In a book 2

Last week a surprise package arrived -- a copy of Martha Sielman's new book, "Art Quilts International: Abstract & Geometric."  It has finally been published, after a long and tortured path.

You may recall that Martha has written two previous books about different sub-genres of art quilts:  "The Natural World" and "People & Portraits," published in 2012 and 2013.  She had a contract with Interweave to do "Abstract & Geometric" and asked for submissions in July 2014.  More than 450 artists responded, and I was thrilled to be selected as one of her in-depth artists; I submitted additional images, and answered a detailed set of questions.  Then disaster.  In January 2015 Interweave was acquired by another company, which cancelled the contract for Martha's book.  After several months of scrambling, she hooked up with Schiffer Publishing, and in the fullness of time the book has finally been issued.

It's a beautiful book, with excellent color reproduction and LOTS and LOTS of quilts!!  There are 29 artists chosen for in-depth interviews, which means four full pages, about six quilts, and quite a bit of text.  In addition, 95 other artists who have one quilt pictured in the book.

At the time I was so impressed with Martha's questions; instead of asking everybody the same things, she had clearly done a lot of research and tailored the questions to the individual.  For instance, she asked me about my daily art projects, why I have said needle-nosed tweezers are my favorite sewing tool, how I chose the title for one of my quilts, and how my love of leftover bits from other people's projects has affected my art.

I haven't yet gotten through the whole book, but have read enough to know that it's going to be one of those books that will stay on my reference shelf forever.  I know a lot of the people in the book, some of them very well, but was impressed at the number of people I had never heard of.  Martha has gone to great lengths to find people from outside the US and those who aren't regulars on the big show circuit.  And the quilts are just plain wonderful to look at.

Why not buy yourself a present?  It's available from several online sources, including here and here.

Here's one of my quilts pictured in the book:

Crazed 8, Incarceration

In a book 1

Earlier this year SAQA put out a call for people to submit images of their greatest quilts from each of the last five decades for a book project.  As I recall the rules, you could only submit one quilt per decade.  When the call came out I thought about it and realized I don't have good images from farther back than the last eight or ten years.  Before that I have slides, which I had digitized but have been disappointed in the quality, or early digital photos with not enough pixels for decent reproduction.

In my memory, I decided to hell with it, wasn't worth entering.

But the other night as we went into a party my friend Marti said to me "You are famous!!  You got accepted into the SAQA book!!  It was in the SAQA email blast this afternoon."

I was mystified.  I told her "I didn't even enter," but apparently I did, because when I got home and checked the email, yes, there was my name in the list of 240+ quiltmakers who were accepted.  The announcement said, "After careful review of hundreds of quilt artists working all over the world, final selections have been made for Art Quilt Retrospective, the book organized by SAQA celebrating this art form's development over the past 50 years."

Then it said, "SAQA will be contacting the participating artists individually via email during the coming month to determine which image(s) will be published.  Please do not contact SAQA at this time about the book."

So I'm in a mysterious limbo. What did I submit? What was accepted?  I can't find any record of my submission -- usually I make a folder on my computer for any new show entry, and put the images and paperwork there, but maybe I entered online through the SAQA website and neglected to keep a record.

Half of me feels elation to be in such great company -- all the great names in art quilting (sadly, many of them have died), so many people whose work I have admired for decades, so many people whom I call friends today.  But half of me feels embarrassment at not remembering how I responded to the call.  Wait -- maybe somebody else nominated me, just as somebody else must have chosen those dead artists.

I hope I (or somebody else) nominated Memorial Day, probably my most memorable quilt.

Memorial Day, 2008 (detail)

I'll let you know when I find out something.  

Sunday funnies 40

Art in Santa Fe 3 -- Georgia O'Keeffe

My brother said "We're in New Mexico -- we have to go to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum."  So even though nobody else was wildly enthusiastic, we did.  I was surprised at a couple of things: first, that the museum is so small, and second, that there are so few of the iconic Georgia paintings.  Only one skull, as I recall, and only two or three big flowers.  That was fine with me, since I'm no big fan of her skulls and flowers.

I am a big fan of her upstate New York barns, and disappointed to find only one such painting.  It was a nice one, in a subdued palette, with only a touch of red at the far left edge to enliven the scene.

The Barns, Lake George, 1926

I also like the urban scenes from her New York City days.

Flagpole, 1925




















This skyscraper painting, done in the 70s, is very similar in composition (but twice as big) to one made in 1926.

Untitled (City Night), 1970s



















Perhaps my favorite paintings in the museum were among her last works, from the late 1970s, when she was severely impaired with macular degeneration.  These vivid watercolors use simplified forms and from-the-tube colors, and glow with the mastery of a hand that remembered very well how to paint, even if the eye had problems keeping up.

Untitled (Abstraction Green Line and Red Circle)

Untitled (Abstraction Green Line and Three Red Circles)

Untitled (Abstraction Blue Wave and Three Red Circles)

Art in Santa Fe 2 -- fiber-like

It's always nice to encounter fiber art in mainstream art venues; makes you feel vindicated for working in a niche world.  For many years Thirteen Moons Gallery in Santa Fe carried only fiber art, but proprietor Jane Sauer closed that business a while ago.  Yet here was Jane back again last month, curating a show at Tansey Contemporary called "Fictitious Fiber" -- many of the works resemble fibers but are made from other materials.

For instance, here are two "baskets" woven from clay and a "doily" cut from wood.

Jim Kraft, Keep Blue Rutile

Jim Kraft, White Basket (detail)

Susanna Starr, Oak Round

Some non-fictitious, actual fibers sneaked into the show, despite its title.  I was familiar with Carol Shinn's densely machine-embroidered pictures, and Judith Content's silk kimono-shaped quilts.

Carol Shinn, Alone in the Sun

Judith Content, Evanescence 

But my favorite pieces were those using textile techniques on non-textile materials.

Here are two large weavings, I guess you'd call them, by Gugger Petter, using newspaper and hemp cording. Some areas were done in plain weave, others used tapestry techniques to lay in different colors.  I could look at these for a long time.

Art in Santa Fe 1

If you noticed last Sunday's post about the blue gates in Santa Fe, and if you inferred that I'd been there recently on vacation, you would be right.  Got on a plane the morning after the election to meet up with my brother (from Australia) and sister (from Michigan) in a place where none of us had been in many years, if at all.  Santa Fe is a big arts center, and we enjoyed our hours of gallery strolling, over three different days, in which we barely scratched the surface of what's available.

Blair Vaughn-Gruler, Accumulation paintings

At GVG Contemporary this batch of "accumulation paintings" caught my eye.  Six inches square and displayed in multiples, they are the simplest of all designs: bits of wood arranged onto a canvas to make a bas relief, and then painted in near-monochrome.  They reminded me of Louise Nevelson's all-black sculptures (although hers are more like ten feet across than six inches).

Several galleries had multiples on display, sized from six inches to maybe a foot.  The gallerists made a point of telling us how some people come in and buy four, or 30 to make a nice installation.  I wonder if that's true, or wishful thinking.

But it makes me think of a beautiful installation of multiples at my PYRO Gallery show that opened last weekend.  These pieces are rust-dyed fabric, stretched over 8x8" boards.  Wouldn't you love to have these on your living room wall?

Bette Levy, Fractured Icosikaipentagon (details below)

So I started in Santa Fe and quickly found myself back in Louisville!  I promise I will resist distraction and stick with Santa Fe in several future posts.