Which Social Media Posts Do You Prefer To Use?

     I can't believe it's been more than six months since my last blog post. I used to look forward to writing it each week. Then it was every two weeks and then it trailed off even more. I've been posting on my facebook page, and my Instagram  page regularly, though. I find it much more enjoyable to post a quick photo and a small phrase or two than to write paragraphs and fit in photos. I don't know what the future will be like for my social media posts, but for now, if you want to see what I'm working on, head over to Instagram. I find I'm not reading that many blogs from others anymore, either. I've found them on Instagram and follow them there. I may post here every now and then or may get back into blogging a lot, but probably not for awhile.
     So what's been going on in my art world? I've developed a love for working with thickened dyes. I use Procion MX dyes from Prochemical and Dye and print paste from them, too.  I love how much control I have with them as to the final color and value that will end up on the cloth, being able to paint, stamp, and screen with them. I did a color study with the pure dyes I have, mixing one color with another little by little to create cloth samples with color possibilities and a record of how to get them.

I printed up yardage using four layers of dyes and a variety of tools and made a set of 12 napkins.

And I made two art pieces using ethnic motifs I found while traveling and converted into thermofax screens. These photos of them are quick ones I did with my iPhone. And I may still add some stitching to them.

top section

bottom section

whole piece  Size is about 36 x 23

The background was made by screening on print paste and letting it dry and then painting on thickened dye. The print paste acted as a mild resist.

     I had printed several other cloths in bright colors to test out the resist effects of print paste and ended up fusing them together and printing on top to create this next one.

side view

front view

And I've been busy getting published. I joined TAFA, Textile and Fabric Artists list, (I'd add a link, but their website is down.),  I was a featured artist in Artsy shark, and I have an article on TextileArtist.org.  

I'm an enthusiastic member of SAQA and have an artwork in their upcoming auction.

     So now, I have several other ideas brewing and experiments going to pursue using those motifs from other countries in a series. I'll be posting my progress on Instagram. If you follow me there, you'll also see photos I take on a bike trail I frequent because I am so inspired by the nature that surrounds me there. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can other artists' blogs. Please make comments on their posts so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

What Can You Get For You and Support Art?

     My piece is up for auction starting September 22. It's called "Across TIme". It all began as white fabric.

 Go to SAQA to see how the auction works.
I wish I could write more on this post, but I need to spend time getting ready for Hurricane Irma. I've cleaned up my studio and video taped its contents for the insurance company in case of bad things. And I'm rolling up all my art quilts and putting them inside the clothes dryer until the storm is over. My dye notebook is going in there, too. I can't imagine losing years worth of work and information. I may be without power for a week or more so you might not hear from me for a bit.  Hope everyone will be ok and suffer no or minimal damage. Good luck to all involved. 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 them know you stopped by and thanks for visiting.

Do You Work Large or Do You Work Small?

     Do you have a favorite size range in creating art? I usually make pieces that are about 30 x 24 inches. I like the portrait format most. But the pieces I'm creating for my Art Cloth Mastery class are not like that. They are much larger and either more narrow in width compared to the height than I used to do and some are close to being square. None are the usual size or shape I've worked with in the past.
     And while I'm waiting for dye baths to batch or circulating ideas in my head, I've been working on a daily practice of making small fabric collages. Each is about 6 x 4 inches and felt backed. I'm using up pieces of cloth on which I had leftover from the larger artworks. Doing this has given me a better handle on composing better and faster. Also, they've given me the opportunity to audition what stitching I might want to include on the larger ones. Here are six of them. Some have stitching and some don't yet. I'm considering all of them works in progress.

Collage 1

Collage 2

Collage 3

Collage 4

Collage 5

Collage 6

     And while I was doing this, I decided to do the same thing for my auction piece for SAQA. It's 12x12 inches. This one is faced and is Ecofelt-backed with an aluminum slat with holes for hanging.

Across Time

     The leaf in each one is metaphor for change of all types. I dyed all the fabrics and printed on them with thermofax screens and stamps using fabric paints. The pieces are fused with Misty Fuse and then I hand-stitched. This auction piece will be available for purchase in the SAQA online auction  which begins September 15. The money earned goes to SAQA.
     So now, I find myself working large and small. Large to create the major works and small for practice and more immediate satisfaction. I'm finding both to be fulfilling in different ways. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.
          

What Kind Of Art Do You Buy?

     Since this is mostly an art quilt blog and most of my readers are probably interested in art quilts, do most of you buy art quilts? Or do you also buy other kinds of art? Do buy art from local artists or artists who live far from you? Must you see the art in person or do you buy your art on-line? Or do you only have your own art hanging in your home?
     I once attended a lecture about how to sell my art and the first question from the lecturer was "How many of you own art from an artist other than yourself?" Only a few of us in the audience raised our hands. And, in my case, most of the art hanging in my home was indeed my own.

