Studio Article in Cloth Paper Scissors

April 13, 2008

I can’t believe April is already half over, and I haven’t yet told you about this article. Last December Patricia Bolton asked me to submit some information about my studio for a special edition of the magazine Cloth Paper Scissors.

Having a lot photos for this blog and just general shutter-bugitis, I sent some in with a brief written tour.

So here’s the result. You can pick up a copy at bookstores, or order online here. There’s lots of fabulous studios featured, I’m loving Jane Davila’s studio and of course, Sara Lechner’s — had to crack up at her story of buying 75 sets of shelves. And I thought I was crazy!

Also lots of great organizational tips for studios. Seems ironic that the article would come out just as we’re trying to finish up renovating the front of what CPS calls the “art factory,” but never fear — the part in the magazine remains true to the photos, so you’ll be seeing the real deal.

Meanwhile I’m sooo excited, can hardly wait until tomorrow when they will start installing the new bamboo floor in the front offices. Hope the finished product is worth all the agony of moving out again and the dust and noise.

We’re going for a complete change of aesthetic — more like a gallery feel, so it will be fun to have something different and better for photographing art than the old orange-black floor (it has been Halloween 24-7 for eight years — enough already!)

Filed Under media, studio | 12 Comments

Distinctive Directions postcards

March 24, 2008

Postcards are going out for our Distinctive Directions show that opens at the Lux Center for the Arts on April 4. The cards look sharp — lucky we have Deidre Adams in our group to design them!

The DD show and Lisa Call’s solo show at the Lux open one week after the grand opening of the International Quilt Study Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, so if you wait until April, you can see Nancy Crow’s show and Quilts in Common at the IQSC and our shows at the Lux. A double dip trip!

Filed Under exhibitions, media | 5 Comments

Six Pages in Quilting Arts Magazine!

December 2, 2007

Wowee, the new Quilting Arts magazine is out, and I think it’s the best issue ever. The emphasis that QA has put on publishing articles about sketchbooks, concept and design development, and innovative techniques has made this the go-to magazine in the art quilt world.

And as usual, the excellent photography makes the articles even more delicious. Judy Coates Perez has an article about a new technique she’s developed, Vicki Hallmark has an article about using space-age materials, Frances Holliday Alford has a yummy recipe for bead soup. And Sara Lechner’s article makes me crave a needle-felting machine (scroll down her blog for a gander at her glass house studio!

Of course, I may also be a bit biased about the issue, because PaMdora got a whopping six-page spread! Thanks Patricia Bolton for creating and growing a great magazine. And thanks Cate Coulascos Prato for writing such a nice article.

Filed Under media, quilts | 21 Comments

PaMdora’s in Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion

November 1, 2007

Switching seasons… gosh Christmas comes quick after Halloween! Just got my issue of Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion and there was PaMdora in her quilted, zippered vest.

Actually MEHC asked me for some photos last spring when they started the Top Stitch profile to feature art quilters. Here’s the other artists who have been featured this year. They told me it was only one page, but I sent more photos anyway, and it turned into two. I guess they got that quote from my website because I didn’t write that artist’s statement until summer.

I like MEHC because they always feature artists’ studios and lots of inspiring arts and crafts. Mary Engelbreit is a self-made artist turned publisher, but then I’ve always known about her because she’s from my home state.

I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the next day, Whip Up featured my quilts on their website under quilts with an attitude. Maybe kath red saw the magazine article. Anyway, was glad to see my crazy ideas were again resonating with someone else.

Filed Under media, quilts | 19 Comments

Moleskine Tour (detour)

October 20, 2007

When I travel I carry a little Moleskine sketchbook –these are sketches of some Cameroon masks I saw in the Portland Musuem of Art last year. Invariably, mine gets stuffed with scratchy notes, phone numbers, to-do lists….

Not these folk though. These YouTube video tours of artist’s Moleskines is one of the coolest things I’ve found on the internet in a long time, and if you’re a fan of sketchbooking, journaling, or scrapbooking, you’ll probably like them too. Here’s a tour of my favorites. Most are 2-3 minutes, and I just learned you can click the right-hand box under the video to make it full screen if you want.

Paul Davis (illustrator) notebook: Lots of colorful portraits of people with Picassoesque noses, plus clever collages.

Paula Scher (graphic designer) notebook: Alpha-doodles with lots of fancy and funky fonts. Paula’s sketchbook intrigued me, so I looked up her website and found her map paintings to be wonderful.

Celia Squire (artist/London) notebook: Nostalgic-style ink drawings of this storyboard artist fill the pages.

Stefano Faravelli (artist/Turin) notebook: A beautiful travel-style journal that folds out out into one long composition.

Remy Bardin (student/Santiago) notebook - “One year in Chile”: This one moves more slowly, but then the guy worked a whole year on it, so five minutes doesn’t seem too long after all. Some interesting fold-outs, unexpected changes in style, and orginal music.

