Quilt National 2013

Finally! After waiting nine months I can post the image of my quilt that is now in Quilt National 2013. It is titled Post No Bills and is the result of a "what have I got to lose" feeling when the piece was not cooperating with me and I didn't like what was happening on it. Big graphic black X's, I mean, haven't you wanted to do something like that on a piece that just wasn't working?

Post No Bills

©2012

25" H x 45"W

The opening was this past weekend at the Dairy Barn in Athens, Ohio and 69 of the 85 selected artists attended, along with the 3 jurors. This is my second acceptance in Quilt National and this one was just as exciting and humbling as the previous one.

The sign that greets you as you walk in the door to the Dairy Barn. 

A few days before the opening I had a terrible dream. I went into the exhibit and the quilts were hung very strangely - three high, with one above the other, and they used clothespins. Sort of like they had been hung at a state fair. But worse than that, I walked 'round and 'round, and I could not find my quilt. Not a very good situation. So, just to prove that it is actually hanging there, here is a picture.

The catalog is very well done. The pictures in the catalog never capture the essence of the work, but this one comes fairly close. And the colors are mostly true. They have changed publishers this year to DragonThreads and the catalog will not be available on Amazon. You will have to purchase it directly from the Dairy Barn or DragonThreads for $29.95 plus shipping.

Some Vertical Progress

The concrete slab was poured the beginning of last week. On Wednesday and Thursday lumber deliveries began to show up. Friday, nothing happened.

This morning a crew arrived before 8am and began unloading their tools. They worked until after lunch, when they were stopped by a heavy downpour. Things are beginning to take on a recognizable shape: two garage doors for cars, a door into the garage, and a door to go into the stairwell up to the studio.

Looking towards the driveway, you can see the struts for the roof. My sunflowers have bloomed and are now growing their seeds. We had a slight frost over the weekend, but it was enough to take out the basil and pretty much finish the tomatoes. I grew the tomatoes in pots and not only have they grown hugely out of the pot but they are spreading all over the euonymus and into the pachysandra. Next Spring there will be many, many tomato seedlings. 

Last Monday I received an email from Quilt National. It's different from the old days where, when you got your notification from a show, if the envelope was thick, they were returning your slides, and you knew it was a rejection. And you could shred the letter. Nowadays, notifications are by email. If there is an attachment, that is a good indication that it's an acceptance. My email from QN had an attachment, but I was still a bit hesitant to open it. But, yeah! it was an acceptance. Hooray! An eleven page attachment with all sorts of forms to fill out and electronic signatures. They want all that information, plus the quilt, by this coming Friday. I shipped my quilt out today and it should arrive there by Wednesday. I would love to post a picture here, but they have very strict rules about publishing the quilts before the show. I could display it, but I can't prevent somebody from taking the image and publishing it somewhere else, and that is a big no-no. It will be under wraps until next May when the show opens at the Dairy Barn in Athens, Ohio. 

It's been a while

I have been on the road for most of the past two weeks. The last weekend in September I went to my art quilt group retreat in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. We arrived on Thursday and unloaded our gear into a wonderful space where we each had 2 work tables and plenty of space to spread out. We all had plenty of projects and spent many, many hours working diligently. Of course, we also had lots of time to chat and share stories and, of course, to eat the goodies that everybody insists on bringing. I'm sure we would be better off without all the chocolate, cookies, and cashews that were consumed. To be sure, there were some healthy food choices on the table but I think a lot of them went home with whoever brought them. At least I didn't eat any.

We went our separate ways on Sunday, home to do laundry, unpack, and get back into the normal routine. Except that I had to pack up again on Tuesday to travel to Chicago and then on to Missouri. This was a family visit and it was really terrific to be at the wedding of my great niece (omg how did I get to be this old?). The ceremony was held on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River with the light of the setting sun. It could not have been more beautiful.

