Seamless Skin

Its been a year of Growth, Blessings, and Grace...and for that I'm mighty thankful!

Winter is not officially here, but its here...this will be my first winter working in my basement workshop and even with the vents open and the ceramic heater going it was a tad on the chilly side making me decide to cut back to 3 days a week.  I set up a small area on a shelf by the kitchen table here at home for sketching and mark making...taking the calligraphy class has kept my wheels turning about writing on my quilts.  I plan to continue studying with her for a little bit just to see where I can take this writing on quilts.  I'll also add this to my altered books which I'll resume here at home now that I'll be spending more time at home due to the season.

In the calligraphy class we've worked on simplified letters since it was only a total of 8 hours over 4 weeks.  She has emphasized expressiveness versus strict adherence to the letter form since the time was so short.  The end product will be a handmade book which I've enjoyed working on at home and will show here later when its finished.  Here is a sample of play-practice:

 It will prolly get some colour and torn up to be placed inside my book...

Here is the 2nd quilt in the Poetry series (yes, I'm still working on the 2nd one) that is 2/3rds of the way quilted.  My love affair with my circular attachment is coming to an end.  The 3rd one will get hand quilting but I'm still creating the fabric for it.  I need at least 2 more of me cloned in order to churn out these ideas rolling around in my head.

 

It was my plan (laid to rest) to enter this one and the one below into Form, Not Function but I couldn't get myself together to get them properly finished and photographed by the time the deadline rolled upon me.  2009 is designated for the year to focus more on submissions and selling work.  Although, I didn't complete the 4-5 quilts for 2008...its been a very productive year for me full of growth, blessings, and grace.

  Although I was pleased with this one, yesterday I thought it needed more writing, more graphic layers going on, particularly on the left side in the upper half.  I'll work on it next week so that I can let it go and move on. 

Will it Go 'Round in Circles

Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky...I got a song ain't got no melody, gonna sing it to my friends...(be the first to guess who sings this song and receive a quilted postcard from me...leave answer in the comments).  This song has been stuck in my head since I started quilting (in circles) the new piece.  (I'm not showing these because I plan to enter them in places...so until I can build up enough quilts, just snippets or studies or prep work).  I'm using a matte thread choice that blends excellently into the background adding jut a hint of shading.  The panels have a lot of depth to them and I love looking at the entire surface.  So, this time, I didn't want the quilting line to stand out.

I started in my workshop at 2:00 and quilted until 5:30 when the circles where beginning to get to me and realizing that I only quilted about 1/6th of it (dense and overlapping circles) I started repeating "slow and steady wins the race" and took a break to do some hand stitching (i.e. piddling) with what I hope to be a postcard (commissioned at that) for a friend.

And I had a lovely, lovely, lovely mail day...when my camera and card find themselves in the same place, I'll show ya what came today.  Now, I'm kinda hungry...gonna go say my goodbyes to my parents and great-niece and head home.

Peace,

 

Getting on with life

Am I one of the rare few who hasn't been glued to the Olympics?  Sure, I've caught some of it each day so far and have enjoyed watching, but its like I've caught an onset of adult ADD, not being able to sit and watch tv beyond 30 minutes.  Although, my reading has increased again and I'm loving Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard (for which she won the Pulitzer).  I have the gift edition which includes a cd of the poet reading the poems.  The enjoyment stems for poetry which has geography, history (both personal and collective) as propelling devices central to the work.  I'm a sucker for it, just takes me to the moutain top.  I listened to the cd for the first time on Friday with Ron and Crystal and it has since been a staple in my car, playing it loud with the windows rolled down (incoming throw back song lyrics:  diamond in the back, with a sunroof top, digging the scene with a ganster lean, woohoooooo) Crystal also informed me that Trethewey will be headlined at the Kentucky Women Writers' Conference which is where I was left floored by Jessica Care Moore last year.

