl’s Bloch Building

September 18, 2007

We’re just back from Kansas City and the new Bloch Building, the long-awaited addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Steven Holl is a genius! The addition was so much more wonderful than I expected. As this New York Times review reports, much of the enjoyment of the building comes from the changing light of the translucent building throughout the day, but most dramatic was the late night view — although it would have been much better if the Henry Moore sculpture walk had also been lit for a night-time stroll.

What’s also great is the play between interior and exterior spaces like this section of the Noguchi gallery. What you may not realize at first is big chunks of the museum are buried underground, so you can actually go out a door, around a path, and next you’re on the grassy roof-tops of this gallery looking out over the sculpture garden and Kansas City below.

The Bloch Building juxtaposes the classical architecture of the original musuem, but the best part, in a time when some trendy museums are made more for the architecture and less for showing art, the Bloch Building shows the art admirably.

For more amazing interior photos, go to this Inhabitat article.

Filed Under journeys, other artists | 6 Comments

Icons and Culture

September 14, 2007

I want to enter a show that’s called Icons and Imagery because I think it’s a great idea for a theme. But the juror is German and the exhibition will be in England. So this gave me pause — the humor and play on words and images that is a big part of my art, would it translate?

One of my quilts, Robbery at the Lingerie Boutique just returned from from a touring exhibition that visited France, Great Britain, Denmark, Austria, and Australia. Weird trivia — a woman from my hometown, called to say she saw it Austria. How small the world is! But at the same time, how big! And I wonder how my quilt was received by the locals?

Two books I’ve read this summer Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking and A Whole New Mind both site the research of psychologist Paul Ekman that indicates facial expressions are interpreted the same around the world. But I know this isn’t true of hand gestures, and what about graphic symbols? Think how the swastika has changed.

The prospectus for the show gives this definition: An icon (from Greek eikon, “image”) is a graphic, image, or picture of some object or actions which elicits symbolic meaning beyond the object represented. It stands for an object by representing some well-known significance or certain qualities. An icon represents something of greater significance than the literal or figurative image. So can any icon be truly universal?

What do you think? And if you’re an artist reading this, do you think your work reaches across cultural boundaries?

Filed Under Inspiration, exhibitions | 9 Comments

Taping for Quilting Arts TV

September 10, 2007

Here I am, a little surprised to be standing by the effervescent Patricia Bolton (Pokey) of Quilting Arts Magazine fame for taping of a guest artist segment for the new Quilting Arts TV that will soon air on PBS. I say surprised because it was a scary trip, through a massive three-hour the-sky-must-be-falling rainstorm that almost made us miss our plane. Luckily Russ took that race-car driving class in the rain last fall and was able to avoid a terrible wreck on a bridge, and luckily I had lots of sealing tape in the car so I could waterproof my cardboard box of quilts.

And luckily, we got to Cleveland in time to visit the tv studio and unpack my gear AND attend a couple of art openings, the 125th anniversary show at the Cleveland Institute of Art and another one at an artist-run alternative gallery called Spaces.

But the next morning, I realize I’ve brought waaay too much stuff. Not wanting to follow the tried and true formula for a step-by-step project on camera as was suggested, I brought a big quilt to assemble live so viewers could feel the excitement of seeing a project come together. Before when I did a documentary with PBS, I just acted natural, and they edited it later. What I didn’t realize, this time the process was different. We had to do it right in front of the camera in real time. Yikes!

Though I had pre-camera jitters and all the layers of studio makeup made me feel a bit like a Kabuki actor, Pokey and the producer were able to help me streamline and focus. In fact with Pokey’s gentle cues, we did the whole segment in one take. Yay! Only thing that to be edited out was my mistake at naming a certain product that goes by the initials of W.U.

Since I went first, I had the rest of the day to enjoy watching the other artists do their gigs, and Pokey do her in-between bits.

I loved the opportunity to study closely the work of Mary Ann Tipple who brought her series of “Things Your Mother Warned You About” based on vintage photos of her mom (now 92 but still on a bowling team) and dad — collaged, painted, and stitched on cotton duck canvas. I think this one is called, “Drinking.”

Here’s the other artists in the lunchroom — Laura Cater-Woods and Wendy Richardson — with guest artists like this and Pokey’s infectious enthusiasm, the show’s going to be a good one. Hiding in the back is Russ, the photographer of most all these photos. Thanks Russ! I wish Judy Perez who is also going to be on the Pictorial quilts episode with me could have been there, but she doesn’t tape until Tuesday.

Best of all at the end of the day, my quilts were in front of the camera and I was behind it — which I much prefer. But get a look at this camera — I felt like I was in some spacey sci-fi studio with that big camera zooming up, down, and close-in to animate across my quilts.

Filed Under journeys, media, other artists | 16 Comments

Upside Down

September 6, 2007

When I was a kid, I used to practice reading books upside down even though the other kids in my fourth-grade class thought I was weird and made fun of me. You see, I had read somewhere that to be a spy, you needed to be able to read well upside down so you could covertly read papers on someone’s desk while you were sitting on the other side.

Since I never got that spy job, I haven’t used that skill too much. But this week I’ve been practicing making a quilt upside down, because on Saturday I will have to do it in front of some tv cameras for the new Quilting Arts TV that will be broadcast on PBS starting in December. So now it’s time to take this project on the road.

Filed Under journeys, media, process | 7 Comments

Toastmasters

September 3, 2007

Speaking of toast, that reminds me of a story about my niece. Once when she was little, her mother was happily serving dinner to the family. Her mom raised a glass and said, “Lily was such a good girl today, I’d like to make a toast.”

Lily excitedly jumped out of her chair, raised her glass, and shouted, “and I’d like to make a pancake!”

Filed Under process | 4 Comments

Art or Toast?

September 2, 2007

Doesn’t it get you down sometimes — bills, phone calls, business, legal mumbo-jumbo, everyday get-under-your-skin, little pesky stuff? I’m about ready to punt the business of art, and just make some ART!

or toast, whatever comes first.

Can’t help myself, but everytime I finally get a drawing ready and it starts to come out of the printer, I get a thrill seeing it big for the first time! I cooked up this idea on the way home from work one day, stuck in a 106 degree traffic jam.

This is the first big thing I’ve tried to print since the ice storm, so it was an unpleasant day of trying to find paper that wasn’t water-damaged, cleaning up the machine, and trying to get a new computer to talk to it. I’m not good at that kind of stuff, so fortunately Russ helped me out. In the end it was worth it.

Filed Under drawings, process, technology | 9 Comments

Thread Experiments

Who’s that girl?

Food Pyramid Redux

The World of Robert E. Smith

Steven Holl’s Bloch Building

Icons and Culture

Taping for Quilting Arts TV

Upside Down

Toastmasters

Art or Toast?

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