Home again on Monday, unpack, then repack for a trip to Syracuse, New York. A year ago I posted an entry about my sister and her role as the Chairman of the Upstate Golisano Children's Hospital Capital Campaign. When they asked her what she wanted to commemorate this accomplishment, she said she wanted me to do a quilt in her honor. I was thrilled and excited and of course said that I would be pleased to do it. I visited the hospital last spring and we toured the area looking for possible places to hang the quilt. We decided that the Resource Library was the spot and chose a space above the fireplace. I returned home and began work on the quilt and it was mostly finished by August. That's when I received an email from the hospital saying that the fire marshal had an objection to our chosen location. Apparently all things must be hung at least 18" below the ceiling so that the sprinkler system spray is not blocked, and the size of this quilt did not allow that. Luckily, there were other walls that would be suitable, also in the Resource Library. But...the quilt had to be made fire retardant. No problem, I found a fire retardant spray made especially for fabrics and it is sold by Dharma Trading Company.

I wanted to test this stuff before spraying the quilt and I had a piece of quilt scrap that I could use. First I tested the untreated scrap. Whoosh, it caught fire immediately and burned quite merrily. Then I tested the treated scrap. The flame scorched and charred the quilt, but it did not catch fire. I was quite impressed. And it didn't change the hand of the quilt. So I sprayed the entire quilt, front and back. It will not burst into flames, not even when everything else in the library is burning.

And then they decided it should be framed. I don't know who they chose to do the framing, but they did a superior job. They placed the quilt against a dark blue mat and recessed it slightly. The frame is green, and these colors pick up the colors in the quilt.

This is the quilt. It measures 35" L x 55" W.


A detail shot to show the various fabrics and quilting lines. The quilting echoes the rays.





Here we are at the presentation ceremony. The Board members of the hospital were present and there were some little speaches talking about how much they enjoyed working with my sister and what a wonderful job she did in raising the money for the hospital.



This is a picture of the hospital. It's actually built onto an existing hospital, but it extends out like a treehouse. The shapes of the windows of the hospital are echoed in the background of the quilt. It is a marvel of planning and thoughtfulness that really caters to the needs of both children and their parents during a hospital stay.

All in all it was a wonderful two, marred by only two events. First, I received my rejection email from Quilt National, boo. Second, on the drive up to Syracuse (5 hours) I left my purse in a sandwich shop in Pennsylvania and did not realize it until we had driven for 3 hours. Talk about frantic! We called the shop and they had found it and were trying to get in touch with us. Phew! They stored it in the safe and we picked it up on our drive home on Friday, everything was just as I left it. So that turned out okay. So I guess there was only one bad event. Since I didn't get into QN, I can post the pictures of the rejects. That will be my next post.

New work

I haven't posted new work in quite a while, it seems. Not that I haven't been doing anything, I'm just lazy about posting it. So here is something new. This is an experiment. The background is many small squares and rectangles, all raw edge stitched, then quilted in a loose grid. I did the background without any thought as to what the focus might be. But looking at the background, it seemed to be not background-ish enough, that is to say the yellow pieces clamored for attention and were distracting. A little paint applied in a random fashion took care of that. I thought about a foreground image for a while and came up with a graffiti-like scribble. However, doing this freehand with paint would not result in clean edges, so I made a stencil from freezer paper and ironed it down. The graffiti image is painted with opaque white paint then overlaid with some gold so it's not so stark. The piece is about 24" x 36", or a little smaller.

I really like the effect achieved when the painting is done after the quilting - if the paint is applied with a light enough hand, it does not penetrate into the valleys created by the quilting and so the quilting becomes more prominent. Of course, painting the fabric at this point in the process takes a certain amount of bravery but I've done it enough that I'm pretty sure what the effect is going to be.

In this detail shot you can see how the paint emphasizes the quilting and also lets some of the background show through, yet is still a strong focal point.

I'm working on a much larger piece constructed in the same fashion, also painted, and still in need of a focus. Not showing that piece for several reasons, the most important is that I intend to enter it into Quilt National, and they have such stringent rules on prepublishing images of the work that I don't want to take any chances. Entries are due in early September, so I need to get back into the studio!

