Coming Back to Earth

Well, moving sure took it's toll on my blogging.  I see I haven't posted since May which was about the time our house went on the market.  It has been a whirlwind ever since.  Believe it or not, things are actually looking calmer as the end of December approaches.

I have been working in the studio in spite of all the moving uproar, working hard!  I am part of a show at the Maude Kerns Art Center in Eugene for the month of January with a group of five art quilters.  We each chose a main color to work with in all our pieces.  From that we were allowed to use the color across the color wheel from our chosen color and any neutral colors.  The kicker?  We each needed to provide five main quilts, plus five other pieces, which could be old work.  However, in my crazy head, I decided that even the additional five pieces needed to be new work. 

I chose the color Blue. That has meant working with Orange as well.  The piece pictured above is called Altitude.  It is a pretty obvious use of blue and orange.  A second piece, below, is a more subtle rendition of that color combination.  I called this one Fallow Fields. The five main pieces each measure 24" wide by 30" high.

Here is a small detail of the larger piece.  I had not yet finished the hand stitched rain lines when this was taken but I think you can see where I'm going. 

Next post will show more pieces.  I am currently working on #8.  

 Boy, it feels good to be "back"!

Paint the Town

Paint the Town

 Our High Fiber Diet group show, Simply Red, is at its third venue, The LaSells Stewart Center on the OSU campus in Corvallis, Oregon.  We had a wonderful opening reception on Monday evening.  There was a rousing orchestral concert going on in one of the performance halls so we heard snippets in the background as people came and went through the doors.  It is a beautiful venue and there was a nice turn out for the event.  Here are some photos of the other work in the show.  I got a little bit of pleasure out of having my piece, Paint the Town, used on the artist name tags that evening.

Exploring Layers

Exploring Layers is the latest regional SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) show that will be touring various venues in the Sate of Oregon for the next year and a half.  This is my piece that was juried into the show.  I called it Rift Valley.  I have been wanting to make a piece for many years called Olduvai Gorge and was collecting fabric printed with any type of bones.  When it came time to really put the pieces together, it seemed too site specific and too "boney".  I envisioned something more expansive and more universally understood.  I was inspired by looking a picture in my dentist's office to make something that looked more like a landscape without being too realistic.  I have been moving toward greater abstraction in my work in the last year or so and really enjoying it.  As this came together it seemed like the perfect balance between realism and suggestion.  I am happy with the change of perspective between the center and the two outer edges.  Hopefully, it brings the viewer in closer to study the details.  And, yes, there are a few bones deep beneath the earth.

This show is debuting at the Chehalem Cultural Center, February 21 - March 28.  The artist's reception is March 7 from 5 - 8PM.  The address is 415 Sheridan St, Newberg, OR and their hours are Tues - Sat, 9AM to 6PM.

Here are a couple of detail shots.  See the bones?

7 x 10 Inches

My little 7" x 10" quilt is done.  It is a submission to SAQA's traveling trunk show.  It is for sale but if it doesn't sell at the end of the 3-year run, I might be getting it back.  I like it so it would be fine if that happens. I am calling the piece The Space In Between.  I wish I could photograph it better but the polyester wants to reflect light and that washes out the color a bit.

It's a little different technique for me.  It was printed using heat-set disperse dye on polyester.  The first layer of dye was simply a black splatter.  Over that I layered a section of olive green and a section of golden yellow.  I've had the piece of fabric for about 3 years and never quite knew what to do with it, mainly because it was only about 8.5" by 11".  SAQA asked that these little pieces measure 7" by 10", so there you go.  I embellished it by hand sewing a selection of rayon cords, a vintage metallic braid and glass beads.  It is machine quilted with rayon and a Japanese metallic silk thread.

My statement about the piece:  As humans we occupy only a small percentage of the Earth's surface.  However, our impact on the Earth is significant.  We are a very busy species.