March 28 -- on the golf course
March 29 -- Lydia
March 31 -- having a ball
April 3 -- Easter parade
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Art-A-Day
March 28 -- on the golf course
March 29 -- Lydia
"I swear never to make a baby quilt"
Elena wrote a comment to my last post and said, “You're not in the group of artists who'd swear never to make a baby quilt. Care to share your thoughts on that?”
I understand how some people might swear never to make a commission quilt that has to match the sofa, but what is so awful about a baby quilt?? It's small, it's fast, you can make it out of your stash, it's going to be USED and it's probably going to be kept. It will probably be the first work of art in the child's life. And I think every baby deserves to have something that's his own, that's special, that doesn't have to be shared with everybody else in the family. Maybe that's why I love to put the baby's name on the quilt.
Some artists may think it's beneath their dignity to make a functional quilt, especially one that might well get peed or chewed or spit up on or put on the floor. But I think that those of us who choose to make our art in the form of quilts must have some visceral connection with traditional quilts (i.e. functional quilts), else why choose this under-respected niche of the art world in which to operate? If you don’t love something about the traditional quilt format, then why not make your art as paintings, or sculpture, or lithographs, or collage, or photos?
Maybe all artists who make non-functional, non-traditional quilts ought to be required to make one functional quilt every year or so, as a ritual obeisance to our roots. When you make a functional quilt, for instance, you are reminded why you quilt densely, why you put a strong binding on, all those conventions that you no longer have to do, but once upon a time all quiltmakers had to do. We can choose, in the name of art, to make a quilt with no binding at all, or make a quilt from tea bags or bread wrappers or Coke cans, or leave thread ends wafting in the breeze, but our foremothers had no such choices, and perhaps we should regularly be reminded of why and how they made their work, why and how they developed the traditions that we so blithely flout.
I don’t make bed quilts for big beds, because I don’t have enough time. On the rare occasions when I am confronted with a wedding, I make a wall quilt if anything. I’ve actually made only two quilts in my life for grown-up beds (and one of them, my first quilt, is currently taken apart, awaiting reconstruction, because I did such a lousy job of making it in the first place).
But I have made many smaller quilts that, yes, people actually pull over their bodies to get warm. And I make baby quilts whenever I have the opportunity. When I do, I’m moving temporarily into a different world, a thankfully bygone world, where women got to show their artistry only within very limited areas, where making quilts was esteemed only insofar as the quilts were useful. It reminds me of where we started, and how far we have come, and it’s good to be reminded every now and then.
I understand how some people might swear never to make a commission quilt that has to match the sofa, but what is so awful about a baby quilt?? It's small, it's fast, you can make it out of your stash, it's going to be USED and it's probably going to be kept. It will probably be the first work of art in the child's life. And I think every baby deserves to have something that's his own, that's special, that doesn't have to be shared with everybody else in the family. Maybe that's why I love to put the baby's name on the quilt.
Some artists may think it's beneath their dignity to make a functional quilt, especially one that might well get peed or chewed or spit up on or put on the floor. But I think that those of us who choose to make our art in the form of quilts must have some visceral connection with traditional quilts (i.e. functional quilts), else why choose this under-respected niche of the art world in which to operate? If you don’t love something about the traditional quilt format, then why not make your art as paintings, or sculpture, or lithographs, or collage, or photos?
Maybe all artists who make non-functional, non-traditional quilts ought to be required to make one functional quilt every year or so, as a ritual obeisance to our roots. When you make a functional quilt, for instance, you are reminded why you quilt densely, why you put a strong binding on, all those conventions that you no longer have to do, but once upon a time all quiltmakers had to do. We can choose, in the name of art, to make a quilt with no binding at all, or make a quilt from tea bags or bread wrappers or Coke cans, or leave thread ends wafting in the breeze, but our foremothers had no such choices, and perhaps we should regularly be reminded of why and how they made their work, why and how they developed the traditions that we so blithely flout.
I don’t make bed quilts for big beds, because I don’t have enough time. On the rare occasions when I am confronted with a wedding, I make a wall quilt if anything. I’ve actually made only two quilts in my life for grown-up beds (and one of them, my first quilt, is currently taken apart, awaiting reconstruction, because I did such a lousy job of making it in the first place).
