New York Weekend

What a great time we had! The weather was fabulous, brilliant sunshine and warm temperatures. Martha and I arrived Friday late morning and met up with Eleanor and Sidnee and headed off to the galleries. First stop was the Noho Gallery, where SAQA had a show in January. That show is gone, but the others wanted to see the space. We checked out a few of the other galleries in that same building and were impressed by the fact that quality is not a requirement for exhibiting. There were some real dogs. There are a bunch of other galleries in the immediate area and we visited many of them. One of the more interesting sights wasn't in a gallery, but out in the street. Check out this very political truck. On the side not visible, it says "I'M VOTING (something covered by graffiti) OUT. Given the sentiments on the rest of the truck, I suspect "BUSH" is what's covered up.
Walking down the street we saw this newly married couple posing for pictures. So I took one.
People were skating at the Rock Center even though it was 60 degrees. Must be refrigerated.


Off to dinner and then to the Broadway Tickets booth where you can get same day tickets to shows. After much friendly discussion we settled on "The Most Happy Fella", which is a revival of the 50's play, which is an adaptation of an early 20th century novel. Paul Sorvino was the lead. It's a musical but most of the dialog is sung, so it's nearly an opera. None of us thought it was fabulous, but it was fun to be in the New York Opera House, in Orchestra seats, albeit the second to last row, right behind a guy with a Very Big Head. This was the view from our seats before Big Head Guy sat down.

Next morning we headed out to breakfast bright and early. Eleanor on the left, Sidnee facing the camera, and Martha on the right.



Even the window displays are Art. This is a mannequin atop a skirt of cashmere sweaters all artistically knotted together. Very cool.



Then off to MOMA to see the Edvard Munch exhibit. As we stood in line to get in, who should we see but Michael James and his wife Judy, in town from Nebraska. All four of us are taking Michael's class at QSDS in June. Such a small world. Couldn't take pictures in the Munch exhibit, but here are a few things that caught my eye.

Jim Dine's painted tools, belongs right there in the New Image Hardware exhibit.


These are nails, very carefully arranged so that they make a swirl pattern. I wonder how many times the artist (whose name I don't remember) pounded his thumb.

This one reminded me of the construction style of some of my latest quilts, except this one is painted.

And of course, Jackson Pollock's painted paint.

At the American Folk Art Museum was an exhibit of "Obsessive Drawing" and it's aptly named. Talk about labor intensive! One artist used tiny circles and created a value range from nearly black to nearly white just using the size and density of the circles. It was amazing to ponder the magnificent obsessions of these artists.

After a wonder dinner at Joe's Shanghai restaurant, we headed back to the hotel where we all collapsed. Eleanor is a pretty tough tour guide. No rest for the weary. Luckily the next day it was raining, and since Eleanor and Sidnee had planes to catch, Martha and I decided to leave also. It was tons of fun and I grossly underestimated the amount of cash I would need. Thank heavens for plastic and ATMs.

Well, phooey.

Lisa told me my RSS feed was messed up so I tried to fix it. Well, the RSS feed works but I have messed up my sidebar. And I'm leaving for New York in half an hour and don't have time to mess around with it. It will just have to wait until Monday. And by then I'll have pictures and interesting stuff to post instead of stupid computer stuff.

Blog changes

Visiting random links to other members of the Artful Quilters Web Ring showed me stuff I wanted on my site. Debra Roby had a little button that shows the times of sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moon set in her area. A natural for someone who is obsessed with the amount of light. So I got one for my own site. Now I can keep an even closer eye on astronomical things.

I also was impressed with the blogrolls that show when people have updated their blogs. Found one of those at Blogrolling You can put a link on your browser toolbar and when you land on a page you want to add to your Blogroll, click on the toolbar link, fill in the information in the box and Voila! automatically added to your Blogroll. I've been visiting the places I usually visit and adding them. If you want your blog added and it isn't already, just let me know.

Tomorrow I'm going to New York City for the weekend. Four Chicks, no guys. So we can do exactly what we want, i.e. visit art museums and cool stuff like that. I'm not a shopper so that's not on my list, unless we happen upon some fabric store or art supply store. The weather is supposed to be warm (50s and 60s) and maybe rainy, but that's better than cold and rainy, or horrors! snow.

