Back from QSDS

Last week I took a 7 day Master Class with Judy Hooworth at QSDS. This year the symposium met at the Columbus College of Art and Design instead of in a motel conference site and just that one change made it feel much more like an art event. The campus is in downtown Columbus, Ohio and within walking distance of the Columbus Museum of Art and several art galleries. We were surrounded by art and even the students were highly decorated.

We stayed in the regular dorms, which were decent. Four people to a suite, with single bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Better than any dorm I ever lived in, but that would have been back in the dark ages when women had to be in by 10pm. The classes were held in a former car dealership building which is in the process of being renovated. My class was held in the garage area, a huge cavernous space which dwarfed our little group of 9 people plus the teacher. The lighting wasn't great, the power kept tripping when there was one too many irons plugged in, but it was terrific to have unlimited space in which to work. When I needed an extra table to support what I was quilting, I was able to go get one and set it up, no problem, and I didn't infringe on anyone else's space. Occasionally the garage door would open and a truck drove in to load up or unload, but that also meant that I could drive my car in and load it up right next to my work space. Talk about convenient!

The class itself was terrific. With so few people, Judy was able to spend lots of time with every one of us. We went on field trips to the Museum of Art, The Wexner Center, and an exhibit at the Jewish Community Center. Of course, there was the trip to see Quilt National and all the fantastic art there (and some that I wondered why they were there, but that's always the case). We also went to the Riffe Gallery, where I have a piece in the show. This is a terrific gallery right in a downtown Columbus office building and it gets tons of foot traffic. The show is on the first level and it's hard to miss.

Back to the class ... I worked on a piece that was nearly finished but had some problems. I was able to resolve these, do the work, then put that aside to work on something else. I have been using small pieces in my backgrounds and had been thinking about using bigger ones instead, and I put together the beginnings of a huge (about 8'x8') piece. I have to think a lot about how I am going to proceed with that one.

I also worked on another small piece and painted the graffiti line in white on it. Judy suggested that I add more graffiti lines to give the piece more depth. I took a picture of the piece with the white line with my iPad, then imported it into a drawing app (ArtStudio) and was able to try out various new graffiti lines. This is the drawing I did. I've done it on the piece itself and of course couldn't quite duplicate this exactly. I like this effect and will continue to experiment with it.



There were some interesting sights in the building. The CCAD students do fashion design and here are some of the mannekins lined up in the storeroom.

Looks like they were experimenting with dripping paint. Cool design.

And have you seen one of these? We called him "Flat Man" because he is on the street in the crosswalk. There were 3 that we found on the campus, but I've also seen one in Chicago, and heard about them being in other cities. He looks like he is cut from pavement marking tape. I've used all sorts of search terms in Google but haven't found anything that is pertinent to this guy. Anybody know anything?

Thanks for all the suggestions for the SAQA piece title. I decided to go with "No Way Out". I've sent it off and it should appear on the SAQA site within the week, I hope.

The Birthday Boys

These are the Birthday Boys. Today is my son's birthday. And 100 years ago today my Father was born. These two pictures were taken in the early 1970s and I thought it would be especially appropriate to post them today.


Happy Birthday, Brian! Happy Birthday, Dad! Love you both!

SAQA Benefit Auction

It's time again to support the SAQA benefit auction with my donated 12"x12" piece. I really wanted to get one submitted in time for the early deadline to be eligible for the publicity stuff, but nothing I did was pleasing me. And I certainly don't want to have something up for auction that might not do well. I guess that is everybody's fear - that her piece will be unsold at the end. Even people that I think should not have to worry about that still worry about that.

There are quite a few pieces already donated. You can view them here. The auction doesn't start until September and then they do the reverse auction thing. Bidding starts at $750 the first day, then drops on successive days to $550, $350, and so on. I would love for someone to want my piece badly enough to buy it on the first day, but that's a pie-in-the-sky wish, I think.

Untitled

©2011

I need to give it a name. Untitled just doesn't cut it for me. I can't fill out the donation form until I come up with a name. Suggestions?

Time Sinks

Once again I have neglected posting to my blog pages. I really admire people who have the discipline to post at least once a week, and am in awe of those who post every day. With pictures even. I thought I might wait a few more days to make it an even 2 months since my last post but by then I probably wouldn't have any readers at all.