Douglas + Francoise Kirland (photographer + curator) notebook: This one reads like a personal album, but the photos are always collaged in a interesting manner.

Dave Egger (writer) notebook: A writer’s cryptic drawings with titles.

Antonia Jorge Goncalves (artist/Lisboa) notebook: The nose book — he drew many people, then cut the pages of the book in the shape of their nose.

Joachim Robert (artist/Paris) notebook: Drawings, collage, cartoons, and a bit of painting.

Wilson and Restrepo (artists/London) notebook: Mostly wax pastel drawings. Abstract and surface design artists will like this one. Some messy fingers at the end.

Detour the Moleskine London Exhibition: I’ve always been a fan of art books, but could never see a way they could be shared. This short video shows an exhibition, and we can derive how it’s spawned these videos. I smell a clever Moleskine marketing campaign, but doesn’t matter — I’m ready to jump on board!

p.s. Just found Birget Brenner’s notebook made with thread.

Filed Under drawings, media, other artists | 10 Comments

Muse On-Line Writers Conference

October 13, 2007

Before I launch in Seattle stuff, I want to tell you about last week’s Muse On-line Writers Conference. It was a free conference that I found through an on-line writers group I recently joined.

For a week, people from all over participated in live chats and workshops with publishers, promoters, writers and illustrators, and a full discussion forum with the same. Since I registered late, I had lots of homework, reading handouts and research on websites — and believe it or not, I had never even been in a live chat room before (but it was fun once I got the hang of it.)

I didn’t realize it was going to be so good, or I would have told more people about it before. But I’ll be signing up for next year Oct. 13-19, 2008 — registration starts in January, so I’ll let you know then. And hopefully I’ll have some work done on my book ideas and be bouncing ideas off you before then!

Filed Under media, writing | Leave a Comment

Traffic Jam

October 11, 2007

Yay, I finally got this monkey off my back! I don’t know why was so hard, being it’s a simple concept and similar to this quilt that just went together like butter, and I consider to be one of my best quilts, technically speaking. (maybe that’s why it got into FiberArts International 2007).

Maybe part of the problem was all the starts and stops. I started it for this TV taping, then had several interruptions. Or maybe because I had artistic doubts about my work during the process and decided to recklessly experiment.

Or maybe it’s the maze mentality. I wanted to put a maze pattern on it because of the traffic theme, and the project did become a series of starts, stops, and wrong turns.

If you’re wondering about the solution to my background problem, I used oil pastels to adjust the color. These are cheap school kid oil pastels by Colorific, but what I had on hand. This is not recommended for fabric.

In discussions on the QA list, I learned oils in oil pastels may eventually destroy the fabric. Maybe not for a few years, but in terms of 50-100 years which is how conservators think. Here’s a link to good explanation about Shiva Paintstiks that could be an alternative.

Meanwhile, I had a great time using the oil pastels on the background, using predominantly purples, but highlighting with a blue. I love this effect, so will have to try the Shiva paintstiks in the future. And I was thinking, since there are really only three main elements in the quilt, I could cut them out and sew them to a new background. Or better, I could just move onto new projects!

p.s. Here’s a couple more process shots - click to see bigger. Squaring up the quilt is always difficult for me. I leave lots of room to crop after I’m done quilting, and try to use a t-square or laser-level to chalk the lines. This quilt is only 3′x4′ so the t-square worked pretty well.

Here’s why I covered the background with pastels. I had quilted it with a light-colored thread, then when I stepped back, thought it had the unpleasant look of being covered with hair. Which is how I felt too. When things aren’t going right in an artwork, I feel like I have hair growing under my skin. Ever feel like that?

Filed Under media, process | 18 Comments

The Artist Persona

October 8, 2007

My husband says Picasso always stared bug-eyed into the camera, so I did a little looking and found that he did look bug-eyed when he was young and old. I guess this is how he perceived himself, or maybe how he wanted others to perceive him, judging from these painted self-portraits from 1907 and 1972. Some people craft their personality as carefully as they craft their art.

Many thanks for the comments on my last post. It’s always fun to see what people like and the reasoning behind your selections gave me lots of food for thought. Alyson asked a good question — the answer is Quilting Arts Magazine is working on an artist’s profile. I’m excited because the feature is usually several pages long with excellent photography. I sent them six quilts last week for photography and had an interview with Cate Prato (what a great name, wouldn’t you love a name that sounds like you’re a secret agent?)

Many comments were strong for the top moody photo, but the zebra-sunglasses were popular too. I read somewhere that Princess Diana often tilted her head down and looked up at the camera so her eyes looked huge — so for fun I tried this. Some of you commented that this combined with looking over the top of my reading glasses made the viewer feel like they were being let in on a secret, something I thought would compliment the humor of my picture-story quilts.

Based on early morning comments, I had already gone back to my folder of upteen-zillion photos, found this one and sent it. Maybe I should send a p.s. alternative and attach the first photo. I do like the zebra-glasses, but not sure they’re right for the article.

