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Archive for the ‘Bird’s Eye View’ Category

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Disappointments, Challenges, Opportunities

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

I didn’t post last night. I had a High Fiber Diet meeting. I came home with a headache because of an incident at the meeting. I also came home to find that Allegro did not make it into the SAQA Beyond Comfort show and was very disappointed.

Then, a member of High Fiber Diet e-mailed me with great news that our Bird’s Eye View show was accepted for the Maude Kerns Art Center in Eugene. The bad news was that they wanted it when I had scheduled it at Trinity Cathedral in March and April. Eek!

So there you have my disappointment and my challenge.

Now that I am seeing some of the work that was chosen for Beyond Comfort, I think it would not have played nicely in the show. I have another show to enter that is looking for:

Quilt artists are encouraged to present works where they are reaching outside the terminology of a quilt. Surface Design artists are asked to show works that use various materials in a fiber technique (i.e. weaving with wire) or to stretch their fiber techniques to new boundaries.

So, back to the Bird’s Eye View show. What to do? Well, amazingly, last night at the meeting, we discussed trying to do more than one show — possibly finding a venue and mounting a show. So, that is what I am doing. Bird’s Eye View will go to Maud Kern’s and we will have a new show titled, Back to Nature. I invited members to bring me work that references the natural world – abstract or representational. We will jury a small show to go to Trinity. I am really excited about this and have gotten great response from members today.

So, there you have my opportunities.I feel energized and invigorated.

In a comment to my post on the experiment with deColourant, my friend Judy said they had experimented with it in Jane Dunnewold’s studio last week, and they found it worked best to let it dry for a day or so. I hate to wait, but that is what I am doing with a couple of scarves I treated today.

They will probably get another layer of something. Here they are on my drying rack:

I used this piece of corrugated cardboard to print. I love it.

I have one more page in my fiber sketchbook. The one up there is deconstructed windows.

Posted in Bird's Eye View, Discharging fabric, High Fiber Diet, Juried Shows | 3 Comments »

Here I Am!

Monday, October 11th, 2010

I stitched all week-end and finally realized that I was totally crazy to think I could finish this by today! I have so enjoyed the sitting and stitching. I will take this to California with me this week and continue stitching and hope to enter it in another show later this year.

I ran out of the perfect Valdani embroidery thread and couldn’t find a local store that carries it so I ended up with another brand that has a slightly different colorway, but I think it is blending nicely.

Lisa drove back here last night and since her flight wasn’t until tonight, I got to spend the day with her. She is in a show at Flora, here in Portland, so we went down to check it out since she missed the opening on Friday night.

Here are some pretty photos I took at the store which has lots of natural elements.

Lisa’s friend, Trish, met us there and then took us to a nice little Vegan restaurant in the Pearl. I had a delicious bowl of chili and a Marionberry lemonade.

After some shopping and roaming around town, we picked up Stephanie and went to M & M’s school to surprise them. They love their Aunt Lisa.

The kids showed us their crazy bands (colorful rubberband shapes) while we had an after school snack of edamame.

Here are Lisa and Mia checking out photos on her camera.

All of a sudden we realized that Lisa needed to get her bags and get to the airport. Fortunately, the airport was pretty quiet and she made her flight because we were a bit behind schedule.

I need to get moving and finish packing up. We are leaving for California in the morning. I am going to be at PIQF on Thursday so let me know if you are going to be there. Our High Fiber Diet show, Bird’s Eye View, will be there.

Posted in Bird's Eye View, handstitching, High Fiber Diet, Inspiration, M & M, Mark making, My Brilliant Daughters | 6 Comments »

This and That

Friday, May 21st, 2010

Yesterday, I went over to Washington State to the Camas library to see the Bird’s Eye View Show that is hanging there for the month of May in  The Upstairs Gallery. That is my Prairie Fields which you see as you get off the elevator.

It is a nice space with nice natural light. Camas is a quaint town with a paper mill smell. The library is very nice and state of the art.

This is a view down into the library from the gallery.

My other quilt is hanging on the back wall.

If you click on this you can get a better look. That is Meander in the center on the back wall.

I had an epiphany after my little show a couple of weeks ago and after looking at this show. I need to work larger. The work I do needs to be BIG!! I am quite happy with the Aspen quilt. I think it will make a nice impact.

That being said, the piece I am working on now will not be so big. I am constrained by the size of the shibori piece I am using. (See! That is a problem. I use my art cloth. I need to make it bigger!!)

Anyway, I am doing an abstract of an old growth forest using this felted roving and a shibori background.

Here is my beginning attempt at felting trees with moss.

I broke the needles on my embellishment attachment so I have done more work on it with the hand needle punch. I like how it looks. I made a stupid beginner’s error – nuff said!!

Instead of buying new needles, I may buy a dedicated embellisher tomorrow morning.  I really like the possibilities of using felted roving in some of my work.

Last month I blogged about sharing our favorite books at the HFD meeting. I finally got the list of books.