Packing in Earnest

All week long I've been putting stuff in boxes, getting ready for the Quilt Surface Design Symposium. We're leaving tomorrow and I'm taking a 7 day class with Elizabeth Busch. Today it's time to really get serious, finalize my packing, move stuff up out of the studio and into the car. This class I'm taking is called a "Master Class". It's more of a mentored studio where we have the benefit of input from both the instructor and all our classmates. We bring our own projects and pretty much do work of our own choosing. There are usually group critiques and one-on-one critiques plus other art-inspiring activities. We're also going to be doing some painting on cotton duck, something I don't usually do.

I been thinking about my years of attendance at QSDS. My first class was in 1993, when it was still run at the Josephinium Seminary, a college for priests in Columbus. The facilities were primitive, to put it mildly. Our rooms were the cells in the dormitory, no air conditioning, big enough for a single bed and a dresser. The showers were down the hall, and two rooms shared a toilet and a sink. One quickly became acquainted with one's "sink-mate". The class I took was titled "A Problem-Solving Approach to Design" and it was a series of small projects that taught us how to boost creativity. The best lesson I took away from that class was to not be afraid to experiment and to not let the work become so dear that you're afraid to try something for fear of wrecking it.

It was my first exposure to Quilt National and I was gobsmacked. These "quilts" were like nothing I had ever seen and I wasn't even sure I liked them. At that point, I wasn't even ready to call myself an artist. If someone had told me that my work would one day be hanging in Quilt National I would have laughed and laughed. Now I feel very comfortable calling myself an artist.

I didn't attend QSDS again until 1997, but I have been there every year since. For a long time I took different technique classes: low water dyeing, stamping, machine quilting, screen printing - lots of surface design techniques to add to my repertoire. After a while I realized that I also needed education in design principles and how to think like an artist. Luckily, QSDS began their Master Classes, just what I was looking for. At some point you have to really start doing your own work - take all those different techniques and make them work for you.

To digress a bit... I don't remember what quilts were the first ones I entered into Quilt National but I'm sure they were deserving of rejection considering the competition. Here is one of my entries from QN 2001. It's titled Rx: Chocolate. It's a self-portrait of sorts. I stamped words that come into one's vocabulary as one reaches a "certain age": menopause, bone density, mammogram, yadda, yadda. Quilted into the background is my own prescription for these facts of life: chocolate. Doesn't solve the problems, but it makes them more bearable.

Rx: Chocolate ©1999

51" x 40"

Here is a detail view, and I just noticed that the "g" is upside down in "mammogram". Must be some hidden meaning there, I think.

Rx: Chocolate ©1999

I've always thought this would be a great piece of art for an OB/GYN's office, but so far there haven't been any takers.

News from Athens

The opening to Quilt National '09 was last night. It was quite the event. First the artists had a preview of the show with no one else there. We could see everything without the crowds and it was wonderful. We had our books and pens in hand so that we could compare the actual pieces to what was in the book and also get the artists to sign their pages. About three fourths of the artists were present and that included many from other countries including Australia and Japan. That's impressive that so many made the trip.

My piece is actually one of the smaller pieces in the show, at least that's my impression so far. So much for my theory that a piece needs to be big to be accepted! But the really cool thing is that I won a prize: "Persistence Pays" - a prize awarded to the artist who has entered QN the most times before getting accepted. I shared it with Glenys Mann from Australia. It surprised me that she also won it because I was sure she had been in QN before. I've seen her work over the years and it certainly looked to be of QN caliber. So anyhow, we share the award. If you look here you can see the list of winners and images of their quilts, which don't do them the least bit of justice.

The catalog is pretty good and certainly worth purchasing, but catalogs never give you the real picture, so to speak. Everything is so much more wonderful than the book image. Colors might be a little bit off, metallics don't sparkle, transparent pieces don't show their transparency, and most of all, the textures just don't show up. You need to really see the show in person to appreciate how wonderful it is. I heard quite a few people say that it was a really great show, which of course I think also!

And this is really cool -- I knew this from way last October but could not say anything. Marvin Fletcher purchased my quilt. Marvin is the widower of Hilary Fletcher, who was the director of Quilt National for many, many years. She died several years ago. The Persistence Pays award was established in her honor because she always encouraged people to keep trying. I met Marvin last night and he told me how when he saw my piece, he just had to have it. And then the fact that it won the award made it even more precious.

