Do You Change Finished Art Works?

      Do you ever look at some of your finished art works and think "I wish I had done so and so"? I was looking at my Screen Door piece and wondering why I left a notch sticking out on the side. I liked it when I did it, but as it sat hanging in my studio, I liked it less and less. It was an easy fix to cut it off and resew the edge shut. So that is exactly what I did. Here is its photo before and after its surgery.

Before

After

 




















 The next quilt (my rock cairn quilt called Rise) went through more of a struggle. I didn't like the plant that I had sewn onto one of the rocks and I liked even less the way I had sewn roots onto the rock. It took hours to rip out all the little stitches. But I got them out successfully. Then I decided I didn't like the painting on the rock either. I had enough fabric leftover to cut out another rock and I sewed it on top of the other one. Then I researched plants and decided on sewing a lichen so I sketched out several and finally got one I liked. I cut it out of fabric leftover from one of the other rocks and painted its tips the color of rust. I sewed the lichen on a different rock and this time, for its roots, I mimicked the pattern I used in the sun. To me, this looked so much better than before. Aren't we lucky that we can rip things off and do over?

Before

After

     I have a third quilt I want to make over, but I'm not sure it's possible on that one. Maybe I'll take it to my art group for an evaluation and see what they think.
     On the more fun side, I made an Artist Trading Card for an upcoming class I'm taking with Pat Pauly. I like to trade with other artists. I started with a background of some of my monoprinted fabric, which I included on the reverse side.  I sewed sari silks and a tag from the inside of a garment. Then I did some stitching with black thread which I love to do on my quilts.

Artist Trading Card

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

Artful Weekend

     I had a fantastic weekend of art and friends. My quilt Beach Walk is in the juried show Florida in Fabric at the Ruth Funk Gallery in Melbourne, Florida. It was juried by Martha Sielman, the Executive Director of SAQA. So my friends and I, (they were also in the show) booked a hotel near the gallery and we attended the opening reception Friday evening. What a lovely evening it was. So well attended, too. The very impressive docents circulated asking us lots of questions about our intents and our processes. We connected and reconnected with the many Florida artists who came to the event. Afterwards, we went out to dinner and discovered a marvelous part of Melbourne we didn't know existed before. In the morning, we had a great discussion about how to take get to the next level with our art as we had coffee in the garden at our hotel and then we visited a gallery and a museum.
     In the afternoon, we went back to Ruth Funk for the Gallery Walk with Martha Sielman and she walked from piece to piece and spoke about each one. Unless the artist was present (and most were). The artists each spoke about her own piece. That meant I had to speak in front of about 50 people about mine. It actually felt good to do that. It was the first time I've ever done something like that. I explained about how I chose to add lines to the sun to mimic the lines in the grasses and the shell and how I chose  to paint the patterns in the fabric to mimic patterns I would see in water as I walk on the beach. Here's a photo of Beach Walk, although you seen it before if you follow regularly.

Beach Walk

     After the Walk and Talk, we had a SAQA meeting where we had a show and tell and I took my piece that I made about a hole in a screen door. I made it for a call for entry and it didn't get accepted. Of course, I was disappointed for a few hours after the rejection notice, but then I realized that I still was very happy with the quilt. I'm going to keep trying to get it displayed somewhere. I've shown it around at several meetings and I know I'm not going to submit it to one of those shows where you can't have shown it before so you get to see it here and I've put it on my website, too.
     I was sitting in a restaurant in Panama in a tiny one-street town. The street was a dirt road with horses, pick-up trucks, pedestrians, and the occasional car. They only served one type of meal; fried chicken, beans, and rice. I was sitting at my table looking at the screen door that had a hole in it watching the flies going in and out and suddenly I realized what a beautiful hole it was. So I got up and took a photo of the hole. I knew that one day I would use it in my art somehow.

Screen Door With A View

Please visit my website ReginaBDunn.com to see my artist statement and detail photos that go with it. It's in the gallery of newer works. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can visit other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let them know you stopped by.

Screen Door Quilt Entry

     I finished my screen door quilt and entered it in the call for entry Redirecting the Ordinary. I named it "Screen Door With a View".  I'm very happy with it. I like it so much that I may make another one in a different size with a similar theme. But not right away. I made three large (for me) quilts since the beginning of January and want to take a break. I know I don't have a great chance of getting in the show with this quilt since it is a SAQA show and so many talented artists will enter. But if you don't enter, you have a zero percent chance. Here, again is the photo of the main part of the screen door and here are two other photos of detail shots. The whole quilt measures about 46 inches high by 31 inches wide.

hole in screen door reproduced in stitch

scarf from Guatemala pieced onto the side
and fabric swatches added as embellishments

other fabric swatches added as embellishments
to symbolize rust and keyhole

So now with time and no deadlines, I cleaned out the studio. So therapeutic! Next, I may clean out my clothes closet and line up the clothes that need to be altered and repurposed. I want to make some very small art quilts, too.  I have a large one with rock cairns and a tree of life planned, but no timeline so when the mood strikes, I'll take out the gelatin plate and get the fabrics ready. And, of course, there are the monthly wheelchair covers. I feel so lucky to be able to have the time now to play with fabric and paint. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can visit other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists posts to let them know you stopped by.

Screen Door

     I've been busy working on another larger quilt. This one is about 30 inches wide and 48 inches tall. It doesn't fit in with my body of work, but it does come from my heart. I was in a restaurant in Panama several years ago. It was on a one-street town. The street was a dirt road with horses going up and down it with the occasional car. It was a very "basic" restaurant. Cement floor, only one item on the menu... beans and rice and chicken. And the screen door had a large hole in it with flies going in and out. But the hole was beautiful. I liked it so much that I took photos of it. I knew that some day I would use that hole in my art. The day/s has/have come.
     I decided to use crinoline as my base fabric to get more of that screen door effect. My cat, Opus, loves crinoline. He dives underneath it and thinks he can't be seen and then dodges out at me. So the first thing I did was let him have his play session with the crinoline.

the invisible Opus

making his appearance

Then I cut up panels from it and monoprinted them on my gelatin plate and sewed the panels together. After that, I stitched patterns on them using different types of thread. For the main hole, I used some parachute thread and did bobbin work from the back because this thread is too thick to run through the needle of the sewing machine. Here's the panel of the quilt stitched with this thread that is an exact copy of the hole in the screen door in Panama.

Screen door hole

The paint colors I chose have blues and rusts and this scarf from Guatemala may be cut up and used on this quilt.

my scarf

I'm having great fun creating this quilt. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can visit other art quilt blogs. Please make comments to let the artists know you stopped by.