     That got me to thinking about why. Part of the reason was space. I create art quilts and need a place to put them. Another reason is cost. Good quality art quilts are expensive. And again space. The art quilts by other artists I like are huge. And my walls just won't fit them. I travel a lot and my walls are taken up with art like masks and shelves with sculptures from my trips.
     Later on, I attended another art lecture. But this one focused on how to collect art. The two main points were to buy art either that you like or that would be a good financial investment or both. For me, I doubt that I would ever try to resell my things to make money so I buy art that I like and don't pay attention to whether or not it's a good financial investment.
     Two weeks ago, I made a new art purchase from a trip to Devon and Cornwall in Great Britain. My husband and I rented a car and drove around without any real definite plans. There were only a few places I wanted to visit for sure. One of them was to visit St. Ives to meet Carolyn Saxby who was having her art in an exhibit during the time I was there and to buy a piece of her artwork. I've followed her blog for some time and the photos she posts of the area helped inspire my trip.

The mixed media piece by Carolyn on my studio shelf

I bought a beautiful mixed media piece that reminds me of my beach walks in Cornwall. It has all the right colors and I love the textures. I've seen her art online, but waited to buy any until I could see it in person. And, to top it off,  she's a sweetheart of a person.

     Another place I wanted to visit was the Jurassic Coast to collect fossils, which I consider artwork from Mother Nature. I booked a guided walk at Charmouth before we left home, which was marvelous and we collected fossils on our own a second day, too. You are allowed to bring home whatever you find, no matter how large or valuable. 

I wanted to bring home this heavy rock full of ammonites, but due to baggage allowance, there was no way we could.

I love this fossil-laden rock!

Here's some of what we brought home. 

My artwork of fossils and rocks

     Mostly they are ammonites and belemnites that are about 200 million years old. In the photo, the large, angled rock with the ammonites is one that I purchased there. I collected all those rocks on this trip on the beaches there and consider those works of art, too. You can see some smaller ammonites that we found and the bullet-shaped looking rocks are the belemnites which are the remnants of small squid-like creatures.  

 

Another rock that was too heavy to bring home

I thought long and hard about how to bring home that gorgeous rock! There must have been a way. But alas... no.  I couldn't even dig it out of the sand. Let alone pick it up.

     I like to buy art in person as opposed to on-line, although I often look at art online and have thought about buying it there. I think buying art quilts online requires some effort from both the buyer and the artist that is different than it would be than buying other types of art. Since there is stitching involved, the photography must be able to show the nuances of the stitch. There should be detail shots of the artwork to do that. I, as a buyer, might contact the artist and ask for other detail shots of certain parts of the quilt to see it better since I can't see it in person. Many of the quilt artists that I follow have excellent detail shots on their websites already so you know what you are buying, but some don't, so you would have to ask. 

     For a time, I was actually shopping on-line for some art quilts to fill a space and I browsed several sites: firstly, my favorite artists' websites, then Artful Home, SAQA, and Pinterest. Now there are even more. You can shop for art quilts on Invaluable and Amazon.com (fine art/fiber). I eventually decided to fill that space with something else, but the resources are there.
     And I occasionally sell some of my quilts. Most of them get sold online through SAQA. One recently sold to a client who saw it online through SAQA several years ago, then contacted me a few weeks ago and asked for a discount. I agreed and we both were happy.

Beach Fence - SOLD

So it is always a good thing to communicate with the artist. It may be the start of your art collection. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting. I hope that this post links up OK. I've scheduled it ahead of time, but may not be able to check and hook up to Nina's place, since we are due to be hit by Hurricane Matthew on Friday and may not have power. So if you don't see me on Nina's list, then I'm off the grid and may be for a while. Last time this happened, people in our area were out of power for two weeks. Fingers crossed... 
Addendum: We made it through Matthew with no damage to the house. We lost power during the night and got it back on Saturday afternoon. Lucky us. We have a large tree uprooted and hanging over the driveway that we will have to have removed and lots and lots of debris to clean up. Our town has lots of damage and many are out of power and the outlook for them is 5-9 days. We are so glad Matthew took a jog to the east and wasn't as bad as it was forecast. Well, on to the clean up.

Interested in Owning New Art?

     Do you have some small space on a wall crying out for some inspiration for you to admire each day? SAQA is having an art auction of 12 x 12 art quilts this months. You can pick up one or two from your favorite artists or one that is new to you. Here is how the on-line auction works and the dates of the auction so you don't miss out. I have a quilt in too, and mine is in section 2, in which the bidding begins September 26.

