Starting today

is the SAQA Benefit Auction. This is a reverse auction, with prices starting at $750 at 2:00 PM today. The prices drop every day to $550, then $350, then $250, $150, and $75. My piece will be in the auction that starts October 3. If I did it correctly, there is a slide show of the pieces above this post. I have my eye on a few pieces, so I hope nobody else bids on them until they come to my price range!

Waiting

My entries to Quilt National were completed, photographed, and documented. Filled out the entry form, burned the CD, and sent it off on September 3, a full 7 days before the deadline. Of course, they still need sleeves, labels, storage bags, but the pressure is off. At least until early October, when the notifications go out. It used to be you could tell the results of the jurying by the thickness of the envelope - a thin envelope only contained a rejection letter and your returned slides. A thick envelope contained a whole raft of paperwork that meant your work was accepted. Now most notifications come via e-mail. A "thick" email has an attachment, and a thin email only a few consoling words. The major difference is that the snail mail is only delivered once a day but I can check email every 5 minutes, or more, and drive myself up the wall with anticipation and dread. Better to get distracted with something else.

The good news is that the District of Columbia Commission on Arts and Humanities has purchased this quilt, titled "Hidden Agendas". The DCCAH purchases art every year for the Art Bank which places artwork into government offices. This year the call asked for work with a them that related to D.C. urban life. I submitted several works and they chose three for further review, and then chose this one for purchase. I think that "Hidden Agendas" is a very apt description for the workings of our federal government.

Hidden Agendas ©2008

Several posts ago I showed some sunflowers that I've been growing in my yard. They're ready to be harvested now so I'm cutting them down to let the heads dry, and then will let the birds and squirrels feast. But I'm not the only one around here growing sunflowers. This is a field of 300 acres of sunflowers growing on a farm about 20 miles from me. This variety is smaller than what I grew, but what they might lack in quality, they certainly make up in quantity! What an impact that sea of yellow makes.

And lastly, today is Primary Election day in Maryland. We have been bombarded with electioneering signs (which are only one step above trash imho) and robo calls (three steps below telephone solicitations). In case you are lucky enough to not be subjected to robo calls, these are automated telephone calls from candidates telling you how wonderful they are. Yesterday I received 10 calls, even one from "Governor" Sarah Palin. I think being endorsed by Ms. Palin, the EX-governor, is a point in the opposition candidate's favor. Anyhow, their dollars are wasted on me because I hang up as soon as I can tell what the phone call is about. If I'm near the phone that displays the caller ID, I don't even pick up. I wish I could say that I would cross off my list every candidate that called me, but then I wouldn't even need to go vote. I'm sure this will calm down a bit, but come November, the calls will ramp up again. Don't you just love that politicians exempt themselves from every law they pass?

Sunflowers

I love growing sunflowers. Last year I had 2 and I promised myself I would grow more this year. Trying to get a head start, I planted a dozen seeds in little pots and put them in a sunny window. They sprouted almost immediately, but then didn't do much else for several weeks, except get stringy. I planted them outside and visited them every day. Much to my chagrin, the seedlings were eaten and nothing was left but a little stalk. So I planted a dozen more seeds directly in the ground. They also sprouted immediately, and also were eaten by the birds and/or squirrels. Argh! Next I bought a bunch of plastic cups to use as collars and planted a dozen more seeds. Success! The cups could stay protecting the cups until the true leaves came in, which must not be as tasty as the first set.

Sunflowers are amazing. In just a short time span they grow to 10 feet tall and then produce a magnificent bloom.


Here is the long view and you can see how tall they are. The blooms are in various stages - some have not yet opened, some are in the process, and one (nearly hidden) is bent over with the weight of the developing seeds.

It is fascinating to watch the process. The little blossoms open first on the outside rim, then work their way towards the center. The bees and the butterflies love them!

You can see here the outside blossoms have been fertilized and are growing seeds. The next band is the pistils that have just been fertilized. The next band is waiting for the bees to do their job, and the very center has not yet begun the process.

As the blossoms get fertilized and the seeds begin to develop, the head of the flower goes from flat to bowl shaped, and gets heavier and heavier.

