Art from the ruins

My art pal Keith Auerbach, a photographer, had a disaster fifteen years ago when a tornado took the roof off his studio and trashed it.  Rain and terrible heat accompanied the storm.  By the time Keith dealt with the more immediate crisis and got to the studio, he found all his negatives soaked, cooked and pasted together in a goo of melted emulsions.  He peeled some of them apart and let them dry, pitched the rest.  He was not happy.  Time passed.

A year or so ago he unpacked the negatives he had saved and scanned them into digital files.  When he opened them in photoshop, they were surprisingly mysterious and beautiful.  Sometimes, where two negatives had fused together, two different images appeared in the scan.  Sometimes the pigments oozed together into abstraction, with no hint of what had been in the original picture.

Keith is a photoshop wizard, so he couldn't leave well enough alone.  For some of the images he played with the color; others looked great straight from the scanner.  The  film came out as negatives; the slides read as positives.

He showed some of these images to our art book club months ago and we encouraged him to keep at it.  And last week, he unveiled dozens of them in a solo show at PYRO Gallery.

These photos are wonderful!  If you're anywhere within driving distance of Louisville, drop in and see Keith's show, through October 19.  We're at 1006 E. Washington Street; check our website for the opening hours.

Keith Kleespies' puppet art

A wonderful show opened at PYRO Gallery this past weekend, by four artists working in various mixed mediums.  Of particular interest to fiber fans was the installation by Keith Kleespies.  Recently Keith was rooting around in his bookshelves and came upon a catalog for a show in England, sent to him many yeas ago by a friend and shelved without having been read.  This time he opened it and was enthralled by the story of artist Andrzej Kuhn, who as a child was caught up in the evil of World War 2 and spent a decade as a refugee in the exotic landscapes of Kazakhstan, Iran, Palestine and Egypt before ending up as an artist in England. 

Keith decided to make a children's book from the story, which would be illustrated by puppets.  And the puppets are now on display at PYRO (he still needs to make a few more before the story is complete).  The puppets have papier-mache heads and hands, and clothes made from all kinds of grab bag and second-hand-store fabrics and garments.

I loved the way he turned shirt sleeves into puppet shirts, complete with collars and closures.

Keith has a good way with his people, whether drawn as cartoons or executed as 3-D puppets -- humorous and whimsical without being at all  cutesy (a hard balance to strike).  The installation will make you laugh, and maybe after you read the explanation on the wall, make you cry. 

Don't miss it!  At PYRO Gallery, 1006 E. Washington in Louisville, through September 17.

Teri Dryden -- very nice art!

Went out with a friend last week for an art day, and we checked out the new show at B. Deemer Gallery in Louisville, with work by Teri Dryden.  I've been following her art for several years, since first discovering her collage work HERE.

Over the years she's moved more toward painting, first combining it with collage and then doing it pure, with a sensibility that reminds me of Cy Twombly, with smudgy text-like scribbles on dirty white backgrounds.

Teri Dryden, Raw #1

Teri Dryden, Raw #2 (this one is probably my favorite piece in the show)















She also showed several works that were kind of halfway between collage and painting, on irregularly shaped pieces of handmade paper.

Teri Dryden, Pink City




















And in a throwback to the book-cover pieces that I fell in love with a long time ago, here were a couple of collages built on book covers:

Teri Dryden, Cherry Blossom #2

Teri Dryden, Cherry Blossom #3


















The show will be up through July 5, and if you're anywhere near the Louisville area I'd highly recommend a visit!  Beautiful work.

My favorite things 5

I am privileged to count as a friend Elmer Lucille Allen, who is quite a local celebrity, and not just in the art world.  She was the first African-American chemist to work for Brown-Forman, a huge liquor company, back when those "first" distinctions were hard to come by.  She loved art since childhood and became an accomplished ceramicist, getting her MA after she retired.  Wanting a more attractive way to display her teapots, boxes and other vessels, she perked up her ears when somebody suggested she drape fabric over the shelves -- and proceeded to learn and master shibori dyeing. I met her at our local fiber and textile art group.

Several years ago she had a show of her textiles and ceramics together.  I missed the opening and by the time I got to the show, all the beautiful pots had red dots on them, so the next time I saw her I whined that I wasn't able to buy anything.  She said she had boxes and boxes of ceramics all packed up for some reason, and she would be happy to bring them over to show me.

