SAQA Benefit Auction, 2013: It's My Tern

"My Tern" ©2013, 12" X 12"

Once again it is time to start thinking about the Studio Art Quilt Associates' (SAQA) annual 1' square Benefit Auction.  Last year 394 artists donated works to the effort which raised $67,450!  This year over 230 pieces have already collected for the auction that starts on line on in September.  You can view the collection as they are received on the SAQA Pinterest board here.  I'll post more details as the auction date approaches.

"My Tern"is the first in a series of pieces I am doing of Florida seabirds (the others are much larger) which I'm very excited about.  This piece was created with hand-dyed cottons and raw-edge appliquéd.  All stitching was machine done.

This series is homage to the walks on the beach near our home in Florida and the incomparable wildlife that was such a part of that area.  Everyday there was some new treasure to collect or behold on the beach.

I love the guy singing in the back row!

Marbling Easter Eggs

Happy Easter, everybody!  I'm not usually a recipe person on my blog, but this recipe/project was such a success and really easy, I thought I'd share!

I'd seen a recipe going around the internet for hard-cooking eggs in the oven, which I know isn't anything new, but it was new to me.  Very simple - pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees.  Put the eggs in a muffin tin and bake 30 minutes.  My eggs got little brown dots on them while they baked, but they rinsed off with water.

Then to color the eggs, we tried something else new.  It was supposed to marbling - which it wasn't quite, but it produced some really pretty cool eggs.

First, you do the regular egg dyeing thing: 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar, 1/2 cup boiling water and 10-20 drops of food coloring.  We only colored the eggs lightly for the first layer, so the marbling would show up in the next step.  Let the eggs dry.

The next step, you make another batch of the dye up (although, I guess you could use the first batch again, now that I think about it).  Pour the mixture into a wide bowl, so the liquid is fairly shallow.  Add a tablespoon of cooking oil and whisk the mixture a little with a fork.  Roll the eggs very briefly in the oil mixture.  They really came out beautiful and unique......if not marbled.

Even my drop cloth, from a printing project earlier in the week, was improved!

And the broken egg in the picture above got sampled tonight.  I don't think I ever had a hard-cooked egg that was baked before.  It really was the best hard-cooked egg I've ever had.  Who knew!

Hope the bunny's good to everyone!

V9: Finding the Extraordinary

"Rooftops of London" ©2013, 18" x 24"

What a wonderful challenge Sue Dennis proposed to members of Viewpoints 9 this cycle.  We were asked to "Have fun exploring and discovering what, to you, is the extraordinary in the ordinary".  It could be a new version of something common place or perhaps a new way of looking at something ordinary. When we travel, I think most of us tend to make comparisons,  what we're used to vs what we have at the moment, and it seems that often, the things we take for granted at home are suddenly most captivating in new surroundings.  For me, I think it is a matter of taking the time to look, and to stop and consider new ways to do the same things I do every day.  And so, I take a lot of photos to document my discoveries/realizations and to fill my creative larder.... 

On a trip to London, some 10+ years ago, I snapped a photo out the hall window of a hotel.  It was gray scale, geometric ....intriguing, but an ordinary urban scene out the back window.  Only later, when I had the photo blown up, did I realize how extraordinary it really was!  

There was so much going on - one building after another was connected by stairs and walkways as far as I could see.  It reminded me of the part in Mary Poppins when Bert and the chimney sweeps dance across the city rooftops.....here, they actually could do that!

The rooftop was probably one of the first photos I fiddled with in Photoshop - I made a big pattern and had all sorts of ideas of what I would do with it - but it sat all this time - until *now*!  

"Rooftops of London" is created from Dye-Na-Flow painted silk habotai.  Raw-edge pieces were fused to the silk backing and quilted in a simple grid with clear nylon thread. 

Take a minute and go check out all of the wonderful responses to the Ordinary/Extraordinary Challenge at the Viewpoints 9 website here.

one of my favorite details

Sea Star

"Sea Star" ©2013, 6" x 8"

San·ta Fe noun. The capital of New Mexico. The place to be in April 2013.

spot·light noun. A strong beam of light that illuminates a small area, used especially to center attention on a fabulous art quilt.

The Santa Fe Spotlight is an opportunity for all SAQA members to have their work showcased at the Expanding Horizons Conference in Santa Fe.  We are looking for pieces 6” x 8” (portrait or landscape orientation), which we will display in mats with an 4.5" x 6.5” opening and place in clear cellophane sleeves. As all works will be matted, raw, straight-stitched or zigzag edges are best. These pieces will be sold through a silent auction, with all proceeds going to benefit SAQA.