My auction quilt, Continuity III

The artist statement is: Wildflowers are a sight to see when they are in masses in fields and on the sides of the road. But they are in peril for several reasons. One of those is the disappearance of the honeybee. The flower and the bee depend upon each other. Will the flowers and the bees continue or will the cycle be broken and these shapes remain only in our imaginations?

The other auction quilts come in all styles and colors.  Here are some of my favorites:

     If you want to view all of them, you can take a look here.  So, if you are interested, don't hesitate. The artworks, usually go fast. And, it's for a good cause. SAQA is a wonderful organization. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Small Things

     Each of the past few years I've made a 12x12 quilt to donate to  SAQA for their annual auction for fundraising to support the group. It is one of their major fundraising events and I'm a strong advocate for them. They have done a lot for me in advancing my confidence in art making and connecting me with other quilt artists. Here is my donation for this year's event. You can read about the auction and purchasing the quilt and others here.

Continuity III

     Unfortunately, it's not a great photo. The camera is acting up and I could not get good resolution. I'm leaving it up to SAQA to get a professional photo of it for their publicity. I sent the quilt in without a photo to meet the deadline. I think I need to get a different camera. I've had it checked out and the repairman says there is nothing wrong with it, but I say there is. I'm hoping to take it to a friend's house this week and take photos with her camera and with mine and compare photos with the same settings as a final check. 

     Also related to SAQA, I volunteered to work the SAQA booth in Lakeland, Florida on Saturday, March 19 at the Sewing Expo. SAQA had the Celebrating Silver exhibit on display and the quilts were amazing. We had catalogues for sale and we signed up seven new SAQA members just on Saturday. It was a fun day meeting all sorts of new people and talking up SAQA and its benefits. And to top it off, I received an unexpected thank you gift in the mail from Karol Kusmaul who organized our working schedule in the booth and who worked with me in the booth.

A beautiful fabric postcard by Karol Kusmaul

      My dyes and paints arrived from Pro chemical and dye company so now I need to go out and buy my soda ash and pfd fabric to get started on my Art Cloth Mastery projects. In the meantime, I'm still stitching away at the little purse.

in process

It's ready for assembly now so it won't take long to finish. Maybe I can finish it today or tomorrow. 

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

Great Value For A Good Cause

     Today begins SAQA's annual auction of art quilts. You can go here to see how the auction works. Most quilts are 12 x 12 and there is huge variety of themes and color choices. This is a wonderful opportunity to obtain a small artwork and support the media of art quilters. The profits go to SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates), which you can read about at that link. That organization has so many benefits and has changed my life with its exhibition opportunities, discussion group, journal,  and meetings with members. Here is the quilt I made and donated for auction. I monoprinted the fabric, hand-stitched, machine-stitched, and machine-quilted it.

New Growth

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

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 Fall In Love With Certain Images In Your Art?

     Are there certain parts of your artworks that you become enamored with? Usually with each art quilt I make there is a small corner or a small image in it that I especially love. I think that is where a series is born. In one of my more recent quilts, I had an image of a lichen growing out of a rock. I particularly liked the shape of the lichen and its roots and the rock. I also liked the symbolism of new life finding a foothold in an unlikely place. 

     And so when I was trying to come up with a theme for my 12 x 12 auction donation piece for SAQA, I decided to focus on that same image. I was going to use my usual palette of blues for a background, but when going through my monoprinted fabric stash I came across a rusty brown fabric and an orange circle that I had monoprinted for a sun but never used. And I found a black piece that I had stamped white paint onto and little by little it all came together.

In process

The rock looks a little like a potato so I need to fix that. And I need to embroider the roots of the lichen and embroider around the edges of the circle. After that, I'll see if anything else is needed and then sew a backing fabric on with a pillowcase finish. It will be titled New Growth. 

     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.

Can Art Quilts Influence Views On The Environment?

     This past weekend I was lucky enough to attend a marvelous art quilt exhibit. It is a SAQA exhibit titled Piecing Together a Changing Planet. Through their art on the 26 quilts, the 22 artists expressed their feelings about climate change and environmental issues affecting our planet and our national parks. The setting of Biscayne National Park in Homestead, Florida where the show premiered is amazingly beautiful. It is set on lovely Biscayne Bay. As I walked toward the building, I was filled with a sense of tranquility and peace as I viewed fish jumping in a small mangrove-lined marina in front of the building and families having picnics just outside. It is a wonderful venue for the show. Although it is located in quite an isolated location, there were a lot of people there in addition to the artists attending the opening reception. I’m sure it will be well visited during its stay.

