Catching Up With News

     This is a week to catch you up on news. First, the 3-day workshop with Pat Pauly finished. I sewed together a quilt top, but still have more pieces to add to it. Also, I think I have more slashing and burning to do, possibly. I really don't know what its future will be.  I've put it away while I work on other things and I'll probably take it out this summer to work on it. Here's the photo of it as it stands now.

slash and burn piece

     I also finished my 12 x 12 SAQA auction donation piece. I based it on a portion of my quilt Rise.

New Growth

It's made with my monoprinted and hand painted fabrics. It's actually only 11.5 x 11.5, though.

     And now the big news. My quilt, Inner Peace 2, got juried into the SAQA show Balancing Act and will premier at the International Quilt Festival in Houston and then travel to Chicago and then to Quilt! Knit! Stitch! in Portland and then possibly on to other venues as well.

Inner Peace 2

     Here's my artist statement for it: We're surrounded by chaos and struggle to deal with demands that are put on our shoulders. Throughout history women have faced this with amazing grace. We have the ability to take in the chaos, process it internally, and focus on what's necessary to keep an internal balance and maintain internal peace. 

     The fabric is digitally printed from photos of fabrics I painted on crinoline a few years ago and used up in other quilts and the female figure is free-motion quilted. This piece was a joy to make and just flowed.
     I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let the artists know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Do You Like Being In New Territory When You Are Making Art?

     Have you taken a workshop and found yourself floundering when before in workshops you felt completely comfortable? Well, I'm in Pat Pauly's workshop these past two days and the first half of the first day I jumped right in, but I also felt like if I was earning a grade I would get a big fat "F".  I kept asking "What should I do next?" and just couldn't see my way forward. But then, I suddenly got it and started having fun. We all started with sets of strips of fabrics that we had prepared at home. Here were mine.

My fabric sets pinned on my design wall in the class

     Then Pat showed us various ways to slash them with the rotary cutter (w/o a ruler) and ways to sew the pieces together again to get interesting chunks. We slashed and sewed for several hours and pinned our chunks to our walls.

Pat critiquing and suggesting ways to combine chunks

     We circulated to each students' wall and Pat pointed out ways to connect the chunks to make the compositions work well. If they weren't working, she suggested how to slash to make them work better.

Day 2 after doing other exercises

     I decided on the above basic composition but still have to slash some pieces off in the middle before I connect the chunks (they are still only pinned together).

Proposed general idea after day 2

     Looks messy to me at this point. We'll see what I can do with it on Day 3. I figure I can always either add on, cut off, rearrange, or something else. And there is no due date for when I have to have it done. One thing I like is the colors and the textures. Someday, I will end up with something I like from it even if it is something very small. It has been a worthwhile and exciting workshop for me. I have learned some very valuable and innovative piecing and cutting skills and there is still one more day to go. The experience with Pat Pauly has been fun and lovely. The facility at the Atlantic Center of The Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida for Focus on Fiber for our class is top notch! Amazing class space, wonderful lighting, a great chef for our three meals a day, and beautiful scenery all around us.

     I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let the artists know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Do You Take Workshops To Learn New Techniques?

     What is the criteria important to you in choosing a workshop? I hardly ever take real workshops from well known teachers. I just can't justify the cost of flying to the destination plus adding in the cost of the hotels and food and the class. But Pat Pauly is going to be in my territory at the annual Focus on Fiber event and I've always admired her art so I signed up for her three day class called Slash and burn. It starts on the 18th. My friend from elementary school is even flying in from Chicago and staying at my house and we are commuting each day the 45 minute drive to the all day class. Here is her website where you can see her art and the workshops she offers. Pat Pauly 
     To prep for the class, we had homework. We had to sew two fabric sets. One set of five similar fabrics in strips from 1 inch to 5 inches until it is at least 3/4 yard wide (sewn from selvedge to selvedge). And another set of five different fabrics sewn the same way. For my similar set, I chose light colored fabrics. For my different set, I chose fabrics that would coordinate with my light set.            Originally, I planned to monoprint all my fabrics so that I might end up with a quilt that would fit with my body of work. But then I calculated what was needed and it was four yards selvedge to selvedge and I realized I didn't want to monoprint that quantity all at once. So I only monoprinted one of the light colored fabrics and purchased all the others. Here's a photo of the finished sets. They are folded in half in the photo so you are only seeing half of their total length.