Sea Star is my contribution to the upcoming event.  It's created with raw-edge appliquéd organza and lots of French knots.  It was a great distraction and meditation in an otherwise crazy time - I may need to bid on it myself!  :)

V9: facemask

"facemask" ©2012, 18" x 24"

Viewpoints 9 offered up a little late Christmas surprise with their virtual gallery opening on December 26th.  The recent challenge, "Behind the Mask" was proposed by Kate Themel asking us to consider "What kind of masks do you wear in your life?  Do they hide you or allow you to be your true self?" 

It's an interesting concept to consider, masks you wear, whether they broaden your world or limit your vision, whether you put them on or others put them on you....and so on.  The more I thought, the more complex it got.  I considered my roles/masks and realized I try to be sort of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) in my daily dealings, but my time on the internet is quite different.  So early on, I knew my piece would evolve from my social media mask.

My internet persona started with an accidental photo I took of myself at the beach, cropped by chance, sort of ethereal, an enigma....  But it has become my online mask. On Facebook and LinkedIn and blogger and beyond.  It is a fraction of me and so are the details I provide.


But even my internet mask has many masks, a black and white mask - that shares just the facts - the things that you could turn up in a Google search in about 5 seconds.  My alma mater, my marital status, my hometown...it's all there.  But doesn't really tell you much about me.

But wait, there's others...there's the rose-colored mask, the "superlative" mask that shares all things positive and good, always has a good word and creates and enviable image of a one-dimensional life.  A perfect life that can only exist with a lot of omissions....or masking.

And finally, my artist's mask.  This was where it got even more complex.  Despite the fact that I feel the least masked when I create, when I talk about my work, when I am in my studio, I realized my artwork itself is probably a mask.  And so it became a very enlightening challenge....

I was really pleased to settle on an idea early on in the cycle and excited to have it completed a full week + before Christmas.....until I stepped back and looked at it.  I'd expended a great deal of thought in the process, but it was all about content and not about design.  It fell flat---and a couple days later I cut the whole thing up, salvaging pieces of the original images.  This, then is the second iteration of "facemask", and were time permitting, I suspect there would have been a third.

"facemask" is a compilation of information and photos mined from my Facebook.  The different colored and filtered images were created in Photoshop and ink-jet printed on silk organza using digital ground.  The images were stabilized on woven interfacing and the text was machine stitched.  An additional photo image was then layered over this and anchored in the corners with beads to create a 3-D-ish image or "mask behind mask"effect.

Please take the time to check out all of the wonderful pieces and stories from this challenge on the Viewpoints 9 website!

Indigo: Atmospheric River

"Atmospheric River" ©2012, 19" x 41"

Back in August (oh my gosh, it was August), I received an invitation from my Connecticut fiber artist friends, Sisters in Cloth, to participate in a show inspired by the color indigo.  The piece could interpret "indigo" any way you chose, but it should be larger than an 18" x 24".  I love a challenge and especially like to keep the distant bonds with Sisters alive.  They really are such a high energy, creative, prolific group I greatly admire. I'm honored to be included.

In my stash was a large piece of dark blue Japanese silk, I believe I'd inherited from my brother.  I never quite knew what to do with it because it had little white butterflies printed on it.  When I pulled it out for the project, I thought I'd try to discharge the blue with a Clorox pen, but the resulting muddy brown was not what I'd expected.

And then I got distracted......

Fast forward to Houston.  I thought about the piece just before Houston (late-October now) and with the approaching deadline, I decided on a water piece.  Using the back of the fabric (sans butterflies) sandwiched with felt, I sewed hundreds of free-flowing lines creating a watery palette for hand stitching.  French knots create the contour lines in four shades of blue.  The image was going to be "marine snow", but as the piece was being completed, I realized it wasn't.  Coincidently, some weather was approaching and I learned about "atmospheric rivers", a meteorological phenomena I'd never heard of, but was really intrigued by the name.  Looking at the real-time monitoring map it was apparent I'd created an "Atmospheric River".

"Atmospheric River", detail

The "Sisters in Cloth" show will be exhibited at the Guilford Free Library, Guilford, CT, from December 1-31st, 2012.

Seasonal Palette, Houston

"Stockholm Winter" ©2012
32" x 78"

Just back from Houston and the most wonderful time with old and new friends!  SAQA's show, "Seasonal Palette" had it's opening on Wednesday night and was really exciting to both see and be a part of.  It really came together magically.  My piece, "Stockholm Winter" joined 36 other pieces created, by artists from around the world, specifically for this show.  Each depicted a season on a 32" x 78" palette and when displayed, flowed perfectly from one to the next, season to season, around the perimeter of the room.  To learn more about the show and see additional pieces, click here.