I've gotten involved in 2 activities that have taken up pretty much all of my time. First off, I decided to rewrite the web pages I maintain using WordPress. For those of you already using WordPress, you're probably asking "so what's the big deal, it's not that complicated" and you're right. Except that when it comes to computer programming, I am never quite satisfied with the options that are presented to me and always want to make it do exactly what I want it to do. That involves getting into the programming behind the scene. I know just enough about computer programming to be dangerous and it's not something that you can just pick up where you left off the last time you worked on it. At least at this age, where the unused information in my brain tends to sneak off and hide somewhere, there is a pretty steep re-introduction period. Yet it's something that really grabs me, like a huge puzzle waiting to be solved. So eventually I will be moving this blog over to WordPress (but don't hold your breath, it may be a while).

So that's the first activity. The second is working on the genealogy of my family tree. My Mother started working on this several decades ago, back before there was so much available on line. She did a lot of letter writing and document research. I remember one time when she came out to visit and we went down to Washington, D.C. to the Archives and spent hours looking through microfilm copies of ships' passenger manifests trying to find the names of my great-grandparents. The information was that they arrived in 1882 from Ireland. I don't remember if we knew their point of departure, but it was probably Liverpool. We spent hours searching through copies of handwritten logs of the hundreds of ships that arrived in New York but never found them listed. The question that we wanted answered was this - was my grandfather born in Ireland, on the ship, or after they arrived here.

My Mother worked on this for several years, but eventually gave it up when the family lines all went back to Ireland, Germany, Canada, and Scotland. That made it even more difficult to get information. She gave me the box of folders and I entered into a genealogy program, and then stuck the box into a closet. Until several weeks ago when I received a phone call from my aunt whose son was interested in the family tree information. I dug out the box and began going through it, thinking I could just type it up and send it off. But just typing it into a word processor quickly led to smaller and smaller boxes as the tree went further and further back.

I went online to Ancestry.com and started typing the information in online. They have this little lure - when you type in a name that already appears somewhere else, a little flag starts waving at you, a hint to some information. If you click on the hint, it immediately wants you to sign up for the subscription (not cheap). Ms. Tightwad isn't willing to pay so she follows some other leads to another online source run by the Church of the Latter Day Saints in Utah. They have free software and a boatload of free information. I began to use that software to type in my data. They have lots of census data, even copies of the census forms that were filled out by the census takers, written by hand as they went from door to door gathering the information. It's fascinating to look at these logs. They also have copies of the ships' logs and once again I was sucked into looking through those logs, looking for my great-grandparents' names. No luck. But now the mystery had deepened because census data listed the dates of their immigration as 1882. My grandfather's information (from various sources) had him as being born in 1882 or 1881 or in Illinois or in Wisconsin.

So by now I'm really hooked and I buy the Family Tree software that comes with a 3 month subscription to ancestry.com. Yesterday I started uploading the data I already had, and the little flags were waving all over the place. I've already found at least 5 other public family trees with my own ancestors, leading to people who are my cousins many times removed. My Mother would have been beside herself with excitement if she had been able to access this information right from her easy chair.

So have I been doing any art? Nope. The best I can come up with is that I have a piece on display at the Riffe Gallery in Columbus, Ohio until July.

Life Lines

©2010

47" x 38"

I also have had 2 quilts accepted for The Art Quilt Experience at the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, New York. I will be shipping these next week for the exhibit that goes from June 12 through July 31.

Sundown

©2009

54" x 37"

Looking Out

©2009

61" x 41"

I was very pleased to have both pieces I entered be accepted into this show because of the high quality of the jurors, in particular Jonathan Holstein, who is a noted collector and author. His gift, along with Ardis and Robert James', to the University of Nebraska Foundation, was responsible for the formation of the International Quilt Study Center. Those are the kinds of eyes I want seeing my work.

Success!

The show is over and all that is left to do is the final report, pack away pvc pipes and hooks, and pay the bills. It was a resounding success and all we heard were compliments. The only thing that could have been improved was the parking situation. Apparently a lot of students leave their cars on campus when they leave for Spring Break and those cars took up places that we could have used. Maybe next time we will offer valet parking, I think there are many people who would take advantage of that. Not me, I'm too cheap. And I can still walk without problems.

