details, details QN 2011

Detail of Stars on the Water - The oil Spill/ 5 of Paring Knives in the Kitchen Tarot, 2010 by Susan Shie. Air brush and air pen writing each day for 100 days of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill Detail of Quilt Drawing #13 - for Maureen by Daphne Taylor Juror's Award of Merit hand quilted, hand embroidered Detail of Portrait of the Youngest Girl 1, 2010 by Judy Rush Quilt Surface Design Symposium Award of Excellence Detail of Rook Road, 2010 by Elizabeth Brimelow showing the hand applique and embroidery a second detail of Elizabeth Brimelow's piece
I recommend purchasing the catalog to see the wide variety of techniques and ideas. Gary J Kirskey, Larry Hamel Lamberft and Sam Girton took beautiful photographs of full views. Detail of Facade VII 2010 by Deidre Adams.
Deidre uses acrylic paint after drawing with the sewing machine.
And visit Diedre Adams excellent blog to see her photos of the QN artists. Detail of Mushroom 2010 by Carolyn Sullivan, plant dyed and hand stitched Detail of Circles No. 4 2010 by Judy Kirpich. Judy cuts into her fabric to insert these many circles, all piece work. Detail of Greek, 2010 by Naomi S. Adams Most Innovative Use of the Medium Naomi uses dyed batting and adhesive reconstruction to write 3-dimensionally with cloth. Detail of Werekata Moon 2010 by Pamela Fitzsimons plant dyes, hand stitch. Detail of Broken Fence 2010 by Leslie Joan Riley, showing her original pattern that references traditional quiltmaking block repetition.
detail of Big Leaf 24 2010 by Dominie Nash Leaf Rubbings with textile paint Detail of Cross My Heart 2010 by Judy Martin showing my hand stitching with silk thread on layered dyed and painted linen On the drive home through Ohio I took photos of many beautiful barns from the car. Late Sunday afternoon, the sky suddenly became so dark. When we turned on the TV in our hotel in Kalamazoo, Michigan, we found out that we had narrowly missed the tornado.

this is not the Quilt National catalog

Structures #113 Award of Excellence Lisa Call
I took some photos of the Quilt National exhibit that I'd like to share here that give a different perspective than what will be available in the catalog. (fantastic though that catalog is) Structures #113 - detail of the machine quilting. Lisa's lines are less than 1/8" apart, and are beautifully neat. The 'work' in this piece is so intense, it carries the viewer into a different place. It's something that just doesn't show up in print. Also, the scale of the piece. Here is Lisa Call with her piece. We were invited to speak for two minutes about our work in a private showing with the other artists. Lisa said that as this series has evolved, she has used fewer and fewer lines, but that she spends more time deciding where to put each one. Ori-Kune 20 52" w x 41" h Sue Cavanaugh Lynn Goodwin Borgman Award for Surface Design I had some good visits with Sue and learned that she does most of her shibori stitching while standing up! She has produced another piece in the same series (Ori-Kume #22) that is 164" wide x 94" high!! That one is currently on display in Zanesville Ohio . In this detail you can see how the threads of the stitch resist shibori are left in and are in different colours. So smart. Also, you can see how it has been quilted with 20/2 spun silk thread - something that is not so evident in the catalog. In this overview you can see the huge scale of Eleanor McCain's 9 Patch Color Study 7, 110" x 109" on the left of the above photo. I have been following Eleonar's work for a while, and am moved by the way she uses the common nine patch to make crosses. In her two minutes, Eleanor told us how she like to connect to the history and tradition of America and common experience by using the nine patch, and that she uses the cross because it references both the vertical of the male and the horizontal of the female. Eleanor McCain was one of the jurors for this year's Quilt National.

I love the Quilt National catalogs and they are all in my book shelf, looked at many many times when I need to be re-inspired. Those catalogs have been my text books. What I want to say in this post is that the actual three dimensional pieces seen in real life are even more wonderful than their printed versions.

judy at quilt national 2011

We got to Athens around 6 pm - too late to really meet the others but in time to get a glimpse of an awesome exhibition. Every where I turned, I was astounded. Dorothy Caldwell was teaching at Nancy Crow's barn nearby and came over to the opening. She told me that it was the best QN she had yet seen. I didn't take my camera into the opening, but Ned had his, and took this photo of my tiny jewel, Cross My Heart.