Chris:     Fine Art Quilts ’97

Helene:  a book on Chinese art

Folk Tales of the Amur (primarily for the illustrations)

Designing from Nature by Dendel, 1978

Caroline:  Textile Translations by Maggie Grey

Deanna:  Quilt of Belonging by Bryan, 2006

Catherine:  Hundertwasser by Rand

Georgia:  Inspired to Stitch by Springall, 2005

Zee:       The Artist’s Way by Cameron

12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women

Heart Steps by Cameron

Patsy:   Frontier by L’Amour ’84

Gerrie:   Abstraction in Art and Nature by Hale, 1972

The Meaning of Trees by Hageneder

Oregon:  Images of the Landscape by Terrill

Teresa:   Design: a Lively Guide to Design Basics for Artists and Craftspeople by Aimone

Diane:    Nature’s Studio by Colvin, 2005

Bonnie Halfpenny:  The Map as Art, by Harmon

Vickie:   When Wanderers Cease to Roam by Swift

Ila:        Quilt National 2003

Amy:    Bird by Bird by LaMott

Art and Fear by Bayles and Orland

Stitch Magic by Beaney & Littlejohn

Maarja:  The Creative Habit by Tharp

The Creative Artist by Leland

Shirley:  The Uncommon Quilter by Williamson 2007

Mary Goodson:  Surface Design for Fabric by Proctor & Lew

Laura Jaszkowski:  Art and Fear by Bayles and Orland

Organizing for the Creative Person by Lamping & Lehmkuhl, ’93

Mary Arnold:  Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Edwards

Bonnie:   Nancy Crow:  Quilts and Influences

The Art of Richard Diebenkorn

I was intrigued by the book, Designing from Nature.  was able to find it on Amazon for about $4. It is a nice little source book for using forms from nature in art.

I guess you can tell that I did not make it to Eugene to take the workshop with Jason Pollen. Mr C really needed me to be around this week-end and since I am going on retreat with the STASH friends next week, I felt it was a good thing to have peaceful week-end at home.

I leave you with a photo of the beautiful eggs that I purchased at the Farmer’s Market –

Posted in Art Dates, Bird's Eye View, High Fiber Diet, My creations | 3 Comments »

Aspen Progress

Friday, May 7th, 2010

This is silk shantung organza that I have splattered and dribbled with paint. I usually fuse the organza to another layer of plain organza. But for this larger landscape, I think I may fuse it to muslin or white cotton to give a more opaque look.

Here is a detail:

I hope that I didn’t overdo the paint, but usually when I cut a strip and then stitch it, it magically becomes a tree.

I pulled out several yellows and yellow-greens which I fused for making aspen leaves.

I have leaf shapes printed on freezer paper which will be used as templates for cutting leaves. I have several sizes and shapes.

I would love to go down to my studio and prep some fabric and start cutting. However, we have been out at the opening reception for Artists Among Us. The food was fabulous. I think there were more than 200 people there. Most were the artists and their friends. Not a lot of shopping tonight, but I did sell one scarf. The big shopping day is Sunday, but I think we will get quite a few shoppers tomorrow.

I received many nice compliments on my work. And lots of how do you do that and how long does it take you and is that hand appliqued – (ha ha ha ha)! One lovely young woman, daughter of a member of the parish, came all the way from Walla Walla, just to meet me and see my work. She is a budding art quilter. So lovely to talk to her. Actually, I got most of my thumbs up from the younger people.

Tomorrow morning, we are celebrating Mom’s Day with Steph and family. We are going out to brunch since I need to be at the show on Sunday. We have had a sense that warmer weather is on the way. It was sunny most of today. That is making me happy. I am going to start planting the gardens. I hope we had our last freeze last night.

This was also the opening of the Bird’s Eye View show. I was sorry to miss that. I hope to get out there next week to see it.

Posted in Bird's Eye View, My creations, painting fabric | 5 Comments »

A Bird’s Eye View

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Title: Meander

A meander in general is a bend in a sinuous watercourse. A meander is formed when the moving water in a river erodes the outer banks and widens its valley. A stream of any volume may assume a meandering course, alternatively eroding sediments from the outside of a bend and depositing them on the inside. The result is a snaking pattern as the stream meanders back and forth across its down-valley axis.
The term derives from the river known to the ancient Greeks as (Μαίανδρος) Maiandros or Maeander, characterised by a very convoluted path along the lower reach. As such, even in Classical Greece the name of the river had become a common noun meaning anything convoluted and winding, such as decorative patterns or speech and ideas, as well as the geomorphological feature. Strabo said: “… its course is so exceedingly winding that everything winding is called meandering.

Source: Wikipedia

I love this piece. I loved making it. I would happily live with it.

Titled: Prairie Fields and Circles

Detail

Last night, members of High Fiber Diet brought their pieces for the Bird’s Eye View to our meeting. They all came home with me. On March 7th, two other members will join me in jurying the show.

I am currently working on two pieces that I can’t share — maybe glimpses. I didn’t get much done today. I sorted and folded my artist cloth and got some inspiration. I screened some images that may or may not go onto my next 12 X 12 quilt, which is due March 1st with the theme, blue, white and a touch of black. Not sure if I want to go literal or abstract.

Posted in Bird's Eye View, Construction series, High Fiber Diet | 4 Comments »

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