The other book that has me mesmerized is John T. Campbell's Middle Passages.  The most effective and fun history class I had was at UofL, taught by a visiting Nigerian professor.  He had us to assume historical personalities and study their writings during a selective time frame for a staged debate with an opposing contemporary of the period.  We had to stay in role for a week or more, never being allowed to answer questions in our own voices but how we understood the assumed character would answer...well Campbell's book is written in a similar vein, making broad sweeps of historical data much more intimate, interesting and meaningful.  He discusses the back drop in which personalities lived, formed and implemented their ideas, contradicted themselves in the face of changing current affairs and how their lives may have or did rub up on their contemporaries.  I'm even thinking about writing the author a personal note to thank him for such a book.  It was one that I had checked from the library and noted it for adding to my own shelf and low and behold I found it at the HalfPrice bookstore along with the book on quilter Mary Bendolph's work...destiny, fate, I tell ya!

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Okay, when I'm stressed the one trait that irritates me, hugely shows up in my life: indecisiveness!  I hemmed and hawed over going to the bookmaking workshop this past Friday and talked myself out of it with the decision to put the money toward a large (for me) PFD fabric order.  I did make it to the Carnegie Art Quilt Network bi-monthly meeting on Saturday and showed the progression of the Poetry quilts and received some suggestions for forthcoming quilts in the series which I might or might not consider, but I appreciated very much the different perspectives.  I enjoy hearing perspectives of other artists and particularly non-artists which is why I like having my mother look over my work when I'm in the workshop or having my daughter ask why write on the fabric when I am only going to obscure the writing.  It falls under the heading "tell them so I'll know".

The indecisiveness showed up on Sunday as well...over visiting another quilt meeting.  In addition to the stress over a personal situation, I'm also home a lot less with my workshop being across town and trying to spend at least 4 days there for 20 hours worth of activity which translates into being there longer to get in 15-20 hours of activity that I deem significant and progressive.  I have two other things on the agenda for this week...attending Louisville Area Fiber&Textile Artists meeting and stopping by the headquarters of Embroidery Guild of America. 

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The scraps left over from the Poetry quilts will be turned into trading card, post card sizes up to journal size quilts.  I couldn't stand the thought of these scraps which I've bestowed special importance on, languishing in the basket with all the other peasant scraps.  Maybe this mini-series will be called New Lease on Life...or Born Again...or Second Chance Art or Reacquainted or Deja Vue or You Remind Me Of or (enough, we get it already!)

 

The Story In the Work

I was asked about my motivation behind the 725 series and the short answer is a poem I had written years ago...a poem that is part of a manuscript of poems based on my family's mythology/genealogy.  The long answer which I'm going to flush out more here because I'm borrowing an adage from a friend's poem that says "tell them so I'll know".

First, it starts with my love, love, love for processes that alter the surface of the fabric, you name it, I want it close at hand and available in my workshop so that I can work spontaneous with ideas.  The second thing, and I can't really say that it happens in a consecutive order like I'm laying out here, but for now, I'll say the second thing, was asking myself how I can make what I do look like me, say my name, come from my heart...a yearning to make my complex cloth speak beyond just techniques used.

Back in the winter I had a poetry reading and inspite of not having any new work in a long while, the process really opened me up and took me higher (hello sly stone).  Most of the poems where from the manuscript I mentioned and I feel it is my strongest set of work and I then pondered how I could reflect that sense of intimacy and energy in my quilt.  I was already armed with the insight of how excited I became whenever viewing quilts with text, especially text that was slightly obscured, hidden.  This is where the idea enters to align my poems with my quilts.

725 West Saint Catherine street was the home my great Uncle M.C. purchased for his mother, my great grandmother around 1945ish or so.  It was the first house I entered after my birth and it was a place I practically lived due to my parents both working either 2 jobs or lots of overtime until they purchased their own home when I was five.  My great-grandmother didn't pass on until I was in my mid-20s and her and her home where major presences in my development.  I wrote a poem entitled 725 West Saint Catherine after I took my 2 oldest children then 14 and 5 by the house to photograph it and to explain to them what it meant in my life.  The poem became the backdrop on the cloth.  I hand wrote stanzas as the first layer and then with consecutive layers I tried to strategically keep areas open for certain words to peep through.

The circles as layers are representative of wholeness, history and time as fluid.  The lines crossing through the circles represent oppositional energy that compliments and enhances and gives power to the personal and the collective sense of identity.  It is my attempt to make sankofa (an Akan concept that translate to looking back to go forward) a visual experience.

