Showing posts with label quilt national. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quilt national. Show all posts

Thursday, July 06, 2023

Under Drifting Stars the video

I finally made the selfie video for Quilt National today using my cell phone propped against a stack of journals.  Here is the direct link   to the video.  It wasn't so hard.  I spoke about the scale of the piece (big enough for a king size bed) and the repetition of the small hand made marks that makes you feel like you do in nature.   
 

I spoke about how I made the marks with water that had a few sprinkles of iron powder in it (available through natural dye suppliers) and that they were instant and permanent.  Painting these marks was dreamy.  I didn't have to think.  
under drifting stars: the back

I spoke about the texture of the piece, satin stitch bumpy dots below the horizon line and smaller puffy dots above it.  I didn't talk about the back side (shown above), but the texture and dots are there as well.  The back side is the side that touches our bodies when we pull a quilt over us.  

Aura No. 2 78 x 78" by Audrey Esarey   hand dyed cotton

Ned and I attended the opening of Quilt National in May and I took some photos of quilts that seemed like art to me.   Here they are:   

Forest of Seasons 96 x 89" by Diana S. Fox


Finding Connections #24 40.5 x 85.5 " by Denise L Roberts

Cocoon 40 x 64" by one of the jurors, Chiaki Dosho from Japan


Bowl of Heart 48x4 x 63.7" by Jungeun Tark from Korea

Sky Trippers 70 x 96" by Dinah Sargeant


                        Like Words That Shape Poems...Like Notes that Shape Music 92 x 92"                                 LED and chiffon by John Lefelhocz

You can see all the quilts in this exhibition with the Quilt National Catalogue available through the Dairy Barn, if you are not able to go see the show in Ohio over the summer.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The top half of my quilt is hand quilted with white silk thread, while the lower half is quilted with pink silk thread, which is enough to change the colour slightly.  I wanted to talk about pulling the quilt over me and a  grandchild or two and letting it take us into dreamland but I can't remember if I actually did.  Click Here!  to see.  (6 minutes) 

                                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            The quilt pinned up behind me in the above photo was removed from our bed.  Thank you to Keri Ann Wolfe at the Dairy Barn for the invitation to participate and for getting my story about Under Drifting Stars up on youtube.  I hope you enjoy it.  xoxo                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Friday, April 23, 2021

what is sacred is the time you spend

soft summer gone detail   plant dyed, hand stitched silk quilt included in Quilt National 2017
Soft Summer Gone  100 inches square, included in Quilt National 2017

What you produce is not necessarily sacred.

Cross My Heart detail, hand stitched silk quilt included in Quilt National 2011
 
Cross My Heart about 40 inches square, included in Quilt National 2011

What is sacred is the time you spend working on the project, 
and what the time does to expand your imagination,

Prayer to the Sky, detail, indigo dyed hand stitched wool quilt, included in Quilt National 2021
Prayer To the Sky, detail of reverse side, about 65" square, included in Quilt National 2021

And what that expanded imagination does to transform your life.    Elizabeth Gilbert
soft summer gone detail, quilted with embroidery,
 included in quilt national 2017, surface design award

I'm pleased to announce that Prayer To The Sky will be included in Quilt National 2021.  The exhibition is opening next month and preparations are underway.  One of the things is that last week, the director of the Dairy Barn asked me to answer several questions with videos.  Making selfie-videos is new for me, in fact it took my breath away but then I relaxed.  I'm sharing just a little clip about my fifty years of quilt making here for you dear readers.  The entire video will be ready next month and will be presented along with all the other artists' on the QN you tube channel.

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

soft

 I wanted my quilt, Soft Summer Gone, to have a kind of timelessness, as if it has always been.
 I made it large and simple and open with emptiness.
 
 I coloured it with yellow golden-rod wildflowers gathered at the end of summer from the fields and ditches.
  I stitched it with large gestures that reached and crossed and with small circles that rose up.
 I wanted my viewer to yearn to touch the stitches and the soft cloth.
I hoped to cause a poetic experience deep within.

Quilt National sent our work back to us last week.
I unfolded her softly.  