This head has been entirely fertilized and is so heavy that the stalk has bent over and the flower is facing the ground. It will take several weeks for the seeds to develop. Once that is done, I can leave the head on the plant and let the birds eat the seeds from there. Or I can cut the head and hang it to dry, and then harvest the seeds. Last year I cut the heads off but I think that this year I will leave them out and watch the birds go after them.

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!

Back into the routine

Home again, back from a wonderful week at the beach with multiple members of the Kleeman family. We spent the week catching up, eating, sunning on the beach, swimming, eating, and just hanging around. The Outer Banks were in the throes of the East Coast heat wave, with heat indexes of 110 degrees. Not usually a problem with an ocean right there, except the water temperatures were in the mid 50s. It was numbingly cold and only the bravest (or most foolhardy) of our group spent any time in the water. But the houses come with swimming pools, where the water was just the right temperature. When it got too hot on the beach, we would run up, jump into the pool, then return to the beach. The most difficult decision we would have to make was what to cook for dinner.

This is my family - husband, son, daughter, significant others, and grandchildren. I hope you can see the t-shirts - click on the picture to get an enlargement. Each one is painted slightly differently and they were a big hit.

We returned home on Saturday to 100+ degrees only to find that our air conditioning wasn't working. A call to the service got us in the queue for repair and the man showed up yesterday afternoon. The compressor is under a 10 year warranty, but of course the problem was the capacitor, not under warranty. The compressor will wait until next summer, when it is out of warranty, and then go up. We are cool again, and happy. And ready to think about Quilt National. Time to get stitching!

Artful Home Studio Sale

The Artful Home Studio Sale has started and will continue through July 29th. This is an opportunity to purchase artwork at a discount anywhere from 20% to 50%. I have a lot of work up there, some fairly recent but some really pretty old. The prices on the older work are not anywhere near where I'm currently pricing my work, and then they are further discounted. I would love to move these pieces out of my house and into someone else's!

OH NO 50!

©2010

This is a piece I did when I turned 50, so you know it's pretty old. Or maybe you don't, so take my word for it. This and other work is available here.

Next week is my family's triennial reunion, held for a week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Actually, it's my husband's family. He's the oldest of nine children and nearly all of them are married and have their own children. Some aren't coming this time, so there are only 30 of us. We rent two houses right on the oceanfront and have a wonderful time. We always do a t-shirt to commemorate the event and this year I commissioned one of my granddaughters to draw the logo. I modified it into a line drawing, had t-shirts printed up, and then we hand painted each one individually.

Here is the drawing; I think it's pretty clever. And the painted ones are fabulous. When we do our group photo I will post it and you will get the full effect. Our houses are supposed to have wi-fi and I hope it works so I can post stuff.

The Sketchbook Project

I joined the Sketchbook Project and received my book last week. The way it works is that each artist gets a Moleskin sketchbook and has to fill it with something. The dimensions have to remain the same and the books will become part of a touring exhibit and will be cataloged into the Brooklyn Art Library System. Each artist must select a theme. I chose "Inside/Outside". So far I have no entries into my sketchbook and as usual, when called upon to make something that fits a theme, my mind goes totally blank. Looking at some of the samples of previous entries, it seems that many people only loosely follow their theme. So I probably will just go ahead and do something and let the viewers figure out how it relates.

We are in the midst of a horrible heat wave. We had a 10 day stretch at the end of June where the temperature was in the 90s everyday, and hit 100 at least once. A few days of some cool weather that was wonderful, but now we are back into the 90s and above. Yesterday the official high was 105 degrees. It hasn't rained since June 16 and the grass is brown and crunchy. I've been hauling water and using the soaker hoses in a desperate attempt to keep plants and shrubs alive. And now even the trees are showing stress. No significant rain is in the forecast. We could use about 3 days of gentle rain but what will probably happen is a thunderstorm with a downpour. The ground is so hard that any deluge like that will just run off and not soak in. Wonder which will be more outrageous - our electric bill or our water bill.

SAQA Auction quilt

It's time again for the SAQA Benefit Auction. You can read more about it here but essentially the way it works is that members donate 12"x12" pieces and they are auctioned off in a reverse auction starting in September. My piece is on page 3b, since I just sent it off this week. Take a look at all the pieces already listed. You would be hard put to not find something you like amongst all those works of art.