Noon shots

Report on the position of the sun at noon:
Almost to 25 inches. Last picture was Feb 27 when the shadow was at 18 inches. Only 2 weeks to the equinox when we will have more light than dark. It's still light at dinnertime, as long as we eat at 6pm. It's light before the alarm goes off in the morning, which makes it oh so much easier to get up. My daffodils are up about 6 inches but no blooms. No swelling of buds on trees yet. Chances of any more snow are pretty slim, although some of the worst snowstorms on record in this area have occurred in March. Spring, here we come!

Message from the Shameless Commerce Division

After talking about the book on painting a few posts back, I had the brilliant idea to list a bunch of the books I have in my personal library (with links to Amazon so you can find out more about them) (and buy them for your own library). This link will take you directly to the list, or you can click on the link in the sidebar over on the right hand side. Of course, this is only a small percentage of the quilt/art/inspiration books I own, but there is a limit to how much I can bore you.

Gelatin printing with thickened dye

Trying to use up the dye stock and some thickener that's been in the back of the refrigerator for many months, I thought I would try some gelatin plate printing. I've mixed the gelatin before, using the Knox gelatin you get at the grocery store, but this time I wanted to use some bulk gelatin I've had for a while. The recipe on the carton is, of course, for consumption (which makes me gag, sorry). To use for making a gelatin plate, it needs to be much more concentrated. My first try was unsuccessful. After a e-consult with Rayna, I doubled the concentration, and it firmed up very nicely. Except I couldn't get it out of the pan in one piece. Scooped it back into a container and put it in the microwave, melted it, and put it back in the pan. Second try, I used hotter water to loosen the edges and out it came. There was a little bit of liquid gel, the water was a little too hot. Just softened the edges a little bit.

I had a piece of fabric that had been pre-soaked in soda ash and dried. Mixed up the dye, thickened it, spread it on the plate and then pressed various objects in to make impressions. Put the fabric on and rubbed to transfer the dye.
This is the entire piece, about 30" wide by 36" long. I really like it. But the results are quite different from doing the same process with paint. The thickened dye doesn't hold the impression as well as paint, and so the images are less distinct and there isn't near the same amount of detail.
Closer up, you can see the detail better, but it's difficult to identify some of the objects I used, whereas with paint, it would be totally obvious. Here, it's making texture. This will make a good background for further experimentation.

Miniature Art Textiles: Dallas

The Third International Invitational Exhibit of Miniature Art Textiles, curated by Joanie San Chirico, is now live on the web. Because the Quilt Guild of Dallas funded last year's show, they wanted to be able to exhibit it during thier show March 17-18-19. The visitors at the Dallas show will get first choice of purchases, but once that show has ended, everything that is for sale will be available to the public. I already posted my quilt but since a blog entry with no pictures is boring, here it is again.

Nifty book

My friend Martha gave me this book the other day. It's called Make Your Mark by Margaret Peot and it's about using different art techniques to make marks on paper. But there's no reason that most of these techniques can also be used on fabric. Some might need a little experimentation to get the same effects on fabric but it's certainly worth a try. And it's an excuse to get more stuff (like any of us needs an excuse!) Here's a link directly to Amazon (and if you buy it, I get credit for referring you.)

More wax

I now have 2 tjaps that I got from Dharma Trading Company. They are really cool and it makes me want more. Except that they are quite expensive, so I think I will have to space out my purchases. This time I used dyes instead of paints. And after reading an article about using soy wax and how it is water soluble and how dye sitting on top of the wax will eventually works its way down onto the fabric, I was very careful to wipe any extra dye off the wax. There was some staining, which is okay, I like that effect. The original piece of fabric was already blue, so that's where most of the color in the design comes from.


The above tjap is about 6" in diameter. Looks like a sun image to me, but then I like sun images.

And this one is about 8" x 6". Depending on the direction from which you view this, it could be a bird (sort of) or it could just be a bunch of scribble designs. The original color of this fabric was blue also, and then I painted it with an orange which obviously was more yellow than orange.

