Protection

protection study, wool yarn knitted and felted with metal buttons


Grace is moving to England on Monday. She wanted to learn how to make a Christmas turkey, so that was today's project. It's been great to have her home as this past week.

She came to the circle project with me yesterday.

Art Quilting

What is it about September? This time of year promises so much for learners. Yes, I am going to teach Art Quilting locally this fall and look forward to doing so. Classes will be held once a month in my studio in Little Current, more information is in my updates.

We will spend four hours together, once a month.
We will produce our own painted and dyed fabrics.
We will study contemporary quilt artists.
We will use journals and sketchbooks to find our personal voice.
We will bring our work to the group and receive feedback.
We will do hand work.

It was interesting to read Elizabeth Barton's recent post "a perfect workshop" (and the comments that go with it). I agree with her.

Metal sampler

Oona's here.
Everett's here.
April's here.
Em J's here.
Tor's here.
Mal's here.
Gordon's here.
Ned's here.
Iris's here.
I'm here.

Slow Art

I have finally finished the hand quilting on this 75" square velvet and cotton quilt. It has been in the works since December 2002 (about six years). It has seen me through a lot of life; a birth, a marriage, three deaths, career changes, and my nest emptying. I have not worked on it every day, there have been months when it lay abandoned.

I go back and forth about this passion of mine. It's not art I think. It doesn't speak a modern language. Many art quilts our there resemble abstract paintings. They steer clear of traditional patterns. This piece is based on simple first shapes, squares, diamonds, crosses. It calls out to be touched. It wants to wrap you up and keep you safe.


I can't stop making these bed-sized wall pieces. I have decided to call this piece, Slow Art.

"For four decades craft artists were misguided in trying to make painting and sculpture often forgetting or disparging what was useful and valuable and distinctive about crafts. Some of the distinctive qualities of craft that Janet Koplos identifies are attention to surface and its subtleties, scale that is keyed to the human body, and tangibility. Koplos suggests that craft's best route to art is to capitalise on its strength, its own character, doing the things that other art mediums can't do." Ilze Aviks in reference to Janet Koplos' 1992 essay "In Considering Crafts Criticsm"

another deadline

Overseas Opus students have an extra month to get their act together and that's such a relief for a busy gal like moi. I'm following through on a single idea to the nth degree - and coming up with a zillion samples and also a proposal. I've choosen an extended metal barn roof as my inspiration because it's so beautiful and nurturing.

order belies chaos

Q: Have there been any changes in your quilting techniques in the past 10 years?
A: Ten years ago I was making bed-sized traditional quilts from dyed and over dyed fabrics. I would mix two or three patterns together and add some painting and text so that everything related to my personal life story. My work relied more on its colour and symbolism than on good technique. I used buttons as embellishment and this habit would initiate teasing from some.
Pictured is a detail of Order Belies Chaos, made in 1990. I can't believe that nearly eighteen years have gone by since then. Number one of onehundred quilts.

Beauty

This is such a busy time, isn't it? I'm feeling a little over whelmed by the three kinds of teaching I have on my plate. (piano, watercolour, art quilting) These feelings are compounded by the weather as we've just been through a week of winter storms and by holiday preparations that I have yet to start. In tonight's quilting class I hope to convince everyone of the power and beauty of hand stitching.

Hand stitching is slow. It's one stitch at a time. It's thoughtful. It's a repeated caress. It’s visible time.