So here is the gym pre-setup. Very nice place, room for lots of quilts and vendors.

The truck from Reber-Friel showed up at 12:45PM, a few minutes early. I was overjoyed to see them and could feel the anxiety drain out of me. I could even eat my lunch.

The company is located in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania which is near Philadelphia. It's nearly a 2 hour drive, so obviously they are willing to travel.

Unloading the equipment from the truck. The drapes were already threaded onto all the pipes. They came in and I pointed them in the right direction. Three hours later the system was entirely up and off they went.


Quilts began arriving at 3PM and my setup teams began hanging them. Every quilt had already been assigned a position and runners delivered them to their proper cubby.

You can see the tape on the blue floor mat. We did this because in previous years people caught their feet in the gaps on the mat. There is a tape designed specifically for taping these mats. It sticks very well, is quite sturdy, and comes up easily when you need to take it up.

Here is another view down the aisle. This looks sooooo professional.

The vendors were located around the outside wall of the gym.

Plenty of space for viewing the quilts.

This was serendipity. Because I could use 10 foot wide hanging walls, instead of only 8 with the previous system, there was a lot more room to hang the 285 quilts in the show. The original plan was to have a demonstration area along the outside wall, taking up 2 vendor slots. I was able to give them space on the quilt floor, more than what they had, and free up 2 more vendor slots. If I had figured that out sooner, we could have done more with this space than just demos. Next time, Make It and Take It classes!

Joan and Barb are thrilled with their space.

Attendance was better than ever before. Early reports on the receipts are extremely good. Everybody was just ecstatic about how wonderful the show looked. And it did look good. Having a professional pole and drape system makes a huge difference; takes the whole show out of the local-type show and puts it into a much higher category.

I sold some t-shirts, bamboo socks, and a 4"x4" mounted quilt in the Quiltique, the members' sale table. And oh joy! one of my quilts that was on display was purchased. The quilt is committed to the QSDS show in Columbus, Ohio at the Riffe Gallery, so she can't have it until late summer, but being in a show just enhances its value.

It was a strenuous weekend and I'm glad it's over. But it was a tremendous ego-booster for me. I got compliments all around on both the hanging of the show and my quilts that were featured. It was the perfect reward for all the hard work that went into the show. Not only my own hard work, but all the other committee chairs. In particular, the Publicity Committee did a spectacular job on publicizing the show. It doesn't matter how good the show looks or how many vendors are there if no one comes to the show. Publicity is the foundation that the rest of the show depends on. So thanks to one and all.

Anxiety

My local quilt guild's show is this weekend. I am filled with anxiety. Why? Because my volunteer job is to plan and carry out the hanging of the quilts. This is the third time I've done this and don't ask why I keep re-volunteering. A perpetual problem for guild shows is the system used to hang the quilts. Years ago we made stands out of pvc pipes. They were a bit difficult to work with, they broke fairly easily so someone was always running out to Home Depot to buy new ones as we were hanging, and we had the problem of storing them for two years until the next show. As you can imagine, no one wants to store a truckload of pvc pipes in their attic or garage. We finally ended up paying someone to store them in her barn. Of course, when they were brought out for the show, they had to be washed. The hanging process would go on into the wee hours of the morning.

Then several years ago we decided to dump the pvc pipe system and rent poles and drapes from a professional pole and drape company. Except we still had to do the setup ourselves and those suckers were heavy! Too heavy for a bunch of middle aged and older women to be hauling around. And the hanging still went on into the wee hours.

Next we decided to rent a hanging system from another guild. They had wooden poles and stands and white sheets. They didn't deliver. So now the setup involved renting a truck, driving to the next county, loading up the truck, driving back, setting up the poles, then hanging the quilts. And we also had to wash all the sheets ahead of time. This was the first year I volunteered to chair this committee. I tapped into a skill from one of my former careers: working with databases. I was able to assign a location to every quilt and put that information into the database. Now I could manipulate it and print out reports. Every little hanging area got a printed page with information on what quilts were to be hung there, their exact position, and which type of hanging pole to use. Once the poles and stands were up, the hanging of the quilts went fairly quickly and we were out of there by 9pm. Of course, when the show was over, the poles, stands, and sheets had to be taken down, loaded back into the truck, and driven back to their storage locker. Costs involved the rental of the poles and the rental of the truck. We needed a fair number of husbands and sons to help with the heavy work.