     Maya Schonenberger did a fantastic job curating the show. The quilts are all the same size, well lit, and each has the artist’s statement nicely positioned next to it. They are well spaced along the walls of the auditorium just inside the gift shop and make for a very attractive overall look as you walk in. And each one up close has remarkable details. Also, it was very interesting to see how many different takes there are on the topic from very abstract to realistic and looks at individual animals to global ideas. As usual with SAQA shows, there is a catalogue available for purchase at the SAQA Store.

Here is a sampling of the quilts. I wish I had better photos, but all I had available was my iPad and it doesn’t have a flash.

One of the walls of the exhibit

Is It Safe by
Gabriele Di Tota

Encroachment by
Andrea F. Huffman

Gabriele's piece is about the worry of our food being contaminated.

Andrea's piece is about the importance of mangroves and the worry of encroachment of urban sprawl upon their environment.

Wings of Fire by
Melani K. Brewer

End of Eden by
Bobbi Baugh and John Lewis

Melani's piece is about how climate change has reduced the plants necessary to support the monarch's migration.

Bobbi and John's piece is modeled after a Hieronymus Bosch painting and it depicts modern day personalities and a diminishing water supply down to the last drop at the bottom.

Where Will We Go? by
Gretchen P. Jolles

Last Leaf by
Linda S. Hoffmeister

Gretchen's piece is about displaced wildlife from fires and other disasters caused from climate change.

Linda's piece is about how the introduction of non-native species threatens the existence of native species.

Here is a list of where the exhibit’s traveling schedule:

Biscayne National Park, Homestead, Florida: December 5, 2014 – March 1, 2015

Glacier National Park, Hockaday Museum, Kalispell, Montana: July 23 – September 12, 2015

Cleveland Metroparks Watershed Stewardship Center, Parma, Ohio: Fall 2015

Lowell National Historical Park, Lowell, Massachusetts: December 2015 - February 2016

Statue of Liberty National Monument, New York, NY: March - May, 2016

Cape Cod National Seashore, Wellfleet, Massachusetts: Summer 2016

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee: November 2016 - January 2017

I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artist's posts so that they 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.

SAQA Trunk Show

     I finished my piece for SAQA's Trunk Show.  The Trunk Show is literally just that. The quilts get mounted professionally and then put into a trunk and then travel to all sorts of guilds and venues for up to three years. If the artist wants to offer them for sale, they are put up for sale, if not, then they are returned to the artist at the end of the show. They all have to be 10" x 7" and they will premiere at the 2014 SAQA conference in Washington, DC, and then travel all across the United States and around the world. I got to see one of the trunk shows at our art group meeting one month and the quilts we saw were spectacular.
     Here's my contribution:

Resonating with the Universe

If you look back at its beginnings from the impromptu session ( Impromptu ), I ripped out much of the stitching and redid it to place the right elements on top. All of the stitching is done by hand (unusual for me) except for the yarns on the outer edge. Those are machine zigzagged on. (I never know how to spell that.) zig-zagged? zigzagged? zig zagged?  Please comment and correct me on the spelling. The computer spell check accepts all of them.
     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.

Impromptu

 Cloth, Paper, Scissors Magazine some time back listed some prompts you could use to spark ideas in creating art. At our last meeting, my art group, ArtsEtc., did an activity in which the leader pulled out prompts from an envelope one by one. After a prompt was called out, we each executed the direction onto our working surface. My surface was a 12 x 12 piece of batting. I brought a collection of fabrics I had made (from gelatin monoprinting), some commercial fabric from   Marcia Derse,  some pearle cottons, embroidery floss, sheers, and 3-D items, needles, and thread. Here are the prompts that were pulled. We were allowed to ignore the ones that we didn’t like. I followed all but #6.

1.) Add a strong diagonal.

2.) Add a trapunto. (I added a stuffed monk.)

3.) Add a repeating shape in several sizes.

4.) Add a doodle.

5.) Add a circle.

6.) Gather.

7.) Add strips.

8.) Add embroidery.

9.) Add a geometric.

10.) Add a sheer.

Since I’m trying to develop a body of work, I brought materials that stick to the colors and themes of that body. The activity took about an hour and a half and lots of talk and laughs.

     After I made it and took it home, I read that  SAQA wants a 10 x 7 piece for a trunk show and I thought the composition of part of it was good enough and if I work on it more and quilt it and embroider it, I can make it into a nice art quilt. So I rearranged some of the elements and cut it to size. (I forgot to take a photo before I did all this. Whoops.) So to get a “before” photo I stuck all the pieces next to each other.Here’s the 12 x 12 piece. 

definitely an impromptu work

Here it is cut to the proper size for the trunk show.

In-process, cut to size

The plan is to add quilting, embroidery and edging and other elements as needed.

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.