light set and different set of fabric strips side by side

     In addition, we are supposed to bring 1/4 yard of each fabric uncut plus some extra fabrics. I'm  very curious to see how it all ends up. I'm wondering if I'll be able to print any imagery on the fabrics when it's all sewn together or stitch any imagery or appliqué rocks or fossils. (As you know I am prone to do.) I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts to let them know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Do You Have Favorite Fabrics You Are Hesitant To Use?

     Do you have a stash of special fabrics that are too precious to use for anything? When I went to Festival for my first and only time in 2012, I bought a few baggies of hand-dyed silks. Some were from saris and some were not. Some were very small pieces maybe 5 inches by 5 inches and others were almost fat quarter sized. Unlike my other fabrics, I held onto these for awhile and just took them out and admired them; afraid to use them up. Then, a call for entry came, and I got very, very inspired (like never before), and made a quilt using many of them. I had never used silk before and they were perfect for this quilt. Perhaps because it was very much different than all my other works and I wasn't adept at this style, the quilt didn't get chosen and my friends had somewhat subdued responses to it. But I had never had an experience of working like I did on this one.  I was obsessed with inspirations and revelations while I was working on it and got up in the middle of the night to work on it when I awoke with ideas. I literally worked on it hours and hours on end for three weeks. It was an amazing process for me because the work came from deep inside my psyche and I hope to have another like it someday.
     As for the quilt, it hangs in my studio. It is for sale on my website, but I'm not sure if I'll be happy or sad if it actually sells since it was such an emotional process to make it. I'm in the process of renaming it. I've never been happy with the name it presently has of Circle of Emotions

Circle of Emotions

     Also, it doesn't at all fit in with my other art so I don't know where in my head it came from. But there it is. Anyway, the reason I'm showing it again is because of all the precious hand-dyed silks I used on it.
     This week, I decided to make a prayer flag for my studio with my word of the year EXPLORE on it. And since it will hang on the door to my studio where I will see it every time I walk in, I decided to use very special fabrics. So I took out what's left of those silks and I used them to design a flag.
    Here's my design.

In-process

-The elements are pinned on the background silk. All are silk, too.

 -The circle thing is stamped on sheer silk and cut out. (It's a symbol I've developed.) 

-The wood stick is one I picked up on a beach when I was observing penguins in Argentina in November in 2014. 

-The key is from a photo I took of an actual key and then manipulated in ArtStudio on my iPad and then used the Waterlogue App on it and then printed it onto cotton muslin.

- The word Explore is printed on fabric but will be embroidered directly onto the silk.

 And of course, as it proceeds, I'll probably make changes as I go. I think the whole thing will be hand stitched. (A carry over from my online class with Jude Hill .) 

     Speaking of classes... I don't take many. I'm pretty picky about which ones I sign up for. I just signed up for one with a fabric artist I've long admired. Her name is Pat Pauly and she's teaching a wonderful class called Slash and Burn: Techniques for Improvisational Design in New Smyrna, Florida March 18 - March 21.  There is still room in the class but the deadline to sign up is Feb. 1. The accommodations are marvelous and beautiful in a natural setting. Here is the link to read about it and register if you are interested Focus on Fiber Florida Style

     So I do still hold on to my precious stash of fabrics and only use them for special things when my heart calls out. But when it does, out comes the scissors and I don't hesitate to cut them up and it feels so good to see them being used. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts to let them know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.