So we unwrapped all the things in my living room and these two cubes called out to me -- heck, why wouldn't they, since they have my initials on them!  (I know, most of the Ls are backward, but they're still Ls to me.)

The cubes have patterns on all six sides but are glazed, in a beautiful pale celadon, only on the top five sides.  My only regret: Elmer Lucille didn't sign them.

Vickie makes a little book

When I wrote last fall about making a book of "newspaper poetry" and invited readers to copy the idea, Vickie Wheatley left a comment that she was going to make one herself.  Yesterday I was so happy to see her finished book, and it's wonderful!  She gave me permission to share it with you.

I had used early/late as the theme for my little book; Vickie used up/down, and found lots of raw material.  Since both "up" and "down" are parts of so many idioms, she had a lot more variety than I found with my theme.  Here are a few of her pages:

Just as I found when making my book, Vickie discovered that some of her pages strongly resembled poetry.  Best of all, her husband, who writes music, used some of the "poetry" as a basis for a new song!

Well, done, Vickie!  And thanks for sharing your work with us.

Amy's quilt

I wrote yesterday about Amy Pabst, who has been corresponding with me for some time about her fine-line quilt in progress.  Shortly before Christmas she wrote to say she had made a bunch of modules, and to ask for advice about how to join them.  I gave her a couple of hints, and decided that it might be a good idea to write a more extensive tutorial to share with everybody.

I mainly thought this might be a help to Amy, but I moved too slowly.  Once this woman decides to sew, stand back!

Here's what her design wall looked like on December 3:

On December 16:

And here's her quilt top, finished on December 22:

Although it's not apparent in the full view, all of her white fabrics are striped (some are white-on-white).  The full quilt measures 63 x 70 inches.

I think this is a beautiful quilt!  It reminds me of a couple of my own quilts, which isn't surprising because Amy used them as models.  And I think I own and have used several of the same red stripe fabrics.

After she finished, Amy wrote:  "I was very surprised at how well everything fit together. I had to do a little fiddling, adding and trimming here and there, but for the most part everything ended up a good fit by what seemed like pure chance.....  I love working with small pieces, but normally I paper piece and plan and calculate everything to exact measurements. The free style construction of this quilt was brand new to me and very refreshing after all the rigid perfection of paper piecing."

Amy, I'm so glad that you made this quilt, and that you like the improvisational approach. Yes, it is a very different way to work, with very little advance planning and certainly no exact measurements, and yes, it is refreshing!  Thanks so much for sharing your photos, and I hope we'll get another look when it's all quilted.

Fiber art and encaustic 2 -- Shelley Baird

Shelley Baird is an artist primarily known for her enigmatic silkscreened designs, enhanced by dense machine quilting.  She has had work in several Quilt Nationals and other prominent art/quilt venues, and took up encaustic a few years ago.

Sometimes she uses her screenprinted fabric as the first layer in an encaustic painting, as in this piece:

Sometimes she re-uses a favorite screen in both fiber and encaustic.

Shelley Brenner Baird, Blue Cypher, fiber/quilt (detail)

Shelley Brenner Baird, encaustic

Q.  How long have you been doing fiber art / how long have you been doing encaustic?

I have been using fiber as a substrate for my work for about 15 years.  I come from an eclectic art background that involved painting and drawing, then a degree in printmaking and another degree in photography followed by work in graphic design and illustration.  I have always made art and fell into fiber/textiles/art quilts/surface design by serendipity, seeking out teachers and mentors.  Once I discovered the many options in surface design I began to develop a body of work that includes a variety of media.

Living in central Ohio with QSDS and Nancy Crow's barn very close to home has enabled me to work with people from all over, including instructors and participants, so the textile community has been very accessible and varied.

Q.  Did you feel that encaustic was a natural progression from your fiber work, or a totally new thing?

When I start any kind of work I just begin with a blank sheet (panel, paper, fabric or an actual sheet sometimes) and approach it just as I have always worked in any medium.  I don't categorize myself as any particular process person so encaustic is just another way to use my ideas.  Fiber can be easily used in encaustic and the transformation from the wax and paint and incising can be another way to look at one's work.  Since I do make all of my fabric with screens and painting I don't see much of a distinction.