Next I wanted to test how well thickened dye would stay in place when the areas are enclosed by wax. The thickened dye was about the consistency of chocolate syrup, so not very thick. First, the wet view.
Since the fabric was lying on a board, it seems that the dye was soaking through and then migrating underneath, and not penetrating the wax. Again, I was careful to wipe off any dye sitting on top of the wax. And here is the dry version.


I always forget how much more intense the colors are when wet, and then am disappointed when I see the dried version. But in a few days or so I will forget the wet and be happy with this.

Now I have to go work on preparing stuff for the tax man.

For Joanie's show

I've done a small piece for Joanie San Chirico's mini show that will be show at the Dallas Quilter's Guild show in March. The official name of the show is International Miniature Textiles Invitational - Dallas.

I had a terrible time trying to get the color right on this picture, and it's still not perfect.


I think the reds are okay - they lean towards fuschia but the yellow just wimped out totally. It's about 12"x13". The color on the detail shot is better, but I got that by putting the quilt right onto the scanner.

Quirk Gallery

Martha and I took a field trip to Richmond to visit the Quirk Gallery, but first we went to Charlottesville to stay with our friend Mary Beth, someone we both admire greatly. Mary Beth loves animals and houses almost the entire food chain on her 50 acres of land. The food chain used to be complete, but Monty the Python died. He's now out in the woods returning to nature.


Here we are, all three together, courtesy of Photoshop cut and paste. Notice our fine mud walking attire, especially the camo jacket with the pink paisley boots.

The three geese were delighted to be let out of their pen and after a quick snack headed to the pond for a refreshing dip. Along with the geese are eight guinea hens, a variety of semi-exotic chickens (who provide a variety of eggs), a dog that wandered by and then just moved in, and the goat girls.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a good angle, so here we have goat girl butts. They're almost like dogs, they wag their tails and follow Mary Beth around.


This is only a small section of Mary Beth's fabric stash. Notice that not only are they arranged by color, but also by value within the color. Then there are also the novelty fabrics: animals, whimsical stuff, body parts, etc. My fabric has never ever been store this neatly, and never will.

Mary Beth also has a knack for finding odd junk in out of the way places and recycling it into really cool stuff. This is a caned chair that now has beads where there used to be caning.

Would you have thought of doing this? I wouldn't. There is an entire storage room filled with other objects just waiting for the MB treatment.

Anyhow, after spending the night, we headed off to Richmond to the Quirk Gallery to see the Take Cover show.
The gallery is aptly named as they have a variety of quirky art items. The owners had just returned from the American Craft Council show in Baltimore and the Rosen Show in Philadelphia, and will be visiting their accountant to figure out how to pay for all the new stuff they're going to be displaying.

Anyhow, the Take Cover show is an invitational show of art quilts. We walked into the gallery, and one of the owners greeted us and said she would be happy to share any information about the artists that we wanted to know. When we told her we knew half the artists in the show, she laughed and just invited us to enjoy ourselves.

The show received lots of excellent publicity, even a cover story in the arts section of the local paper. Many non-fiber artists visited and were astounded at what they saw. Totally obliterated their previous conception of "quilt".


The gallery was the site of a former stationary/printing shop and they still have some of the old equipment around as accents.

Notice the "chandelier" hanging from the ceiling right below the skylight. It's from a previous show and is constructed of lampshade frames of various sizes wired together, with bits of lampshade material still clinging in various spots.



Here are Lisa Call's two pieces, accented by a printing press. The one on the right is Structures #1, the first of thousands in the series. Well, not quite, but she sure cranks them out! Several pieces were sold, including this one by Eleanor McCain.


Those are very tiny little pieced squares, about 1/2" on a side. This piece was a smaller version of its partner, which was about 10 times as large as this.

So after our whirlwind tour, I am back home and thinking about getting back to doing my own work, as soon as I finish catching up on email and blogs....

Spring is coming!

The snowdrops are blooming and have been joined by lots of their friends. Five days ago this spot was under 15" inches of snow. Amazing what 60 degree temperatures can do. I can almost see the snow melting.


