Classes Offered

Saturday, May 30, 2015

13th Around Oregon Annual


The opening reception at The Arts Center in Corvallis was well attended this evening. The lovely, summer-like evening was probably a contributing factor.  There was a wonderful selection of pieces chosen by the juror Johanna Seasonwein.  The show includes painting, photography, basketry, mixed-media, 3D, furniture and one textile piece, my Rift Valley.  Johanna's desire to include a wide range of media resulted in a beautiful, interesting show.


Here is my piece hanging in the stage area.  Watch those appetizers, please!


The Arts Center is a lovely old Gothic Revival style church and is a beautiful venue for showing art.  What I like about this place is that they never crowd the art.  Each piece gets a chance to really shine on its own.  Below is one of the winners of the four Juror's Awards.  It is Silver Salmon by Analee Fuentes.  


Here's The Art Center from the outside.  Pretty cool building!



Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Conference Clips

 The 2015 SAQA conference opened on Thursday evening with the Ice Breaker event and opening remarks.  Everyone had a few minutes to follow the directions of Lyric Kinard in making an intuitive piece of art with just the materials in the center of the table.  Halfway through we switched tables and pieces of art.  I'm not sure these were masterpieces but it got everyone talking and laughing together.  Fiberlandia had been launched!
 Friday started bright and early at 8:30 AM.  Not sure we were all ready for the bright part! SAQA president, Kris Sazaki, got our attention and enthusiasm level to a high point in no time, though. Our first speaker was Namita Gupta Wiggers.  Quilt: A rose by any other name does not smell as sweet had us all thinking about the quilt as a deeper form of art than just a lovely piece hanging on a wall.

I attended two break-out sessions that day as well. Carolyn Higgins talked about mastering social media as an effective tool for marketing your work.  I can check some of her suggestions off the list but it looks like I should bite the bullet and have an actual web site, in addition to this blog.  Ugh!  Sometimes we forget that as artists the marketing part can take as much time as the making of the art. I did love her comment that Pinterest is like potato chips for the eyes.

The second session was an excellent presentation by Sue Reno on how artists can develop and maintain a daily artistic practice.  Besides her own suggestions, she shared the remarks from 16 successfully practicing art quilters and what worked for them.  Many of the ideas I already employ to get me into the studio and working but some were new things to try.  It was very helpful to hear how some had many other responsibilities to juggle and still made time for studio work.

Rosalie Dace of South Africa led a panel of international students after lunch.  They talked about what influenced their artistic style and how they, too, found balance between their creative lives and their studies and home life.  The slides of their work were really enjoyable.


That evening was the Maker Space event in a banquet room of the Doubletree Hotel.  There were 10 tables set up with someone at each demonstrating a technique of some sort.  I was one of the demonstrators, doing small, simple landscapes using fusible web.  This is me talking until my voice was hoarse.  It must have been a success because the noise level in the room was very high!

 Below is my friend Georgia French demonstrating needle-felting by machine.  She said her machines were humming away all evening.  It was a fast, and long, 3 hours.

The next morning we had an outstanding talk by artist Maria Shell who lives in a remote area of Alaska.  Despite that, she has been prolifically showing in her own state well as across the country.  She gave us many good tips to get into shows but the main three were:  1 - Do the work. Have at least 10 to 20 pieces ready to be entered before starting.  2 - Enter as many shows as you can that accept fiber art.  Follow the entry directions to the letter. 3 - Don't be discouraged by rejection.  She only gets accepted to about 40 percent of the shows she applies for.  She does think Visions has a special rejection stamp with her name on it, though.

We also had a panel of local textile artists from the Oregon College of Art and Craft.  The slides of their work were fascinating and the wide variety of artistic interpretations was delightful.  It will be fun to follow their progress as they work through to graduation.  The students are Molly Eno, Melina Bishop, Kaylin Francis and Tyler Peterson.

The afternoon was open to anyone who wanted to take a tour of a part of Portland.  I took one car load to the Alberta Arts District in north Portland.  We had a lovely lunch at a French-style bistro and then explored the shops and galleries up and down the street.  Here is Sherrie enjoying a shady moment in the doorway of the Guardino Gallery.  We loved having the sun out the whole weekend so out out-of-state visitors could really enjoy the natural beauty of Oregon.  One group even took a trip up the Columbia River Gorge to Multnomah Falls.


We got back in time for a nap (yes!) and time to freshen up for the Wild About SAQA dinner and silent auction of small quilts.  The dinner selections were delicious and then the fun began.  Everyone had some time before and during dinner to bid on their favorite pieces.  There were over 100 donations so it took some time to look and decide and then keep up on your bid sheets.
Here are two examples of the selections.  Each one was originally 6" by 8" and then they were matted and put into plastic sleeves.  The Mt. Hood rendition is mine which I made to look like the badges that the "Portland experts" wore all weekend.  The second one is a lovely little piece made by Terry Grant.

Sunday ended with remarks by Beth Smith and Charlotte Bird on the inner workings of Quilt Visions and how to successfully enter the show.  Unless you have actually mounted and curated a show, you have no idea how much work they can be. 

We ended the conference with a panel of four local artists led by Jeannette Di Nicolis Meyer.  They had actual pieces there to see along with slides of their work.  They were Sidnee Snell, Jean Wells Keenan, Bonnie Bucknam and Sheila Finzer.  Although I know all four women, it was still interesting to hear their stories of how they got to the level of achievement that they enjoy today.  No one is resting on their laurels though and we can all hope to see more of their work in the future.

And, this is now, officially, the longest post I've ever written.

Monday, May 11, 2015

Rift Valley moves on

Rift Valley has been accepted into the Around Oregon Annual at The Arts Center in Corvallis.  The show opens Friday, May 29th with a reception and juror's talk from 5:30 to 7:30 PM.  There is also a Brown Bag Artist Talk at noon on June 4th.  The show runs through July 11th.  The Arts Center is located at 700 SW Madison, Corvallis, OR.  For more information go to www.theartscenter.net
Currently this piece is being shown at the last venue for the statewide SAQA traveling show, Exploring Layers.  This show is up at the Artist In Residence gallery at Pioneer Place in Portland, next to the Mark Wooley Gallery. It really is a big beautiful space and the show looks great there.  That show is on display through May 18th. Stop in if you are in downtown Portland before then.  Here are some images from the show.








Monday, May 4, 2015

Katano dying workshop


The 2015 SAQA Fiberlandia conference is over.  As they always are, the conference was alternately energizing and exhausting.  There is so much to take in, learn from and be inspired by that it usually takes several days to decompress and filter all the experiences through one's brain.  I was pretty tired by the time I got to yesterday's afternoon workshop with Ana Lisa Hedstrom but I wouldn't have missed it for anything.  Ana Lisa did a marvelous job of passing along the very beginning skills of doing katano shibori dying which is using stitching (in this case machine stitching) to act as a resist to the fabric dye.  I was too busy stitching to get a picture of everyone bent over their machines but here we are bringing the samples up out of the dye pots.
We couldn't wait to get all those little sodden pieces distributed to the correct person and start ripping open the stitches.  The four hours went by in a flash.  Below are my four samples that were rinsed out once again today and ironed flat.  My stitching lines on the two tan pieces are pretty light but I thought the blue samples came out great.  They look like x-rays of plants.  Can you see the meadow grasses on the far right and the fan palm leaf next to it? Pretty cool. I can't wait to try more of this.