I enjoy a break from the tedium (oops, should I admit that?) of stitching.  The ability to work more quickly and move on to the next thing something I appreciate.  Working smaller also enables me to work through more ideas.  I suppose a lot of this is really not about encaustic per se.  So some the things I like about encaustic involve the ability to scrape and incise and melt and remove.

Making myself clearer 2

When I wrote about two pieced quilts in the Form, Not Function show, Sandy left a comment:  "I am not quite sure what you mean by some statements."  I had described Sandra Ciolino's work as "a classic 'motif' quilt, using a simple block over and over in different shapes, sizes and configurations to make a complex overall pattern."  Sandy said, "Not being a piecer/patchworker, perhaps I am not really seeing the classic in this?"

So let me walk that statement back and explain it in a little more detail.

Sandra Palmer Ciolino, Precaria #4: Kinetics

Perhaps it's just those of us who have studied with Nancy Crow, and the next generation of those who have studied with those who studied with Nancy, who are intimately familiar with the concept of working with a motif.  In this approach, you start with a simple sketch of one or two shapes in a box.

Here's Sandra's basic motif, a five-sided shape just touching a four-sided shape:

She turns it in different directions:

She stretches it out:

She stretches it out in the other direction:

She makes blocks with just the four-sided shape:

Or just the five-sided shape:

The size and shape of the motifs varies, the orientation varies, and most important, the colors vary to give you a whole lot of tension and complexity.  Figures become ground and vice versa.  I have seen people use their motif in dozens of quilts, each one subtly different; it's a technique that allows you to explore many different aspects of composition and design and understand how all the moving parts work together.

I infer from the title of Sandra's quilt, Precaria #4, that she's been using this motif for a while.  It would be interesting to see other works in this series!

FNF 2 -- pieced quilts

Is there some strange alignment of the planets this spring to make pieced quilts the favorite of quilt show jurors everywhere?  No sooner did I finish telling you about all the pieced quilts at Art Quilt Elements last month than I get to tell you about all the pieced quilts at Form, Not Function.

Probably my favorite was Maria Shell's, which also won the award of excellence given by River City Fiber Artists (full disclosure: I'm a member of that group, and we got to choose who got our award, so there's probably some cause-and-effect relationship).

Maria Shell, Wall of Sound (details below)

Maria works almost exclusively with the traditional Crossed Squares quilt block, but her treatment of it is anything but traditional.  She uses commercial prints so a lot of the action in this quilt comes from the store, but there's still lots and lots of piecing there.

The energy in this quilt is almost nuclear as it explodes in a riot of color and pattern.  (By the way, it may make you jealous to hear that each of the nine blocks in this quilt was also the subject of its very own nine-block quilt.)

Sandra Palmer Ciolino, Precaria #4: Kinetics (detail below)

Here's a classic "motif" quilt, using a simple block over and over in different shapes, sizes and configurations to make a complex overall pattern.  I liked the slightly offbeat color palette, the meticulous piecing and wonderful quilting.

More pieced quilts tomorrow for your viewing pleasure.

Remembering Lynn

One of the people in my piecing class at the Crow Barn last month was Betty Goodwin, whom I have known for several years.  Even if you don't know her, you may know of her as the donor of a major prize at Quilt National, the Lynn Goodwin Borgman Award for Surface Design. Lynn was Betty's daughter, an avid quilter, and the two had frequently attended workshops and quilt shows together, enjoying the opportunity to spend time together without the distractions of family and chores.

Lynn Borgman














Lynn died unexpectedly in 1999 after supposedly routine outpatient surgery and it was left to Betty to deal with her fabric stash.  A lot was given away but Betty kept some things, including many, many yards of the old Pointillist Palette fabrics in every colorway that had been produced.

She brought some of them to our workshop, wondering if maybe she could use them after all those years.  Well, why not?  What better way to remember your loved one than to  bring her into the room with you as you work with her fabric.

Betty used the pointillist fabric for this exercise in fine line piecing, and it proved to be an interesting experiment in value contrast.  Notice how the fine lines pop out in some places and disappear in others.  She also achieved a nice effect by cutting the center panel out of the piecing and flipping it around.

Before her death, Lynn had been planning to attend a workshop that required a lot of strips, so she had methodically cut them to size and packed them in storage boxes.  Betty had kept those too and brought them along.

She sliced the strips even narrower to use as fine lines in the piecing.  Here is the composition in progress; the print strips made beautiful delicate lines to set off the solid color blocks.