And a report on the sun's position at noon. It's a little cloudy today so the mark is difficult to see. The shadow is hitting the tape measure at about 18.5". The last time I took a picture (Jan 22), the mark was not quite to 8 inches. More than 10 inches in 4 weeks. Progress!

And the corner of the shadow has moved in line with the tape measure. The sun is now rising before 7am and not setting until around 5:50pm. More sun! More sun!

Soy wax play day

Yesterday Martha and Linda came over for a soy wax play day. My studio space is too small for three people to work without stepping all over each other so I moved a table up to the dining room next to the table that's already there. Covered everything with plastic and rigged up a second hot pot.


Everybody brought tools for dipping. Kitchen implements ruled the day, but there were also wooden tjaps and of course, my drain covers. Anything metal was fair game and it was fun trying to predict what kinds of marks various tools would make.

Here is Linda.















And Martha.



This is still a learning process. I've discovered that painting the fabric and leaving the paint to dry on top of the wax can result in that residual paint transferring to fabric during the ironing process, if I iron on the front side. I experimented to see if wiping the wax off while it's still wet would prevent that. Also, ironing from the back side. It seemed to make a difference. Although it's nice to have the back be so different from the front. The images on the backside are much clearer whereas on the front it's a softer image. I wonder if using dye instead of paint results in the same effect.













This is the back side and the front side.



This is a piece with the wax still on it and painted. The original color is sort of peachy-pink and the paint is red. It's a spatula.






















After removing the wax, the image is much less distinct, but it's still pretty cool. I can't tell which side is which from these pictures.

The colors leave something to be desired. This is a drain cover (looks like a sand dollar). The light colored thingie is an old time strainer.









And the dropcloths:














It's been so warm the past few days that the snow is nearly gone. The deck has emerged from beneath its snow cover and the piles of snow left by the snow plow are gone. Amazing!

This 'n that

I downloaded this blog editing program for Performancing that was mentioned on someone's blog. I'd like to credit her but now I can't refind that blog. Performancing is an extension for the Firefox browser that lets you edit your blog from within Firefox, then upload the whole thing. This is my trial run. I'm typing, I'm typing. Haven't tried the upload yet. If you're reading this then I must have succeeded.

The snow is melting. The snow plow did our street Sunday evening, but by that time the street was already passable. People further along towards the end had hired contractors to plow their driveways and the contractors had to plow their way in, which left a narrow lane open. So we could get out, and more importantly, the kids and grandkids could get in for our Sunday dinner. We had a sirloin tip roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, vegetables, and Martha's chocolate pecan pie. This pie has a bazillion calories per slice, most of which come from fat. But it didn't deter those who ate it: three people ate half the pie. Then we moved up to the living room to sit in front of the fire and watch the sugar-hyped grandkids run around.

My quilt arrived in Tubac on Monday. I'm hoping its late arrival didn't disrupt the hanging process too much.

Got an acceptance to the Considering Quilts show in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The piece I'm sending is Ventanas III:

Ventanas is Spanish for windows; this piece is based on an image of a window frame reflected in another window frame. I took the picture while visiting Santa Fe several years ago.

Last night I was the guest speaker at my own local guild Baltimore Heritage Quilters Guild. My talk was about my journey from a beginning traditional quilter to an art quilter. I joined that guild in 1987 (I think that was the year) and at that time had one quilt under my belt: a Quilt-In-A-Day Log Cabin made with little calico prints in Williamsburg blue and off-white, with a dusty rose center square. No picture exists, sorry. I think it was enjoyable for the members, at least they laughed at my jokes. Alot of the members are only familiar with my current work and I think it was a revelation to know that I started out where everybody else starts out. When I first joined the guild, I was under the impression that the President got that position by being the best quilter in the guild. Now I know better: the President is the one who doesn't say No fast enough. Just joking. :)

Whiteout

Well, it snowed. And it snowed some more, and more, and we have about 15 inches. It's a nor'easter, caused by a cold air mass coming in from the north colliding with a moisture-laden warm air mass from the south. We spent over an hour shoveling the driveway but where it meets the street is a wall of snow 15 inches high. Living on a cul-de-sac with only 20 some houses means we are way, way down on the list of roads to plow. Hopefully, we will see a plow before the day is over.