(l-r) Betty Busby, Diane Wright, Hsin-Chen Lin,
Lisa-Marie Sanders and Martha Wolfe

Had a great time with fellow members of the Viewpoints 9 group - there were 5 in attendance.  It was wonderful to meet Hsin-Chen Lin, from Taiwan, in person, and her amazing daughter Pei that joined her and translated.  It was so interesting to hear the stories behind her work and to see pictures of other pieces she's done.  Now I've met everyone in the group and it has been a real honor.  What interesting, brilliant, talented women they all are......and a lot of fun, too! Once again, I have been very lucky!

Another big highlight of the week, was winning Betty Hahn's SAQA Benefit Auction Square, "Games".  The photo in no way does justice to the brilliant color and all that is going on in this piece. 

"Games" by Betty Hahn

"Ear of Rice", detail, by Sachiko Sano

The show was overwhelming, filled with wonderful pieces by artists from around the world and I would need many pages to include all that captivated my interest, however, I came back to this piece by Japanese artist, Sachiko Sano, over and over - definitely one of my favorites.

Other highlights of the trip included fabulous weather!  Two years ago when I arrived I nearly froze!  But this year was filled with sunny skies and balmy evenings making walking everywhere a real treat and an opportunity to appreciate some of the architecture like I haven't in the past.

Now, back home, I am filled with inspiration and already looking forward to next year!

V9: The Scent of a Memory

"La Sente de Vernon", 18" x 24"

A lot happens in the cycle of a Viewpoints 9 challenge.  This round was proposed by Diane Wright and asked us to: "create a piece inspired by one's memory of a scent".  It sent everyone on a journey to places long lost or forgotten and breathed new life into precious moments in our lives.  Enjoy all of the pieces from the group here.  The full story of my lavender memory is included here

"La Sente de Vernon" evolved over the course of two months, two months filled with buying a house, moving in and unpacking my studio.  I was thrilled, after lengthy consideration, to embark on the first "real" project in a good stretch.

The piece started with painting silk organza which was then stabilized with a non-woven.  Fusible web was used to build layers and minimize the raw edge ravels.  The wool felt bat was wonderful to quilt, no warping or stretching.

a little help from my friends

 

"La Sente de Vernon", detail

We're all starting to settle in and feel at home in our new place, at last.  And I'm thinking I need to plant some lavender in the garden.

Sea Beans and Gyotaku T-Shirts

ready to rock...

I'm just getting ready to post 3 little fish-print shirts I made for the Sea Bean Symposium basket raffle.  These were done pretty much identically to how I did the onesies (click here) except I used a Branzini.  I've got a bit of troubleshooting to do here in California - first to find a fresh fish market :^), and to figure out a way to keep my ink (and fish) from drying out almost instantly!  But they were fun to make and go to a great cause.

Dawn Witherington's t-shirt art 

The 17th Annual Sea-Bean Symposium will be next weekend, October 12-13 in Cocoa Beach, FL.  For all of the details, visit the excellent Sea Bean website maintained by Paul Mikkelsen or come join our Facebook Group.  It's a great event and definitely worth checking out if you are a beachcomber of any variety.  Don't miss it....and don't forget to bid on the gyotaku t-shirts!

V9: Mountains Behind Mountains

"Mountains Behind Mountains" ©2012, 18"x24"

"Mountains Behind Mountains" is my contribution to the current Viewpoints 9 challenge, (the "Horizon" challenge proposed by Lin Hsin-Chen) one I've enjoyed the full 2 months. It had me looking and thinking about so much of the obvious and ordinary in new ways. To learn more about the challenge and view the gallery, click here.

It's sort of embarrassing to see I haven't posted on my own blog since the completion of our previous Viewpoints 9 challenge in June!  Sort of a reflection of the many distractions in my life this last couple months. And mountains behind mountains would be an apt analogy!

The majority of June and July was devoted to traveling here and there, for a variety of reasons, and the balance selling and packing up the house in Florida.  Heading back to California after 11 years on the east coast.  It's very exciting, but I would have appreciated being able to just snap my fingers and be in my new home without all of the details on both ends of the journey.

Studio, before

 Something like this!  Alas.

Studio, after

The first of August, I boarded my 15th flight in 9 weeks and we flew west to find a new home.  Landing in Las Vegas for a plane change, the mountains rose up behind the mountains again and again, only fading in the haze at the horizon. A sight I'd seen a hundred times, I decided this was going to be my interpretation of the challenge. Considering my new coastal horizon, I chose to use the San Francisco horizon, adapting a photo I'd taken several years ago.