Here's Betty with her work for the week:

It's always energizing to have the spirit of someone else in the room while you're making art, one reason why I love to work with other people's leftovers.  Although none of the rest of us had the pleasure of knowing Lynn, we felt her presence and love with us in the room.

The old boyfriend returns

If you've been reading the blog since 2010 you may recall the Quilt Dates, in which you were introduced to some of my old boyfriends aka quilt techniques or approaches.  By far the favorite guy was Mr. April, the technique of piecing in fine lines.  Heck, even I liked him the best, but was never jealous when others enjoyed his company.  Many of those others have written back over the years with reports of their dates, and here's another.

Evelyne Wheeler writes:  "Here are two photos of quilts made by me using your skinny strips technique.  I didn't read your tutorial carefully enough so initially I made some errors however these errors made me wonder if I could make curved lines, hence the black and white sampler and then the green and red quilt influenced by arches in Gaudi's Casa Millar in Barcelona.

"Thanks for sharing this technique -- had some fun with it but now on to something else."

And my thanks to YOU, Evelyne, for sharing.  I think your curved lines look great (I've experimented with curves too but they're a lot trickier than straight lines) and am glad you had fun with them.

Prints and solids -- a reader responds

Earlier this month I talked about my personal rules for quilting, which hold that you shouldn't mix solids and prints.  I realize that this rule is both arbitrary and open to argument, so I invited readers to argue.

Angela Welch sent in a photo of her quilt and wrote:  "The popularity of solids in 'modern' quilts got me interested in trying them.  I've seen many quilts I admire that are exclusively solids, made in the modern aesthetic.  Usually, I prefer quilts that have a variety of types of fabrics.  All batiks, or all hand-dyes, or all of just about anything is usually dull, so I though, why not mix prints and solids and see what happens?

Angela Welch, Tree #2, 34" x 28"

"My first (and only, so far) experiment with this is my quilt Tree #2.  It is mostly solids, mixed with hand-dyes and prints that read as solids.  What I learned from this is that solids seem very flat and make it harder to create depth.  While there are some aspects of this quilt that I like (the shapes, the overall movement) mostly I think it looks too flat.

"After finishing this quilt recently, I think I'm moving back toward the wide variety of prints I usually use.  Solids aren't really for me (I think)."

----------

Kathy responds:  I don't think this looks particularly flat; in fact, I have a hard time seeing from this image which pieces are solids and which just read as solids.  Probably not visible in this photo is the beautiful quilting; the whole surface is filled with elaborate feathers and leaf motifs.

But if you don't think solids are for you, then don't use them!  That's how this whole discussion started, with a "rule" that made sense to its maker, if not to anybody else.  How nice that we have the freedom to make and follow our own rules.

Thanks, Angela, for the photo!

Brush time

I took a workshop last week with Laurie Doctor, the wonderful calligrapher and painter with whom I have studied several times in the past.  She helped me get unblocked from my lifelong fear of making marks with pens, pencils and brushes.  At that time I made huge progress with using a pen, but this time I made friends with a brush.

Laurie's mantra is that you must develop "the credibility of the line," which I take to mean that your mark must have character and be true to itself.  Wobbling is OK as long as it's authentic wobbling; whatever you do, do it with confidence and let your own voice come through.  As Martin Luther famously said, If you must sin, sin boldly.

One assignment that made a big impact was to write a word with a big brush, going across the entire height of the paper. We were supposed to do this with our eyes closed but I have a hard time following directions exactly, so I made a few modifications to fit my own needs.

Mainly, I wanted to use a small brush, not a big one.  That meant I had to re-dip it in the paint frequently so I couldn't close my eyes.  But I hadn't made more than three or four inches worth of my first downstroke before I realized that I was making an exceptionally credible line.  Even better, I was able to keep it up through the entire word, maintaining the same feel and strength throughout.

This may seem like a pretty feeble accomplishment: to write six letters that resemble one another.  But for me it was something to be proud of.  I want to return to this brush and this paint and see if I can make these letters consistently.

So what did I do with my great accomplishment?  I tore down the paper and bound it into a little book.  It really hurt to tear that word apart but I kept remembering the quote from some famous writer, I forget who, that you should "kill your darlings."  Not sure exactly what he meant by that, or whether it's even good advice, but I made the book.

After all, I can always do the word over again.  See how my confidence has grown?  Thanks, Laurie!