Looking out the window in the living towards the backyard and the house behind us. The snow makes a nifty pattern on the fence, I think.


The azalea bushes are covered with snow and are looking beaten down.


Check out the snow piled onto the table and benches. Gives you an idea of how deep it is. I walked down the driveway before we shoveled it and it was up to my knees. The top half is light snow but underneath it's wet and heavy. The temperature is above freezing which means the underneath layers will get soggy and then freeze tonight when the temperature drops. After the warmest January on record, one heavy snowfall in the middle of February (on a weekend no less) makes for a manageable winter. As long as they plow the street by tomorrow.

Waiting....

I see a few snow flakes drifting down. There are predictions of up to a foot of snow this weekend. We had no snow in January and it was warmer than usual by a significant amount. So far this month it's been normally cold, and now it looks like we're going to have to use those new shovels that I bought in December. They've held off the snow for quite a while now. So we are just waiting to see what precipitates. In Baltimore, even the mention of the word "snow" sends the hoards to the grocery stores to buy milk, bread, and toilet paper. Now, I can understand why you might need milk and bread, but don't most people keep a supply of toilet paper in stock? I mean, enough for at least a week? It's not like we're going to be trapped for days on end. I grew up in Chicago and we never shut down for snow and it amuses me no end to watch the panic develop here. It's almost like an opportunity for a holiday.

And the other thing I'm waiting for: I dropped the shipment to Tubac off at FedEx on Monday. It was scheduled to be delivered Thursday, one day before the deadline delivery date. On Friday I checked the tracking number on the FedEx web page. The package hadn't even left Baltimore! It was scanned as picked up on Monday. Then it was scanned as picked up again on Thursday. Needless to say, I was more than annoyed. Called FedEx and their explanation was that it must have fallen off the cart at the dropoff place. So it's in the system but won't be delivered until Tuesday. Making the hanging of the show way more difficult. I just hope it arrives safely and hasn't been damaged or something worse in shipment. They refunded my money, but it doesn't give me much confidence. I have never had any problems with UPS; this may persuade me to use them exclusively.

Yesterday Volunteers of America came to tow the old minivan that we donated to them. They came with a flatbed truck and loaded the van and drove off. Sort of sad to see that car go, I've had it since 1995 and it's taken me alot of wonderful places. But it needs new tires and the air conditioning system has a major leek that would cost megabucks to fix. In this climate, air conditioning is a necessity. It still runs well, so maybe somebody will use it to just haul stuff. That's what we've used it for during the past year, but the inspection date came up and the insurance was due for renewal, and all of that added up to more than we wanted to spend.

Wax results

And a Blogaversary...With all the other people mentioning their anniversaries I checked my first posting and it was Feb 3. So I missed it by 2 days. Anyhow...


The waxing and painting and ironing and washing out is complete and I got some cool results.



This is the red-orange piece with wax still on it and before the last layer of wax and red paint. Can't really predict the final results. The paint sits on top of some of the wax so it can be deceptive. After the wax is gone, it's a revelation. Actually it's 2 revelations because the fabric has 2 distinct sides.



I think the above is the back side. The wax went all the way through and really preserved the white areas.



So then this must be the front side. With the build up of wax, less paint can penetrate. Also I did some crinkling which shows more as cracking on this side. Of course, I could have it totally a** backwards and this is the back and the other is the front. Doesn't really matter.

The blue "seashell piece."


And the most interesting piece, as usual, is the fabric I put underneath to catch the extra wax and paint.






These two pictures are the two sides of the same area. The rectangular solid blob on one side becomes the rectangular blob with little circles on the other.

And here's more from another section of the same fabric.




Very cool.

Now to go sew a bottom sleeve on my piece that is going to Changing the World One Thread at a Time at the Tubac Center for the Arts. The piece that will be on display is Grid City.



It's a whole cloth dye painted quilt with painted/stamped organza squares overlaid. Machine and hand stitching hold it together. It needs to go out tomorrow in order to be there on Friday. Which is also my husband's birthday, one of those people on the leading edge of the baby boomers.