We are coming up on the 9 year anniversary of the start of our amazing journey together. Brenda made this collage of us with our book when it first came out. Amazingly you can still find it in book stores.
We are doing posts for the next 12 days on where are they now? So be sure to check in to the Twelve Blog.
Mr C and I are taking off for a little trip to Central Oregon, staying in a B & B in Bend to celebrate our 52 years of wedded bliss.
This was a happy week here in Portlandia. My art quilt daughter, Kristin La Flamme, was in town and stayed with us for a few days and it was the debut of Quilt Knit Stitch in Portland. It is the latest Quilts, Inc show which included more than quilts — knitting, crocheting, fashion shows, etc. It really was a good show, but the attendance was not what was expected. The quilts part of it was much smaller than you see at Houston and there were some exhibits just for this show. One was with a theme of roses since this is the City of Roses. The show will be back next year and I hope it gets more publicity going and the attendance improves.
On Tuesday, I had volunteered to help set up the SAQA exhibit and Kristin came along to help. You can see us hanging a sampling of this year’s auction quilts that were on display. SAQA had two of their special exhibits there: Metaphors of Aging and Text Messages. Many people who had not seen art quilts like this before and they were quite taken with the stories that accompanied them.
On Thursday, we had STASH at Gale’s house and we helped Reva get started tying her huge t-shirt quilt. Here we are, stitching away. It was meditative, but hard on the back.
On Friday, we were off to QKS. Kristin was doing docenting in the SAQA exhibits and I was intermittently schmoozing at the SAQA table, checking out exhibits and shopping in the vendor area.
It was fun to see our fellow Twelve by 12 member, Terri Stegmiller, who was visiting her aunt who lives here. We were able to get a selfie.
I bought some dye-painted tencil yarn to knit a shrug for myself. I saw it hanging in my friend, Teresa Ruch’s booth and I had to make one too.
Here is the yarn that I bought.
I also bought a set of celtic style alphabet woodblocks. I am going to use these in my next Printed Fabric Bee project.
It was fun to stop by Marcia Derse’s booth and look at her fabrics. She does printing and discharging on hand-dyed fabrics and then they are commercially printed. I don’t buy her fabric because I like to print my own, but I love to look at what she has done.She has wonderful colors and designs. She just moved from Ohio to Whidby Island and says that she loves it here in the North West.
On Saturday, we jumped on the street car again and went back to the show to hear Marci Rae McDade, SDA Journal editor, talk about the exhibit she curated at the Hap Gallery, which includes one of Kristin’s Army Aprons. This is a synopsis of the show.
Hap Gallery is pleased to present Fail-Safe: Discomforts Close to Home, a group exhibition of contemporary textile and fiber-based artists curated by Marci Rae McDade. The show features a range of art forms made with seemingly safe and comforting materials from everyday life that are loaded with incendiary content. Each object reflects an aspect of anxiety, discontent, and longing in the 21st century, from poverty and racism to mortality and digital disconnect. These potent works compel viewers to take stock of the world today as we collectively contemplate our futures.
On Saturday night, Marci hosted a reception at the gallery so Mr C, Kristin and I went down on the street car. I really enjoyed seeing the show. Such a variety of work. I got a couple of photos. This is of Marci and Kristin, with her apron on a manikin in the back. It is knitted from undershirts that her husband wore during his deployments. You can see a better photo of this and more of her work in the Army Wife series, here.
I loved this piece that was thread painted and the pieces were hung to give a 3-D effect.
I also love an exhibit of miniature clothes hand sewn from clothing of deceased people. They are done as a memorial for loved ones to keep. They were exquisitely done.
And so that is what I have been up to. Kristin left at 3 am this morning and now it is quiet around here and I am trying to catch my breath before the next big event in my life.
The annual benefit auction for Studio Art Quilt Associates has been going on for a couple of weeks. I have been remiss for not blogging about it. I acquired this wonderful piece by Sherri McCauley during the first week. I really love it. It has some wonderful surface design and the quilting is very creative. I also love the touch of color to enhance, but not overwhelm the design. Sherri lives in Texas and I was not familiar with her or her work, but I am so happy that I snagged this piece. Here is the back. You can see how creatively she quilted this. She has a very nice label, but I blurred her personal information.
My piece is going on the auction block tomorrow in the final group. You can find it in group 3a. I am a bit nervous because this is a departure from the work I have donated in the past. I have been honored to have my work purchased early in the bidding cycle. Here is my piece, which is one of my discharged silk and shrunk pieces. All of the pieces are 12 inches square.
Four other members of the 12 x 12 group have quilts in this group, you can see them all in a lovely blog post by Deborah on the Twelve blog.
My whirlwind of activity over the past month is winding down. I need and want to get some studio work done. Yesterday, I picked up the 20×12 quilts and 4 of my quilts in the High Fiber Diet Show from Quilt Expo. I did a little shopping the day before. I bought some pre-wound bobbins and titanium needles from Superior threads and this lovely handdyed fabric from my friend Maureen Schmidt from Santa Rosa, where we used to live.
The first bundle is titled Truffle.
This set is Eucalyptus – so gorgeous.
Fall arrived today and so did our fall weather. It rainy, cold and windy. I had to pull our warm clothes and wear socks – ugh! Lisa is flying into Portland tomorrow to spend a week with us. I am looking forward to spending some quality time with her.
Here is Terry Grant helping to hang our 20 X 12 quilts at NW Quilt Expo this afternoon. She came over to my house this morning and we attached the quilts to the felt panels that we made last year for the 12 x 12 quilts. We could 4 of those on a panel, but we could only fit 3 20 X 12 quilts on each panel so it took 4 panels for each set. Here we are – following a printout I did of how the panels needed to be attached.
There was a lot of stretching and bunching and pinning and I am tired. So, hear is my lazy attempt at blogging — photos of the display.
Metamorphosis:
Maps:
Mythology:
Maverick:
Sweet:
It was so exciting to see all of the pieces in the flesh, so to speak. Such talent we have in this group.
Tonight, I put together my presentation on Websites for the SAQA meeting tomorrow. And so my whirlwind of non-studio activity continues.
I have not had much down time — so much to do. I got my resume updated and wrote a new artist statement:
Gerrie Congdon is an artist who works with textiles. She transforms white fabric into complex cloth, using dyes and paints and a variety of techniques. The resulting fabric becomes serene landscapes and abstract compositions. Her work has been exhibited in many venues, locally, nationally and internationally. She is a member of Columbia Fiberarts Guild, High Fiber Diet, Studio Art Quilt Associates and the Surface Design Association.
I had some SDA work to do and I have also been working on preparing for an exhibit of the Twelve’s 20 x 12 quilts at NW Quilt Expo. Terry Grant is coming tomorrow and we will attach them to felt panels for display by theme. I have collected half of the quilts and she has the other half.
Those are Nikki Wheeler’s quilts on the top of the various piles. I love seeing and fondling all of the quilts made by my fellow Twelves.
I have also printed all the signage on ledger size paper.
Tomorrow afternoon, we will deliver them to the venue.
On Wednesday, Terry and I are doing a presentation for SAQA on blogs and websites. I am doing websites. After I get back from delivering the quilts, I have to print out my notes on websites and make copies.
On Thursday, after checking in with the quilt show to see how the display looks, I have to rush back home because (gulp!), we are meeting with a realtor. Looks like we are going to move ahead with the downsizing. It has to be done sooner than later and I want to do it when I have some control over it!
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