Sunday, August 13, 2017

quilt national 17 with live interviews

Quilt of Fantastical Things by Judith Quinn Garnett
40" x 40"  acrylic paint, cotton canvas, threads, felt, linen and bottle caps
detail of Quilt of Fantastical Things
 Fatigue Threshold by Amy Meissner
70" x 54"   abandoned quilt top, vintage domestic textiles, cotton embroidery floss
Detail of Fatigue Threshold
Shift 1 by Liz Axford
75" x 69"  hand dyed cotton
Award of Excellence
Detail of Shift 1
Defining Moments 12:  NO means NO  by Carol Larson
49" x 39"   cotton sateen, perle cotton, textile paint
Detail of NO means NO
 Whitewater by Benedicte Caneill
36" x 36"  cotton fabric, textile paint, mono printed and quilted
Detail of Whitewater
L'oiseau de Mme Wazoh  by Ginny Smith
38" x 36"  feedbag dishtowel and cotton
Detail of Mme Wazoh
Soft Summer Gone by Judy Martin
100" x 100"  plant dyed silk, silk and wool threads, hand stitched
Lynne Goodman Borgman Award for Surface Design
also  Surface Design Association award for Surface Design


Click on our names for the individual 2 minute videos produced by Quilt National of those of us who attended the opening.
detail of Soft Summer Gone
full view is here

"Many of the individual artists clearly have given heart and soul to create some of the best work of their careers and I emphatically congratulate them"  Nancy Crow - founder of Quilt National and juror of QN 17

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Quilt National 17 (the Nancy Crow legacy)

....and the Skeptic by Karen Schulz   81 " x 76"
cotton fabric, cotton batting, thread, yarn
hand dyed, machine pieced, machine quilted, couched
 
"I found myself asking the question, "What are you afraid of?"  The answer came back, "Look at what people have done.  You can do anything."  I decided then and there to embrace the whole of myself, the poet and the skeptic."  Karen Schulz Maryland USA  (Juror's award)

Nightshift by Kit Vincent 79 x 79 "
cotton, silk, dyed and commercial cottons, thread, batting
machine pieced and quilted, appliqued
 
 "I began without expectation, allowing the design to surface as I worked.  My goal was to challenge the perception of the material and to create an emotional repsonse with the viewer."  Kit Vincent  Ontario Canada
Chasms 23 by beth Carney  54 x 67 inches
hand dyed cotton fabtic, silk batting, madeira threads
raw edged fusing, machine pieced and quilted
 
" The bright colours traveling through the sometimes black, sometimes murky-grey, become a symbol of who we are as we move through experiences in life that continually challenge us.  Beth Carney  New York  USA
Zebra by Bonnie Bucknam  51 x 51 inches
hand dyed cotton fabric
machine pieced and quilted
 
"While touring South Africa, I had the pleasure of seeing a zebra in the wild." Bonnie Bucknam Washington USA

Conversations on Meaning  by Gerri Spilka  82 x 100 inches
commercial and hand dyed cottons, cotton and wool batting, cotton thread
improvisationally machine pieced and quilted (denoted by the artist
machine quilted by Marina Baudoin
 
"Interactions series reflects a fascination with themes that reappear.  The interactions, relationships, and ambiguities inherent among people, place, and human-made and biolgical forces."  Gerri Spilka  Pennsylvania USA  Juror's award
Formations #26 by Petra Fallaux  83 x 85 inches
hand dyed pima cottons, procion mx dyes
freely cut fabric, machine pieced and quilted
 
"Having grown up in the Netherlands, I find that I am most attracted to spare geometric forms.  Formation 26 evokes the vast horizon and moody morning skies over coastal Holland"  Petra Fallaux Pennsylvania USA

 Petra Fallaux was one of the jurors for this 20th biennial of Quilt National and says this about the exhibition as a whole:

"The driving motor behind the first Quilt National at the Dairy Barn in 1979 was to provide an exhibit opportunity to artists whose work was unwelcome by the organizers of the existing quilt shows.  This original impetus has resulted in a rich, tangible, and continuous biennial history of throught-provoking Quilt nationals.  Today, Quilt National is an art exhibition among many others of its kind, but it will forever be the first of its kind."  Petra Fallaux
Nancy Crow, one of Quilt National Founders has ben making quilts for 40 years
standing in front of the quilt that was awarded best of show 
"Wow!  What a rich variety of works greet viewers of quilt National 17.  As a juror, I was thrilled to see so many strong quilts entered by artists whose work I did not know and additionally thrilled by the astounding new growth shown by seasoned artists known for their singular earlier styles.  In all categories, I found that the best works exhibited dramatically strong ideas combined with dedicated techniques that were skillfully executed."  Nancy Crow   Ohio  USA
Line Study 17 by Margaret Black    90 x 75 inches
Kona cotton, thread, wool bat, cotton batting
free form cutting and piecing, machine quilted
Best of Show award