The configuration of the poles and stands was confusing and weird things ended up happening:

People improvised when they couldn't figure out what to do. Some quilts had to be pinned to the sheets, which is not a very good presentation.

Something had to be done. So this year is going to be different. I contacted another pole and drape company, and it just happened to be one that has done the Mancuso shows in Philadelphia. They will bring in the system and set it up. Oh Joy! All we will have to do is hang the quilts. When the show is over, they will come back and take the poles and drapes away. More Joy! We will have hooks that go over the top poles and connect to the hanging pipes and nothing will need to be pinned to the drapes. Tomorrow is the big day. My anxiety level is pretty high mostly because this is the first time we've done this and I can easily think of a million things that can go wrong. I will be taking lots of pictures, not of quilts, but of the process. I think it will look very professional. Of course, it will cost more than the previous system, but when I think about all the labor involved and recruiting people, it's going to be worth it.

Snow dyeing

We haven't had an overwhelming amount of snow this winter, not like last winter, thank heavens. But there was enough to do some snow dyeing and my intention was to do t-shirts in order to sell them at my guild's show next month. Last winter I did snow dyeing on fabrics and while they are stunning I found them very difficult to use in my quilts. They demanded attention and did not play well with the other fabrics. However, the patterns make for stunning t-shirts. I thought I would put them up here for sale before the show. The shirts are $25 plus $6 shipping.

These are heavy weight cotton Gildan brand t-shirts.

These first three are size Medium.

T-shirt M-1

SOLD

T-shirt M-2

T-shirt M-3

Medium

T-shirt 2 T-shirt 3

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are size Large.

T-shirt L-1

T-shirt L-2

T-shirt L-3

T-shirt L-4

T-shirt L-5

T-shirt L-6

Large

T-shirt 1 T-shirt 2 T-shirt 3 T-shirt 4 T-shirt 5 T-shirt 6

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Extra Large here.

T-shirt XL-1

T-shirt XL-2

SOLD

T-shirt XL-3

T-shirt XL-4

T-shirt XL-5

Xtra Large

T-shirt 1 T-shirt 2 T-shirt 3 T-shirt 4 T-shirt 5

I also dyed a bunch of bamboo socks but I'm not putting them up here now, maybe after the show.

You are my Sunshine

This was her favorite song. My Mom's, that is. She passed away this past Monday. It wasn't unexpected as she had been in hospice care since before Christmas. We did everything we could to make her comfortable and to ease her journey but I think it was still a difficult road. I don't like to remember her like she was these past few weeks because it just wasn't the Mom I have known. I wrote about her on her 97th birthday in 2009. She was really thrilled to read it. This is a recent picture and you can see how much she enjoyed life.

Here she is as a young woman - spectacularly beautiful.

And a bit on the lighter side. Don't you think spoons are a wonderful accessory?

These pictures and others we have found are the way I want to remember her. We fly to Chicago tomorrow for the funeral Mass on Saturday. Only something as important as this would entice me to go to Chicago in February.

Making Lemonade

You know that old saying - when you have lemons, make lemonade. I was working on a quilt that had lots of yellow with some inset bands of dark blue, all hand dyed by me. Following the procedure that I have been doing lately, after quilting the piece, I sprayed it with water to soak through to the batt, then threw it into the dryer. This makes a really cool puckery effect that takes on a whole new dimension when it's painted since the paint only hits the high points. Anyhow, I was dismayed to discover that the blue dye ran. Somebody didn't rinse the dyes out well enough, probably ought to fire her. I put the entire piece into cold water with Synthrapol and ran it through another cycle. This removed most of the blue dye except for right up close to the blue fabric. Not good.

The yellow parts looked pretty good so I decided to cut the piece up. There will be a SAQA Auction piece (12" x 12"), 4 small 8"x8" pieces, 7 4"x5" pieces, and a few ACEOs, those 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch pieces. Some of these are going to be mounted on stretcher bars just to make sure nobody thinks they're potholders or drink coasters.