The only down side is that they didn't publish that award information in the catalog. Perhaps if they republish it they will fix that. But I still get the prize money.

And the QN people are being quite diligent in enforcing the prohibition on prior publication. One of the jurors told me that after they had made their final selections three pieces were eliminated because they had been published. QN hires researchers to search the web and print publications. Publishing on your own web site is allowed but no where else. If they found an image on another web site and it was there with the artist's permission, it was eliminated. I'm glad they're enforcing the rule because I know people have gotten by with it in the past.

Today is another event, the artists' and collectors' breakfast. Then more SAQA stuff, including a talk by the three QN jurors, Sue Benner, Ned Wert, and Katie Pasquini Masopust. I'm looking forward to that. It's always interesting to hear the back stories.

And as I walked around the room I was in awe that my work was hanging in this most famous location with all these wonderful pieces!

It's time!

I can't believe it's finally here: the Quilt National opening, with my quilt in the show. We're driving out tomorrow to attend the SAQA Convention which starts on Thursday. There is a private reception open only to the QN artists on Friday, then the official opening, and then the banquet. The events of the SAQA convention and QN are sort of intermingled and I'm going to be missing some SAQA stuff. But this may be my only QN opening and I can always go to SAQA!

So now that the show is upon us, I'm posting my piece. It's titled Family Reunion and measures approximately 32" x 40".  The design is another in my windows series, but they're getting a lot more abstract and less like windows, which is okay. This piece has quite a variety of surface design techniques: in addition to dyeing, there is painting, screen printing and deconstructed screen printing, batik, monoprinting, paint splatter, and probably a few more things that I don't remember right now. The piece is heavily quilted with grid quilting and also parallel line quilting, which is a little more obvious in the detail shot.

Family Reunion ©2008

Gotta get back to packing! By the way, the catalog is already available on Amazon and I saw a copy last week. I think the color is a little off, but I'm thrilled to be in there. 

Quilt National 2009

Lookee here! You can pre-order the Quilt National 2009 catalog from Amazon.



I thought that my quilt would be perfect for the cover, but apparently it wasn't. I don't know whose quilt that is but congratulations for being the cover girl!

My husband and I were going to drive up to Syracuse this weekend to visit family and see Quilts=Art=Quilts at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Museum in Auburn but the weather is not cooperating. A winter storm warning is predicted with up to 12" of snow. The weather service issued a very strongly worded warning which included this: If you must travel...keep an extra flashlight...food...and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency. All in caps. Got me convinced, we're staying home.

What a day!

Some days are just full of good news. Monday was one of those days. It started with a contract from The ArtFul Home to do a commission. A client fell in love with my piece Sun Dance and wanted it for an Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Texas but it turned out to be too big for the available space. So she commissioned to make it in a slightly smaller version. It won't be an exact reproduction because those fabrics are all originals, pieces that I dyed or painted with a variety of surface design techniques.


Sun Dance ©2006

I can reproduce the composition and approximate colors and designs. I've started going through my stash and pulling similar colors but I may have to dye some blues. I used Photoshop Elements to resize the image and printed it out on 20 sheets of paper and taped them together, so now I have a template of the right size and design. This is going to be an interesting project and it could turn out to be more difficult than I imagined it would be.

Good news item #2. Last last month I posted about my last minute decision to enter a different piece into Quilt National. I had to quickly get it quilted and photographed. It seemed to be a better fit with the other two entries as a body of work. It turns out to have been an excellent decision because that's the one that was accepted! Hooray! I think this is the seventh time I have entered and I cringe to think about what I sent in the first few times I entered. Thank heavens it's anonymous jurying. So here's what didn't get in.

Blue Moon ©2008


Window Paint ©2008

Window Paint is the one I spent most of the summer working on after my original entry turned out to be too big. It's pretty big, about 72" wide, and well within the size limit, but not the jurors' choice. I will enter it somewhere else, along with a bunch of other pieces that I've been holding back just in case I thought they were QN worthy.

Below is the postcard for my show at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery in Rockville, MD. I delivered my work there today and will go back for the opening reception on Sunday. If you're in the area, please stop in. The show is up until October 28. I had sent them a different image to use for the postcard since I didn't plan to put Sun Dance in the show. But I guess it goes better with the other work than the red piece I selected.