But I have made many smaller quilts that, yes, people actually pull over their bodies to get warm. And I make baby quilts whenever I have the opportunity. When I do, I’m moving temporarily into a different world, a thankfully bygone world, where women got to show their artistry only within very limited areas, where making quilts was esteemed only insofar as the quilts were useful. It reminds me of where we started, and how far we have come, and it’s good to be reminded every now and then.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Babies on my mind -- finally here!!
We finally have a new baby, Owen, a big boy at 8 pounds 11 ounces! Tomorrow morning I’ll put a present in the mail for him – finished a couple of days ago, so it doesn’t have his name on it. But it will be there the day after he comes home from the hospital. The present is a newborn quilt.
We now know that babies don’t develop the ability to differentiate colors until they’re about three months old, but they can see the high contrast of black and white. So the earliest quilts and toys should not be in primary colors or baby pastels, but B&W.
I learned this by accident 11 years ago when my nephew Robbie, not yet three months old, was visiting. A black and white quilt that I had made many years ago was draped over the sofa where we plunked the baby, and we were surprised to see that he was attentively “reading” it and would do so for a remarkably long time. I immediately made him his own little B&W quilt but it was too bad I didn’t do so earlier.
The next baby in the family didn’t come along till 2008, and I made him a B&W quilt right away. Here’s Justin (who’s now a big brother) at six days old, paying very close attention to his reading.
We now know that babies don’t develop the ability to differentiate colors until they’re about three months old, but they can see the high contrast of black and white. So the earliest quilts and toys should not be in primary colors or baby pastels, but B&W.
I learned this by accident 11 years ago when my nephew Robbie, not yet three months old, was visiting. A black and white quilt that I had made many years ago was draped over the sofa where we plunked the baby, and we were surprised to see that he was attentively “reading” it and would do so for a remarkably long time. I immediately made him his own little B&W quilt but it was too bad I didn’t do so earlier.
The next baby in the family didn’t come along till 2008, and I made him a B&W quilt right away. Here’s Justin (who’s now a big brother) at six days old, paying very close attention to his reading.
For Robbie’s quilt I gathered up a bunch of different B&W fabrics and just cut squares from each one. For both Justin’s and Owen’s I was feeling ambitious so I went into my boxes of pieces from Nancy Crow workshops and found a bunch of B&W studies that I sliced and diced a bit, then sewed together into the baby quilt. In both cases I added a bit of commercial polka dot fabric for a border.
Here’s what Owen’s new little quilt looks like.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Babies on my mind -- part 4
Still no baby today, but here’s another baby quilt to show you. This one was for Elijah’s big brother. As occurs in the best baby quilts, it has his name on it.
I love babies whose names include few or no curved letters, because I like to piece their names. Great names from my baby gift past include Matthew, Ella, Lily and Will. But if you name your child Cassandra, expect her name to be embroidered down in the corner, not pieced in.
J doesn’t count as curved, because it’s so simple to just pull in the bottom of the tail stroke as you stitch. U is easy if you make two mirror-image Js and sew them together. C, O, G and Q are difficult, unless your letters are pretty large. The hardest, of course, is S, because you have to change directions halfway through the curve.
B, P and R are relatively simple, because you can make tiny semicircular bowls without worrying too much about the shape, and let the strong straight strokes carry the day. If you want, you can make it easier by cheating and omitting the hole in the bowl – just have a solid semicircle attached to the vertical stroke, as I did with the R in Irene in yesterday’s quilt du jour. I generally hand-applique the bowls onto the background, then stitch the vertical stroke over the top, but if you were feeling really feisty you could probably figure out how to piece them in.
Once I made a quilt for my brother Bruce that had his name pieced in, by finding print fabric with semicircular motifs on a plain background. I found fabric of the same color for the background of my other pieced letters. Then I fussy-cut the print fabric so the semicircles became the bowls of the B and R; I pieced in the vertical strokes and there were my curved letters, with no circular seams at all!
And once I made a quilt that had all the letters of the alphabet -- except those with curves.
J doesn’t count as curved, because it’s so simple to just pull in the bottom of the tail stroke as you stitch. U is easy if you make two mirror-image Js and sew them together. C, O, G and Q are difficult, unless your letters are pretty large. The hardest, of course, is S, because you have to change directions halfway through the curve.
B, P and R are relatively simple, because you can make tiny semicircular bowls without worrying too much about the shape, and let the strong straight strokes carry the day. If you want, you can make it easier by cheating and omitting the hole in the bowl – just have a solid semicircle attached to the vertical stroke, as I did with the R in Irene in yesterday’s quilt du jour. I generally hand-applique the bowls onto the background, then stitch the vertical stroke over the top, but if you were feeling really feisty you could probably figure out how to piece them in.