A while back there was a discussion on the SAQA list about the "skinny envelope", the reply from the juried show that comes in the mail in an envelope that's only thick enough to contain the rejection letter. I've been waiting for the response from the National Fiber Directions show in Wichita and it arrived yesterday. The envelope was so skinny that there wasn't even a full size sheet of paper in it. I didn't want to open it, but you never know. The envelope contained the juror notification card, the part of the entry form that gets torn off and returned with the results on it. And hooray! one of my pieces was accepted.

Choices

©2010

Good year so far

I finished up 2010 with entries to 3 shows: the QSDS Happiness:Quilted Expressions, SAQA's Volusia Wrapped in Fiber, and National Fiber Directions in Wichita. I've heard back from the first two with acceptances in both, one piece for QSDS and two pieces for Volusia. This, plus a sale through the ArtFul Home (fingers crossed that the buyer doesn't return the piece), is making for a good start to 2011.

I'm particularly pleased that my very large piece Graffiti will get another chance to be displayed. The prospectus for Volusia stated that the galleries have high ceilings and wide wall spans. Graffiti, aka "Too wide for Quilt National" is 130" wide. You can read about that little episode here and see a picture. This other piece that was selected is titled Looking Out

Looking Out

©2009

These two pieces will be on display at The Gateway Center for the Arts in DeBary, Florida from February 15 through April 2.

The QSDS show will be from May 5 through July 10 at the Riffe Gallery in downtown Columbus. At least I will have something in Ohio during Quilt National time.

Life Lines

©2009

I hope to hear about the Wichita show next week as they said the notification date would be January 31.

It's snowing here now, great big fat flakes and it's a wet snow so I expect to see tree branches coming down soon.

Good Grief

No wonder my blog readership statistics have tanked lately. It's been more than 2 months since my last post. I won't give excuses because that just sounds whiney, so I'll just say I feel guilty for ignoring my fans (if there are any left.....)

I do have something to share. SAQA is putting together another trunk show of mini-quilts that will travel around the country. It can be requested by any group at minimal cost and maximum enjoyment. The quilts are small and will be matted so that only 8" x 8" will show. The due date for these quilts is January 21, and mine is ready to send off as soon as I complete the accompanying paperwork.

Last year I requested one of the trunks from the previous trunk show and showed it to various groups in the area. One of these groups, Metrothreads, decided to mount a similar type show and take it around the Baltimore Washington metropolitan area in hopes of getting a venue. Since I planned to participate in both of these events, I needed to make 2 pieces.

Only an 8"x8" window of each piece will show, but in order to allow for insertion into the mat, the quilt had to be at least 9"x9" and no more than 11"x11". Going for the mean, I chose to make my pieces 10"x10", and used the technique that I've been working with lately. The background is comprised of many pieces of fabric stitched into a grid, overpainted with red, and then overpainted with a scribble. This is what I got:

I neglected to block out the 8"x8" for the center and as you can see, the scribble is a bit too big. So I did 2 more:

These two fit the bill. The scribble will fit into the matted area. (Did you notice the center purple circle?) So I had these four pieces spread out on my work table and suddenly this arrangement jumped out at me:

This is total serendipity. I did not plan this at all, but because I always entered the piece from the left edge and exited from the right edge, the pieces can be arranged so that the scribble moves smoothly through all four. I really liked this and so decided to make a larger version, and made 4 pieces, all about 24"x24", but not exactly. I completed the grid quilting and then the project came to a screeching halt because I got taken up in other events, including several trips to Chicago, Thanksgiving, Christmas, family events, etc., etc. Today I pulled the pieces out and have put the first layer of paint over the grid. The project is back on!

Way last summer I signed up for the Sketchbook Project and that had been hanging over my head, contributing to my general anxiety. My theme was Outside/Inside and I agonized over how to represent that theme as the sketchbook lay near my work table, taunting me no end. I finally came up with an idea. I would make gelatin plate prints of small objects, and then sew the object into a little fabric sac with the print of the object showing on the outside. I used cotton duck to make the book pages (after removing all the paper pages that came in the book), and then sewed the little sacs to the cotton duck. On the inside front cover is a list of all the objects that are included in the book, but not in the same order. The reader will have to figure out what each thing is by touch. I was so glad to get this thing finished and off my list that I didn't take any photos, and just packed it up and shipped it off yesterday. I paid to have my Sketchbook scanned, and so I wonder what it's going to look like. Especially since you really have to touch the pieces to get the full effect.