Q: What was the best thing about seeing the work in person rather than just in the catalog?
A: I think it is standing right up beside the work, and feeling how big it is, how transparent or heavy. These things don't come across in print. In the catalog all the pieces are treated as equally as possible, but the relative scale is all out of wack. When you see how big (or how small) a piece really is, it makes a huge difference. At least to me.

I wish this piece was bigger. Next time, it will be.

Shall post more photos tomorrow when I take my own camera and have a quiet look.

bridges to quilt national

We crossed over from Canada into Michigan today at Sault Ste Marie. The Mackinac suspension bridge at the top of the Great Lake, Lake Michigan, is breath taking.

Ned and I will be in Athens Ohio for the Quilt National 2011 opening. I'll be fine, thank you.

big decision

I am trying to improve the crescent shape in the Earth Ark panel. I've been procrastinating about this, but no more. Click here to see what it used to look like. I started by removing the darker gold outline. I encourage myself. Textile art is just as tentative as drawing or painting. If I'm not happy with something, I take it out and start again. Just like in a drawing you would erase, or in a painting, you would paint something a different colour. If I couch white linen damask around the circle's perimeter, I think everything will improve. Jay and his fiancee were here for the weekend, and put in a few stitches. Erika (above) is the 80th person to work on these quilts. Our son, Jay, is the 81st. There are large gestures. There are small marks.

The process is slow, but it seems fast. It seems a whirl.

Each decision we make creates who we are.

Some are big decisions, others are daily and repetitive.

The body knows

Touch is the mother of all senses.


Jay and Erika just left.

Cry Me A River

The Perivale Gallery opens for the season tomorrow at 1 pm. Each year I like to have a quilt exhibited as part of my body of work at the Perivale. It's a painting and sculpture gallery however, and Sheila McMullan did not guarantee that she would have room to hang this large piece. (75" x 85")

I guess we'll have to go and see.

Putting a quilt in

Yesterday, Myra Tallman helped me put the second meditation panel into the quilt frame. She has an easy method that uses a simple frame made from 4 pieces of 1" x 3" wood clamped together. She uses T pins to pin the backing to the fabric supports. All the backings of these meditation panels are made from re-purposed damask linen table cloths and have Marimekko fabric in their centres. Myra works much more quickly and efficiently than I do as she has practice. She estimates that she has put about 300 of her own and other women's quilts into frames. Once the backing is t-pinned correctly, the bamboo batting is just laid on top, followed by the pieced quilt top. The top is then pinned snuggly to the stretched back with regular pins. The second pair of hands in the above photo belong to Myrna, who joined us. Later, I hand basted the edges and removed the pins so that everything was ready for Thursday. This panel is nearly 100" square, larger than the first one. I look forward now to months of hand quilting.

Thank you Myra, for passing on your skill. It's inspirational.

"I want to die quilting" Myra Tallman

pleased

April's making a quilt from her indigo dyed fabrics. She worked on it quite a bit last week when she was home. I have to admit that it pleased me to see her working this way.


We talked a bit about that.

I always worry about the power I may wield just because I'm a mother.


Anyway, I am pleased and v proud of her. She's young and she knows that.
She is not afraid to ask questions.


She's curious, but she has her own strong ideas. She also gave some time to the circle project on Thursday. Thank you sweet heart.

Medicine stitch

The ceremonial walking around an object, site, or person with the right hand towards it, is called the sunwise turn, or the holy round. It brings good luck, fends off evil, cures diseases, blots out sins, and is sometimes regarded as a kind of magic to insure the continuation of the sun in its course. It is an ancient and widespread practice occurring in a number of cultures. (from Folklore, Mythology and Legend, Maria Leach editor ) healing circle
medicine hum
Over the weekend, I stitched while battling severe leg pain. Stitch, move, lie down. Stitch, move, lie down. My life had a rhythm. I listened to Agatha Christie's Towards Zero on tape.

"Our constant struggle to pull ourselves together to deal with difficulty and injury and illness, and with threats and fear, manifests itself at a psychological level as art.

We may not think at the moment that it's the most valuable thing we do, but of any past civilization it's the one thing we want to preserve, because it still operates as medicine." Ted Hughes