It's been an interesting month since we arrived in California, roughing it in an unfurnished student apartment has been a good reminder of how little you really need (although I could have used a few of my gadgety things I take for granted in my studio).  House hunting, school enrolling, lots of signing papers, a little bit of creating, lots of walking. At this writing, we are due to close on our new house on Friday.....and it cannot come soon enough.  Ready to explore new horizons:)  

Viewpoints 9: Mirror, Mirror

"Mirror, Mirror", ©2012, 18" x 24"

What a convoluted evolution this challenge has taken!  Betty's Pi-Challenge stirred a great deal of imagination, starting with the acknowledgement of all the signs and symbols that surround our daily life.  I got sort of stuck on the black silhouetted warning and directing signs so prevalent where language may be a barrier.  Also, got stuck on the idea that we needed to create a symbol for some universal truth, which really kept me distracted for a long time.  One day, walking on the beach, the idea of mid-life crisis came to mind, not a universal truth, but, something we laugh about and most of us celebrate in some way....  the idea: a symbol that was sort of a warning label....a bumper sticker for a red sports car, a tattoo that was only exposed when, well, perhaps it shouldn't be.  But then it continued to evolve.  What about the things you want to do because you don't feel confined by age; backpacking across Europe, learning to surf, skinny-dipping??  Things that seem to be viewed by others as inappropriate "for your age".

And then I struck on the disparity between how we feel or see ourselves and how others see us, or how the world perceives of different ages.  I am as guilty as anyone of agism.  A certain look or behavior comes to mind with 50, 60, 70.... Some days, when I stop and think, I am stunned by my age!  It is *so* far from the way I feel!  (I used to identify with 32, but when my older sons turned 32 (several years ago), I had to let go of that fantasy.  I haven't had an age since then.)  But, this seems like a really difficult concept to communicate in a symbol, so the idea continued to evolve.

Recently I had to provide a photo of myself for something and snapped a couple shots on the computer.  Whoa, who is this person? Completely foreign!  Bingo....that moment when the disparity is visual.  I do not feel like this person, and yet, clearly I am!  At last, there is a symbol to create!

"Mirror, Mirror" was created from a "whoa" photo (the one my younger son pointed out looked like JFK, right), overlaid with an old photograph, and manipulated in Photoshop.  Variation in fabrics allow the perceptual illusion of one or the other silhouette standing out. The piece is created with raw-edged, cotton, commercial and hand dyed fabrics, that were fused and machine appliquéd. and creating a younger layer.

"Mirror, Mirror" symbolizes the incongruent feelings we share about our creative, youthful vision of the world vs our aging selves.  It is a reminder to ourselves and others not to judge.

Be sure to check out all of other great pieces created in response to the Pi-Challenge at Viewpoints 9.

"Mirror, Mirror", detail

In the Spotlight

Quilting Arts, June/July, 2012

What an honor to be Quilting Arts, June/July, 2012, Artist in the Spotlight!  When the invitation came, I was in the panicked midst of completing the SAQA Seasonal Palette piece, prepping the Odyssey of the Mind team for States, and getting ready to attend the SAQA/SDA conference in Philadelphia.  I'm so glad I overrode my initial reaction, which was, "I'd love to, but just not *now*..."

"Tigerlily", detail

Everyone at Quilting Arts was so friendly and helpful and really made the whole experience wonderful!  It was a real privilege to share my creative journey and a thrill to see it in print!

It was also fun to share the limelight with my longtime friend and muse, Diane Wright's wonderful piece "off the PAGE: Sketchbook Keeping for Textile Artists" and her creation of "Journal Bowls". Also featured was fellow CT "Sister", Carol Ludington's piece, "dye your own iced parfait"...just beautiful!

"Påtår at Waldemarsudde"

Quilting Arts is calling it their "Staycation" issue, and it's a great compilation of new ideas as well as a good read.  Check it out!  

Many thanks to Vivika and Kristine for guiding me throughout the process!

a little more pi

Returning from Iowa this past weekend, I found myself in a "symbol-rich environment", the 16 cubic foot confines of an airplane lavatory.  I looked around me and was amazed just how many little pictograms they'd posted there.  I get it, some can't read, some don't know the language, so we resort to something universal.....pictures.  So, immediately I'm thinking about Betty's challenge to Viewpoints 9 members, to "think of a situation that needs to have a symbol to represent it and invent that symbol".

Most of the little signs make sense....lock the door, change the baby... 

Some really don't, though....do they still have smoking flights??  I thought those disappeared years ago.

I think this one means I need to go back to my seat OR if I push the red button someone will bring me a drink.


I think everyone in the group has been struggling with this challenge.  It seemed so easy at first glance, but once you start trying to come up with a new symbol, a symbol that represents some universal truth, it slips away.

Got to thinking about some "classic" symbols, in particular, the dubiously named "mudflap girl".  Not quite sure what the meaning is on this one, or the person who buys it?  It's undergone an amusing evolution, though.

Apparently, the Wyoming Public Libraries created a literary knock off.

And in the interest of equal opportunity, we have these......way, way too much pi!