Once I made a quilt for my brother Bruce that had his name pieced in, by finding print fabric with semicircular motifs on a plain background. I found fabric of the same color for the background of my other pieced letters. Then I fussy-cut the print fabric so the semicircles became the bowls of the B and R; I pieced in the vertical strokes and there were my curved letters, with no circular seams at all!
And once I made a quilt that had all the letters of the alphabet -- except those with curves.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Babies on my mind -- part 3
Today's baby quilts have a long history. They were made for the grandchildren of my best friend from graduate school, Zuki, who was raised in Hawaii; her grandparents came over from Japan. Zuki's grandmother had access to the scraps from a factory where they made muu-muus and Hawaiian shirts, and over the years she sewed together hundreds and hundreds of the scraps into a single pattern which I don’t know the name of.
I can testify that because the outer edges of the square are all bias, the pattern is a pain to work with. You can stitch those inside straight edges in good faith but when it comes time to put the squares together any tiny deviation in cutting (and remember, these were made in the days of scissors and cardboard templates) translates into big ruffles on the perimeter.
Several years ago Zuki gave me a huge bag of these squares and I made a twin-size quilt out of them for her to give to a nephew. But I still had many, many, many squares left. In the fullness of time Zuki’s daughter got pregnant and I knew exactly what I needed to make for her – a quilt out of the muu-muu scraps. I’m sorry this photo is so dark but it does show the quilt. Since the quilt had to be done for a shower in advance of the baby, I didn’t get to put his name on it, nor did I know he was a he, so I chose a unisex color scheme.
Zuki, of course, recognized the squares the minute the package was unwrapped and we both got very teary, as did the others in attendance after she told the story of the baby’s great-great-grandmother, who had started the quilt. While this was a surprise for Zuki, I had been thinking so much about this family while I worked on the quilt. I love to work with other people’s leftovers, because it gives me such a bond with some other woman who sat at her machine and sewed late at night, trying to make something beautiful. And knowing from Zuki how much hard work and hard times and sacrifice her grandmother had gone through made working with her squares doubly poignant.
When Zuki’s son had a baby a couple of months later, I waited till she was born so I could sew her name on the quilt, and searched for all the pink fabric in the stash to make it nice and girly.
PS -- no baby in Boston yet.
Some advice for Valerie
Yesterday on the Quiltart list my friend Valerie Goodwin wrote: “Interesting dilemma...did a spreadsheet tallying incoming and outgoing expenses related to my artwork expenses. Broke even because of the cost of having a studio space outside the home. I LOVE having this space! Decisions, decisions......I would appreciate some advice.”
I started to write her back a personal note and then I realized that so many of the issues coming to mind might be thought-provoking for others. Even though we may not have a studio, all of us wrestle with the question of priorities and objectives, how to spend our time, how to focus our activities, what to work on. So with Valerie’s permission, I’m moving the discussion here.
After 20 years working for a consulting firm, I am unable to answer a question without additional questions. My first is, why is this a dilemma? What's wrong with breaking even on your art, especially when you LOVE the space you're working in? A lot of people would think they died and went to heaven if they found themselves in that situation.
Do you need to make money from your art? I know that you have a decent day job, so I wonder if you have really made this as a decision or if you have just assumed that any enterprise that you can put onto a spreadsheet needs to have a plus on the bottom line. Some people would say otherwise, that they make art for personal gratification, and they’re willing to spend money on it just as they might spend money on playing golf or eating out or going to the movies or giving to charity. I think women in particular are prone to feel guilty about spending time, effort and money on activities that aren’t “useful” or profitable – but let’s don’t do that.
Any financial operation can be described in an equation: Income minus expenses equals profit (or loss). You know the figures in your equation, because you just ran a spreadsheet. But I would argue that this is not the right equation for you to be looking at – the real equation has to do with the income and expenses for your whole life, not just the art part. Since you LOVE having your workspace, you could call it entertainment and cut down some other portion of your entertainment budget. For instance, would you be willing to not take a vacation this year if it meant you could keep your workspace?
But if you really do need or want to make money from your art, how much per year do you need to make? When you have set a specific goal, it’s easier to figure out how to achieve it.
If you want the profit to increase, you have several ways to tinker with the equation.
You can eliminate your studio rent, of course, but maybe there are other expenses you could reduce. For instance, you could cut back on entering shows, thus saving entry fees and shipping. Or you could drop out of some organizations and not attend workshops or conferences.