Famous Last Words

I thought I had it under control; I thought I was ready to send in my Quilt National entry. Then I went to a crit group meeting and took along a piece I had started at QSDS in the Master Class and finished at home. It was still just a top. The consensus of the group was that it should be quilted and entered into QN. After thinking about it I decided that it would make a better fit into a 'body of work' than the other piece I had planned to enter. After dedicating the next few days to quilting it, it was ready to be photographed. I sent off the entry yesterday, getting it to the Post Office just in time to be picked up for the last Saturday pickup. Even with the holiday weekend it should easily make it to Ohio by the September 5 deadline (are these the Famous Last Words?) At the same time I posted an entry to Materials Hard & Soft in Texas, and ready to mail out on Tuesday is an entry to CraftForms.

And now I can turn my attention to coming events. What is this person doing? This is my husband spraying bug repellent on our clothes in preparation for an African Safari. We are leaving next weekend for Tanzania, 2 weeks in the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti Plain. I've gotten shots for hepatitis B and C, yellow fever, and typhoid, I have malaria pills to take while I'm there and also after we return home. We have multitudinous instructions on what not to eat or drink: unpeeled fruits and vegetables, any water that is not contained in a sealed bottle that I have opened myself. We have a first aid kit that would make a Boy Scout envious. I will be spending the next few days testing out what I have to pack since we have a weight limit of 33 lbs on one leg of the trip. Thank heavens there are clothes washing facilities available so I only need about 3-4 days worth of clothes. Not looking forward to the 16 hours on a plane to get there, nor the resulting jet lag, but I'm sure it will be worth it.



While out spraying clothese I caught a hummingbird at the feeder. They are great entertainment - the male hummers are very territorial and will chase any perceived intruder away. That includes humans and the goldfinches that go for the water in the ant trap.

Read the Directions

It's that time again. Time for my biennial stab at the Holy Grail. Quilt National, that is. I could go back and count how many times I've entered but that would just make me feel worse. And along with Quilt National are the entry deadlines for Materials Hard and Soft in Texas and CraftForms in Pennsylvania. All with September deadlines. I have enough of an inventory of work to enter so I'm not scrambling to finish something. Usually at this point in August I'm scrambling to finish Quilt National entries. But this year I planned ahead and started thinking about it and working way back in January. I have a number of pieces that I have held back from entering anywhere and even have not posted them on my website. Wouldn't want to break any of the rules. Except.....

My plan was to make something BIG that would make an impact. So I did. This is it.

Now you may be wondering why I'm posting this picture since I've held it out of circulation for so long. Because while I read the instructions for prohibitions on prior publishing I neglected to note the size restrictions. This piece is eleven feet wide, too wide to enter. Not just a little bit too wide, but two feet too wide. I could insert a whole lot of swear words here, but I'm trying to keep this clean so my Mother won't be shocked. (Hi, Mom!)

I toyed with the idea of cutting it down to fit but dismissed that - it would ruin the piece. So this piece will get entered somewhere else, someplace with a great big wall. Luckily the oversize-ness was pointed out to me in June, and I have had enough time to make another piece. Which will not be posted here. I would have been quite distraught to discover it's too big at this point, as I'm filling out the entry form, and it's too late to do anything about it.

The replacement piece is just under 7 feet wide, still big enough to make a statement, but well within the size restrictions. I'm tired of making great big pieces, they're a pain to get through the sewing machine. I'm going to stick with medium sized for a while.

Meanwhile, if you are in Staunton, Virginia, you can seem my work at Amazing Art Quilts. If you are in Springfield, Missouri, you can see my work at ThreadLines. And if you are in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, you can see my work at the Rehoboth Art League.

Have you been watching?

The Olympics, that is. Specifically, the Michael Phelps Olympics. Last night was the most exciting race I have ever seen. Not only was it close - 1/100 of a second - Michael tied Mark Spitz' record of 7 golds in one Olympics. We here in Baltimore are avid fans of Phelps since this is his home. Actually, he lives about 1/2 mile from my daughter's house in Rodgers Forge. Other newspapers write about 'Michael Phelps of Baltimore'; here it's 'Michael Phelps of Rodgers Forge'. Tonight is his last race and he is going for an unprecedented 8th gold medal. I hope he wins and I hope he wears all of them in his upcoming parade up York Road. There was a parade after the 2004 Olympics and I went and tried to take pictures except my camera battery died just as he came by. That won't happen this time - I'll be prepared.