Ventanas 21

©2010

It's another piece in my Ventanas (or Windows) series. The background blue fabric is the result of hand dyeing and painting multitudes of fabrics, cutting them into strips, sewing them together to make a piece of fabric, then cutting that into strips and sewing them together. I've been doing this because I'm working on a commission piece that is going to have this style of background and wanted to figure out just how I wanted this to look. And also how to work with the strips. Everything is raw edge, so each strip is zigzag stitched to its neighbor. It sort of looks pieced from a distance. Overlapping produces less bulk than seaming, I think, which makes it easier to stitch over the joins. And I don't have to worry about getting curved seams to fit. An added benefit, which I haven't yet figured out what to do with, is that when I trim away extra bulk from the back, I get a pile of skinny strips of fabric.

ACEOs

Here are the first ACEO - Artist Cards, Editions and Originals. These are all originals. Hand dyed and painted fabrics with leaf monoprints; machine stitching. Dimensions: 3 1/2" x 2 1/2". The price for each one is $20, which includes shipping. If Paypal isn't working, email me at cathy@cathyquilts.com

ACEO #1

ACEO #2

ACEO #3

SOLD

ACEO #4

ACEO #5

ACEO #6

SOLD

ACEO #7

ACEO #8

Comparison

Been doing some soy wax batik and I realized that I haven't done it for quite a while. Since we no longer get a newspaper delivery, I had to scrounge newspapers for the ironing out process. I tried using a boiling water bath and it did work, but it took a long time, and was very messy. Good thing I did it outside because there were lots of wax drips.

So the good thing about soy wax is that it is soluble in water. This can also be a drawback, particularly if you want to get the "crackle" that is so much a mark of batik. Getting a good crackle involves immersing the waxed cloth in a dyebath. Soy wax will dissolve in a dyebath. Except now that I think about it, it wasn't all that easy to get the wax off in cool water, so maybe this is something to experiment with.

Anyhow, I was trying to get a crackle effect on this piece, so after doing one layer with a tjap and getting the sort of leafy effect, I covered the piece with wax, cracked it, and painted on diluted paint, working it into the cracks. I ironed this piece to get the wax out and since I knew that a lot of the paint was sitting on top of the wax, I figured that as the wax melted through the fabric, the paint would get deposited. Here is the piece after ironing. It's stiff as a board.

After washing in hot water and detergent, the fabric softened up and some of the heavier crackle disappeared, although not nearly as much as I was afraid it would. It's a little bit more subtle, if you can call red on orange and yellow "subtle".

I really like this second piece. I applied the wax with a paint brush and you can see the brush marks, sort of. I applied the first layer of wax onto white fabric, then painted on dilute light green paint. After that dried, I brushed on another layer of wax, crumpled the fabric to crack the wax, then applied a darker green shade of paint. I think that this was one of the pieces that I boiled the wax to remove it, then washed it. Here is the before picture.

And the after. It looks like the color has lightened up a bit, but that may be the result of less than expert scanning. I really like the painterly effects and the randomness and how the colors blend into each other. And the edges where the color falls off - love that.

Right now in the studio I'm making some small pieces to put in a sales gallery along with a show. My group New Image is having a show at the Lorton Workhouse Gallery in Lorton, Virginia. It's titled Yard Art at the Yard and is an interpretation of the various uses of the word Yard. My pieces in the show are done with leaf prints, so I'm making some small (5"x7") pieces mounted on painted stretched canvas using more leaves. As I'm making these, I'm getting some small pieces from cuttings that I thought I would make into those Art Cards, ACEO - Art Cards, Editions and Originals. They're really small - 2.5" x 3.5", the size of a baseball trading card. When I get them finished, I'll post some pictures.

Show report

The show opening went really well. Since there were several shows opening, we all benefited from spillover as people wandered through all the galleries. I really appreciated the people who came specifically to see my show and I hope they felt it was worth the drive. It was very gratifying to hear the comments on my work, especially from those who were unfamiliar with quilts as art. Of course, I did hear the word "grandmother" once, but I think it was in jest. The space is well lit, bright, and airy and shows quilts well. I have pictures here but have to apologize for the quality. I have an excuse - I just got a new computer and Windows 7 does not like Photoshop Elements 3 and so I've had to use a different program to edit the images. Learning curve and all that.