I know from editing video which is 30 frames a second, a person can look happy one second, sad the next, innocent or evil, intelligent or stupid. It’s all a question of which frame you grab. It can make a world of difference, and if someone else is doing the selection — you’re at their mercy.

update: I tried to send the second photo to the magazine, but it was too late, they had already placed the first photo into the layout (or they just liked the first photo better, but didn’t want to tell me) Anyway, they just sent the proof for the article, and it looks great, so I’m happy!

Filed Under media, technology | 10 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

IQA Journal Interview

July 13, 2007

An interview that I did for the summer issue of the IQA Journal has just been released. You can read it on line at the Quilts Inc. website here. I worked on answering these questions last May when I was doing a lot of traveling on airplanes, because that’s a great place to get work done that you’re avoiding — there’s no escape!

Filed Under media | 2 Comments

Save our Stories

May 3, 2007

One thing that’s been distracting lately is interviews. I’ve been doing a lot lately, sometimes for publication, and sometimes just to help out a student. Luckily the only one on video was for the PBS documentary, The Art of Quilting. Someone asked me how I thought that turned out. Overall I thought the program was great, but my segment, well, I couldn’t stop thinking that my teeth didn’t look too good and my hair must be thinning.

Thinking about interviews reminded that I never posted a link to this one done last summer with Melva Hightower for the Alliance for American Quilts for the Save Our Stories series. I met Melva at the Art Quilts Philadelphia opening last year, and we later did the interview via a couple of chat sessions. I think that gave Melva plenty of time to study up, because she asked some great questions that really got me thinking about my art.

Filed Under media | 3 Comments

Signature Magazine

March 31, 2007

Signature Magazine, a regional life-style magazine, has just come out with an issue that features our art….nine pages long!

I was surprised, but happy that Karen Culp wrote a nice article after our interview. She wrote down some ideas for quilts that I forgot I had until I read the article. And we had three separate photo sessions with Bob Linder, so there’s lots of great pictures. Even Mochi made it into the story.

Here’s my favorite, a wonderful photo of Russ working in the studio. I hope Bob remembers to give us copies of his photos!

Filed Under media | 12 Comments

Thanks for the votes!

March 26, 2007

Well, at least my fabric didn’t get wet…. It would have be heck to wash, dry, and iron all this again.

Thanks for all the votes in the FiberArts magazine studio contest! FiberArts emailed me that I won in the Best Stash category. Actually they’re the ones who made up the categories based on the submissions I guess.

They’ve asked me to write a small tidbit for an announcement in the summer issue. Although I wrote poetry in a former life, my stash is not something that I wax poetic on. But I finally thought of something and sent it in. We’ll have to see if they use it…

Seems like I’ve been doing lots of writing these days. Here’s a post I wrote last night for my local group blog.

Beside writing, these days I’m also trying to learn lots of new software, and it’s making my brain sore. I got a new RSS reader called NetNewsWire for the Mac that I really love. Now I’m better at staying caught up on blogs. Also, I love this MacJournal — it’s great for organizing all different sorts of information, and I understand they’re going to come out with a WinJournal.

Photo organization systems are what’s really giving me a headache though. I still love Picasa, and it’s running great in Parallels. But because we have approximately 2000 slides and 4000 photos that will have to scanned and organized, I’ve been test driving Aperture and the new Lightroom. Each has something good, but I wish they’d get married and have a baby, because I’d really like a hybrid of the two!

Filed Under media, technology | 6 Comments

The Art of Quilting PBS program

February 25, 2007

Next Saturday, the documentary The Art of Quilting will air on our local PBS station. Check out Lisa Call’s quilt in the background of the PBS website, hopefully it will be on the cover of the DVD when it’s released! Last March a crew from Wisconsin came to my studio to do an interview. I haven’t seen the show yet, but I’ve been told by the producer that my interview will appear in the first segment. Check your local PBS schedule, because this program is supposed to be airing nationally in March. For Springfield, the PBS - KOZK schedule is:

Saturday, March 3 at 8 a.m.
Thursday, March 8 at 12:30 afternoon
Saturday, March 17 at 12:30 afternoon

Coincidently, that first showing is the same day that 50 art teachers will be touring our studio as part of their spring state conference. Yikes, next week is going to be a scrabble to get things in some kind of order. I had this idea to get a bunch of tarps, cover everything, and label them “Top Secret Projects”, but I don’t think that will work!

Filed Under media | 4 Comments

keep looking »

Studio Article in Cloth Paper Scissors

Distinctive Directions postcards

Six Pages in Quilting Arts Magazine!

PaMdora’s in Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion

Moleskine Tour (detour)

Muse On-Line Writers Conference

Traffic Jam

The Artist Persona

Taping for Quilting Arts TV

Upside Down

IQA Journal Interview

Save our Stories

Signature Magazine

Thanks for the votes!

The Art of Quilting PBS program

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