This article in the Baltimore Sun has the story of the race and lots of photos.

On the art scene front I have nearly finished my Quilt National entry. The quilting is finished and I plan to add some more paint. And that will be it, done in plenty of time to photograph it and get the entry form off by the September 5 deadline.

Last weekend I was in Sun Valley, Idaho teaching surface design techniques to 2 new friends I met at QSDS in June. Both are award winning quilters but neither had really done much with stuff like thermofax printing or deconstructed screen printing. We spent 4 days in the inspiring surroundings of the Sawtooth National Forest playing with paints and dyes. Here is the view from the living room, where we worked after removing most of the furniture and covering the rest with plastic.



Last Fall there were forest fires in the area. We took a hike through one stand of aspens that had been burned. It was amazing to see how quickly the area has recovered with new growth.


But the most memorable event for me was the evening that we went to a concert in the new Pavilion where the Sun Valley Orchestra accompanied the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in a program of opera (along with Denyce Graves, the mezzo soprano) and popular music. I know I wasn't the only one in the audience with chills running up and down my spine. And if that wasn't exciting enough, we then watched an ice skating show on the outdoor skating rink that featured local skaters along with world class performers.

Comments on Quilt National

Thanks to everybody who left a comment on the Quilt National post. Lisa, I think that you're probably the exception that proves the rule. Except that since the entry deadline is September of the year before the show, you're not holding them back for as long as it seems, the longest being about nine months. But still, I'll bet that's longer than most people hold a piece back.

How does one decide more than a year before the entry deadline that a particular piece is going to be the work that is good enough to enter, and then hold it back? My hope would be that over the course of those months I would be continually improving and that I would have something better to enter. Otherwise, one would have to hold out nearly the entire body of work in order to be able to pick the best three.

I don't mind the the 2 year rule. It's that prior publication thing that gets me. And it only applies to venues in the US. So someone in Australia can show her piece in several shows, maybe even win some prizes, and it's still eligible for entry into Quilt National because supposedly it hasn't been seen here. And it can also be published in a foreign magazine or book, no matter what it's distribution. Just not an American publication. Why is this fair?

Quilt National and other stuff

The people at Quilt National have published an article explaining why they disqualified a work by Amy Orr from this year's QN. She violated the rule on prior publication by signing a release that allowed her work to be published, and it was. They are also investigating the publication of the piece of Nancy Erickson's that appears in the SAQA Portfolio, which was also prior to QN. The closing sentence on the article: "It undermines the integrity of the artists and the exhibition if the published rules are not applied equitably to each participant. "

I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. If you are going to have rules, then everybody must follow them. On the other hand, if you have rules that become increasingly impossible to enforce, and when the un-enforcement reflects poorly on the organization, and when the enforcement makes the organization look disorganized, perhaps it's time to eliminate the rule.

QN's goal is to have a 'premier exhibition of new work'. As part of this rule, there is a cutoff date of about 2 years for when the work must be made. I think this is sufficient enough to guarantee new work; in actuality I would bet that most work entered in QN is made in the few months prior to the entry deadline. Who is going to hold back a good piece of work for two years waiting to enter it in QN? Do other prestigious shows have the same kind of prohibition against prior publication? I'm not familiar enough with the general art world to know for sure, but I'll bet not.

It seems to be important in the quilt world because people who go to quilt shows don't want to see the same pieces exhibited again and again. My rebuttal is that Quilt National is supposed to be better than the 'weekend' quiltshows and also, how many people who enter QN would enter those same quilts in a weekend pole and drape show where everything hangs inches from its neighbor?

And other stuff: I'm off for a week of teaching at CraftSummer at Miami University. I sure hope I've got all my supplies and my lesson plans work out and all the equipment works. Makes me quite anxious and gives me sleepless nights.