Sundown on the left and The Green Flash on the right.

Left to right: Sun Dance, Yellow Brick Road, Symphony in Red, Spring Green

On the left are two Ventanas, on the right is Looking Out

Left to right: Looking Out, Fading Glory, Three Leaves, and two more Ventanas

Hidden Agendas on the left, Sundown on the right

Graffiti and two Ventanas on the left

Left to Right: Downtown, Sun Dance, Yellow Brick Road

Backyardhenge on the left, Life Lines on the right

"Ventanas" is Spanish for "windows" and it occurred to me later that it's an interesting juxtaposition to have those pieces around the actual windows. Not that I thought about it when doing the hanging plan, it just happened to be a good place.

The show will be up until May 30. The Museum director is hoping for some good local publicity and I'm hoping for some sales. I think she has a better chance of success than I do, but one should always be optimistic.

Hanging the Show

This is the official postcard for my show that starts this Saturday. I really like how my piece is front and center. The Delaplaine has seven different galleries and each one is dedicated to an artist, at least for this month. Sometimes they have group shows; last year they had a National Juried Quilt Show, juried by Karey Bresenhan, of Quilts, Inc.

Yesterday with the assistance of three very wonderful friends, I hung the show. This is a lot of work. Thank heavens I planned the layout in advance, so there wasn't any shifting pieces around to make them fit. I had thought about how high the pieces should be hung and wondered - do they all hang with their tops at the same height, or does the height vary with the length of the quilt. While I was a Art Quilts Elements I observed that they hung the work so that eye level was at the center of the quilt and the heights of the tops varied. "Eye level" is defined by various web sites that give instructions on hanging at 58" from the floor. This is definitely not my eye level but I know I am shorter than most people. Using 58" as the midpoint for the quilt, I could figure out how high the top should be, and marked this on the quilt bag.

Once we got familiar with the process and assigned duties, the whole thing went pretty quickly. And we all agreed that it looks spectacular. I will take pictures when I go back on Saturday for the opening reception, 3-5pm. If you are in the area of Frederick, Maryland during the month of May, I hope you can take the time to see the show. And right around the Delaplaine are several antique shops and yummy eateries. You could easily spend the whole day!

Art Quilt Elements and more

This past weekend I went to the opening of Art Quilt Elements in Wayne, PA. I also attended a one day SAQA conference held in conjunction with the opening. Both were excellent.

First, the show. This is becoming one of the premier art quilt events in this country, imho. The quality of entries is reflected in what is selected for the show itself. Fifty quilts were selected from the 600 entries by the jurors Jason Pollen, Deborah Warner, and Robin Schwalb. All have eminent qualifications for their roles as jurors and spoke at the conference. They reiterated things we artists have heard numerous times: have excellent photography, make sure the detail shot relates to the whole piece (in some examples shown, the detail could have come from an entirely different piece), composition and the elements of design are critical, and so on. I could have listened to them for way more than their alloted time. The keynote speaker was Sue Benner and it is always a joy to listen to her speak. Her topic was "Building an Artist Community" and she talked about the importance of having communities, not only for your art, but for your life.

Lisa Chipetine and Sandra Sider spoke about critique and technology and the importance of networking. The last session was small group meetings with AQE artists who were present at the conference. We could learn about their careers, their creative processes, and the particular piece that was in the show. Since there were quite a few of the artists present, it was an opportunity to absorb significant amounts of information. I also was able to put faces to names I had only seen online, always an interesting exercise, since nobody ever looks like what you think they might look like. I met several people who are regular readers of this blog and who gently chastised me for neglecting it, hence this post.

There is a catalog of the show available from the AQE web site for $30 (includes tax, shipping, and handling). It is a well designed catalog and worth getting (I bought 5*) even though catalogs never do justice to the work. You just have to use your imagination to visualize the vibrant colors and beautiful textural qualities in the work.

(* Four of the catalogs are for friends, but you probably guessed that.)