I initially saw them as very large pieces, larger than anything I've ever made.  But because I found myself with the emotional attachment that I have with the poem, the energy and connection, I wanted to work out all the symbols and design and techniques out on smaller pieces first. 

I'm placing the binding on them this week and finished one yesterday while at the eye doctor.  I gave a brief show and tell right there in the waiting room after several women wanted to see and touch. 

Quilting Still Life

head+heart+hands=quilt

Earlier in the year I upgraded my Typepad membership with the intent of centralizing my blogs.  I wanted 2 other blogs for my photo imagery and another for showcasing my finished quilts for marketing.   An upgrade was also going to allow me to customize my headings but after months at the upgrade level the extra 40 bucks just hasn't been worth it.  Hopefully Typepad will know to delete my other 2 blogs and not this one since I wasn't asked at the time I downgraded a minute ago.  My new set up for photo images is now on wordpress at eyepiece: an amateur takes aim.  I'm looking at free website hosts or nearly free for a website, specifically Homestead and EasySite and Google.

Yesterday I started quilting on another of the smaller pieces in the 725 series:

I'm working my way up in size with the hope that once I get to the 3 largest pieces, everything in my head and heart and hands will be conveyed into the quilt.  While we where away last week I started with hand embroidery which turned out to be a waste of time.  When I returned home I viewed it through the red plastic that comes with the 3-in-1 colour wheel only to see the value was the same as the background.  The red pebble quilting was fmq and adds a subtle change in value and the neon green thread blings.  I used the circle attachment for the larger circles.  The neon green thread lines float over the other layers so well-Yea for color theory!

What I forgot to anticipate was shrinkage caused by quilting and now I see the piece as too narrow.  To solve this problem I'm considering one of the following:

1. cut it down in size
2. remove the top and bottom border
3. change the orientation from vertical to horizontal
4. attach the 2 other panels which poses a new challenge for me as I've never attached panels that where already quilted.

The other issue is whether to screen "725" over the piece or screen just one digit per panel since this piece has 2 other companions.  I'll have the weekend to think it over but if you have any suggestions before Monday, comeback and leave a comment or email me

Peace!

Going blank for a title, but read it anyways...

Mo and I had a late lunch.  She was excited about scoring the highest A on her summer mid-term in her Intro to Pan-African Studies and blabbed on and on about how she is among the few of the 20 students who seem to have had previous exposure to some of the topics of discussion.  I refrained from getting snarky but I did gently remind her that her mother (me) was aiming for a double major back in the day in Educational Psych and Pan-African Studies...(I was only 4 courses away from the PAS major but I was more ready to be done with school).  It is a little reassuring to see some of what I've tried to incorporate has stuck. 

Yesterday I worked on quilting preliminary studies for The Poetry Series.  I finished 2.  The one above I'm putting in seed stitches and decided afterwards that the larger pieces really call for machine lines.  The machine lines seem more of a compliment to the organic nature of the surface design of the fabric.  Brings in more a sense of order without taking over...and for the same reason I'll put on a small binding.

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How about one big collective "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"?!  How beautiful!  Grace, blog author at Barnyard Chatter awarded me one of her hand-dyed fat quarters for being one of the winning recipients of a blog contest she hosted. Right now, I'm leaning toward placing it into one of the poetry quilts.  Reds, Greens, and Yellows are the main colours.  Thank you Grace.

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I enjoy blogging because I enjoy writing and it has also helped support my novice interest in taking photos.  It enhances self-communication as well as communicating with others and I've found myself wishing that more family and friends would blog. 

A few days ago I picked up a new local publication that profiled "The Creative Class".  It profiled about a dozen or so artists in this city and how they have impacted the image, economics, and culture of Louisville.  Since I'm not one to be all up in the mix, I appreciated the coverage and wished for more coverage of local artists, emerging and well established.  Then I thought, "if" I had the energy and time I would start a blog for just such a purpose.  It would make communication with other artists more accessible. If you're from Louisville and you're reading this, feel free to take this idea and make it your own!