Or you can increase your income. Could you increase your prices? Could you increase your production? Could you change the kind of work you make so that you could get more money for it?
(Valerie wrote me that she has been doing smaller, less complex works that have been selling well, but at a low price, and they take up her time. She says she would really love to work on larger pieces suitable for exhibit, and get some corporate commissions. And she would like “a bit of income.”)
My advice would be:
• Keep the studio. You LOVE it, and it’s helping you be productive. Cut back on something else in your life to fund the studio for one year. Think of it as an investment in the next stage of your art career.
• Stop doing the small works, or at least stop undercharging for them. They are distracting you from the work you really want to do.
• Resolve to make at least one large work in the next six months. (Or whatever other time frame seems reasonable – you want this to be ambitious but doable, so you don’t fail and get discouraged.)
• Do some research on how to get corporate commissions, and identify three organizations that seem like good possibilities. Put together a portfolio/proposal and submit it to one of them by the end of the year.
• Think about other ways to market yourself and your work, such as entering high-quality shows, updating your blog or website, printing postcards of your work, whatever comes to mind.
• Next year update your spreadsheet and see where you stand financially. More important, see how you’re coming on changing your focus to larger works and commissions. Then recalibrate your objectives, your finances and your plans as needed.
I started to write her back a personal note and then I realized that so many of the issues coming to mind might be thought-provoking for others. Even though we may not have a studio, all of us wrestle with the question of priorities and objectives, how to spend our time, how to focus our activities, what to work on. So with Valerie’s permission, I’m moving the discussion here.
After 20 years working for a consulting firm, I am unable to answer a question without additional questions. My first is, why is this a dilemma? What's wrong with breaking even on your art, especially when you LOVE the space you're working in? A lot of people would think they died and went to heaven if they found themselves in that situation.
Do you need to make money from your art? I know that you have a decent day job, so I wonder if you have really made this as a decision or if you have just assumed that any enterprise that you can put onto a spreadsheet needs to have a plus on the bottom line. Some people would say otherwise, that they make art for personal gratification, and they’re willing to spend money on it just as they might spend money on playing golf or eating out or going to the movies or giving to charity. I think women in particular are prone to feel guilty about spending time, effort and money on activities that aren’t “useful” or profitable – but let’s don’t do that.
Any financial operation can be described in an equation: Income minus expenses equals profit (or loss). You know the figures in your equation, because you just ran a spreadsheet. But I would argue that this is not the right equation for you to be looking at – the real equation has to do with the income and expenses for your whole life, not just the art part. Since you LOVE having your workspace, you could call it entertainment and cut down some other portion of your entertainment budget. For instance, would you be willing to not take a vacation this year if it meant you could keep your workspace?
But if you really do need or want to make money from your art, how much per year do you need to make? When you have set a specific goal, it’s easier to figure out how to achieve it.
If you want the profit to increase, you have several ways to tinker with the equation.
You can eliminate your studio rent, of course, but maybe there are other expenses you could reduce. For instance, you could cut back on entering shows, thus saving entry fees and shipping. Or you could drop out of some organizations and not attend workshops or conferences.
Or you can increase your income. Could you increase your prices? Could you increase your production? Could you change the kind of work you make so that you could get more money for it?
(Valerie wrote me that she has been doing smaller, less complex works that have been selling well, but at a low price, and they take up her time. She says she would really love to work on larger pieces suitable for exhibit, and get some corporate commissions. And she would like “a bit of income.”)
My advice would be:
• Keep the studio. You LOVE it, and it’s helping you be productive. Cut back on something else in your life to fund the studio for one year. Think of it as an investment in the next stage of your art career.
• Stop doing the small works, or at least stop undercharging for them. They are distracting you from the work you really want to do.
• Resolve to make at least one large work in the next six months. (Or whatever other time frame seems reasonable – you want this to be ambitious but doable, so you don’t fail and get discouraged.)
• Do some research on how to get corporate commissions, and identify three organizations that seem like good possibilities. Put together a portfolio/proposal and submit it to one of them by the end of the year.
• Think about other ways to market yourself and your work, such as entering high-quality shows, updating your blog or website, printing postcards of your work, whatever comes to mind.
• Next year update your spreadsheet and see where you stand financially. More important, see how you’re coming on changing your focus to larger works and commissions. Then recalibrate your objectives, your finances and your plans as needed.
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