The "more" part of this post involves a new publication 1000 Artisan Textiles by Sandra Salamony and Gina Brown in which I have at least one piece. I haven't received my copy yet and I've changed computers since the original email so I don't remember which piece or pieces were selected for publication. I'll just have to wait and see. It's not just quilts, it's all kinds of fiber related works and it's available from Amazon.

The second "more" part of this post is about my solo show which starts on May 1 at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center in Frederick, Maryland. My work will hang in the Kline Gallery and I plan to have between 15 and 20 works. The opening is Saturday, May 1, 3-5pm and the show extends through Sunday, May 30. Everybody is invited! Hope you can come.

Hidden Agendas ©2008

35" x 42"

Not art

I have been at my sewing machine every day for the past month, but not making art. We have two chairs that are probably 35 years old, and the upholstery was wearing out. Especially where I had scrubbed it because of animal accidents. Yet the chairs were still in good condition and very comfortable. They sort of swivel and rock. So I thought I would make slipcovers for them. How hard could it be? Talk about famous last words....

Now I know why it costs so much to have these made. Being a novice at this, I went to the library and checked out several books on making slipcovers. Read them thoroughly. Only one of the three actually gave explicit instructions. The other two pretty much left out the steps getting from "Buy your fabric" to "Put it on the chair."

I started out by making a muslin cover so I could figure out where the difficult parts would be and learn how to handle them. Well, I figured out where the difficult parts would be but didn't solve how to handle them, at least not very well. When I got the slipcover fabric I bravely set off. The book said to make the seat cushions first, just for a psychological benefit. So I did. But the first cushion turned out way too big, and then I decided I should buy new cushions since why go to all this effort and use old cushions? I'll save the cushion cover til later.

Anyhow, after a lot of bad language, ripping out, frustration, and hair pulling, I finished one slipcover. I took it to chair #2 to put it on. I had used chair #1 as my model. That's when I discovered that the chairs were fraternal twins, and not identical twins. More bad language, but no more ripping out. On to the second slipcover. Which wasn't any easier, and even developed its own new problems.

But finally they're done. They're not perfect but they are pretty good. Slipcovers can't fit as well as upholstery, so I can live with the wrinkles. They look much better than they used to.



After I was about 75% finished with the second slipcover I discovered a website of a guy who sells step-by-step instructions of how to make slipcovers, geared towards the beginner. I was particularly interested in the "tips for first-timers". He suggested to not try to tackle a chair with an attached back cushion, wings, or curved arms. Check, check, and check, my chairs have all three. Probably better I didn't know that up front.



And here is Rosie, now 8 months old. She supervised from her comfortable perch, or helped by chewing the tape measure, pulling out pins, and knocking stuff off the table.

And now gotta get back to doing some art. The snow has melted and Spring is starting. Hooray!

More Snow Dyeing

This snow dyeing technique produces some unique markings, that's for sure. It's too bad it's limited, season-wise. Plus it takes a fair amount of space. I have to cover the pans to make sure the cat doesn't manage to get into them. After all, they are kitty litter pans, and she feels a certain ownership. So here I have these beautiful fabrics, which present the problem of how to use them. It would be difficult to overprint them and they don't seem to want to fade into the background. Front and center would make them happy, I think. So I thought that a good way to showcase these fabrics would be to dye some t-shirts also.

This blue one, which is nice, but not spectacular, will be my working-out-at-the-gym t-shirt. I can admire myself as I slog through my workout.

This second one I like a whole lot better. I used two different pans with different colors (obviously). The blue pan was the Brilliant Blue, with a little bit of Black Cherry and a little bit of Golden Yellow. I didn't mix the dyes so strongly this time, only 1 T per 1 cup of water. The second pan was mostly the Golden Yellow with some red and a small amount of blue. These pieces are to die for. Or is it dye for? Ha Ha. Sorry.

These next 4 images are all from the same piece of fabric and were in the same pan with the above t-shirt. It's amazing the variety of markings and colors that appear. And again these are fabrics that will have a difficult time playing with others, they are just too eye-catching.

Before the snow all melts I should try to do some with more dilute dye solutions to see if I can get subtler markings. I think I have some time, I'm betting there will still be some piles of plowed snow for another month.