Found poetry 9

Kimono challenge -- my response

Last fall I wrote about the kimono challenge in our local fiber and textile art group, and showed photos of several of the different things that people made.  But I never got around to showing you a picture of my own pieces.

I made two small hand-stitched pieces with bits of kimono fabric stitched on top of larger kimono backgrounds.  Mostly running stitches, in a variety of different threads, with french knots for emphasis.

I did a lot of experimenting with different threads.  Silk thread felt elegant and I thought there was a certain karma to using it on the silk kimono fabrics, but even doubled, it made a pretty faint line.  Rayons and polyesters worked the same way.  They were fine as background running stitches but didn't have the substance to make assertive french knots.

After trying every thread in my stash, or so it seemed, I found two spools of variegated Aurifil cotton in the very heavy 28 weight.  I don't know why I bought them in the first place, because Aurifil is an expensive toy to get if you don't have a plan for it.  But the ivory-pink-coral-rust colorway looked just perfect with my pink and coral fabrics, and made beautiful, fat french knots.  I had so much fun making the knots that I started piling them densely on, totally covering the background.

Before I display these in public I'll have to come up with a way to mount them.  I'm thinking of affixing them to wood panels, like the ones I've been using for collage.  The contrast of the soft fabric with the hard panel seems appealing.  I'll let you know how that works out!

No secret squirrel

Friends, when you leave comments on my blog I read them!!  Although it may take a while, I try to respond to any questions that you ask, because the whole reason I do a blog is to have conversations with other people.  So when Other Kathy in New Zealand asked a question before Christmas I knew I had to get back to her eventually.

I had written a blog post about collage, and O.K.i.N.Z. wrote:  "Is your work secret squirrel at the moment, Quilt National prep or other things we can't look at?  I noticed that I've not seen much sewing lately in your posts."

O.K., you are one astute reader.  You're right, there hasn't been much sewing in my posts because there hasn't been much sewing in my life.  Hand-stitching, yes, and one of these days I need to show you a couple of pieces that are either finished or nearing completion, but no piecing or quilting.  Truth is, I haven't felt much like embarking on a big quilt.  I am feeling very ambivalent toward the quilt world as the outlet for my artistic yearnings.  I have no desire to devote the next six months to making three huge things for Quilt National, not to mention no brilliant ideas. 

I have to make a baby quilt for the grandchild of a friend who died last year.  Our local textile and fiber art group, of which she was a member, went over to her house and cleaned out the studio at the request of her husband, who talked about the baby due in June.  I knew that Linda would have loved to have made a baby quilt, and felt that I needed to do this task for her and her family.  So I went through her fabric stash and picked out some appropriate pieces, but I haven't started working on the quilt yet.

What has happened to make me totally uninterested in big quilts?  I've been asking myself the same question.  I have been getting disillusioned with the juried-show business model, in which the artist pays the venue for the opportunity to show her work.  Entry fees keep inching up every year, as do shipping costs.  More troubling, when you show in these venues people never have a chance to see a body of work.  Those with very good memories may recall some things from the past but otherwise it's hard to distinguish between artists who make a lovely one-off quilt and those who have been building a body of work over some time.

I know one answer is to seek out solo shows where you can display many works, but that takes a lot of work and perhaps a lot of politics.  I have not summoned up the energy to go in that direction.

But more important, probably, is that since I have joined PYRO Gallery, a co-operative, I have a venue where I can show some work all the time, can be in group shows once or twice a year, and will have a solo show this fall.  The gallery is not conducive to showing huge quilts, so I have put up some smaller ones, but I have been much more excited about the chance to explore some new mediums and formats.  And this summer, instead of chaining myself to the sewing machine for Quilt National, I'll be chaining myself to some other piece of equipment in the studio for my solo show.

Maybe it's just time for something new.  Whatever I come up with, I'll share with you.  And I'll still be teaching and writing about quilts, because I love them and I love sharing that love with others.  Maybe there will be new quilts in my future again, but not this week.

Found poetry 8

Daily art report 4 -- I've been there!

I've written before that because my daily art project this year has no rules regarding format or medium, I can explore lots of approaches to the theme "maps."  Recently I've started a new approach, finding a reference in the newspaper to a place that I've been, then illustrating it with a map.  Here are the ones I've done so far.

Some are faraway places from foreign travels, such as Brazil and Germany:

Others are run-of-the-mill US places that many of you have probably been to also, such as O'Hare Airport, although I'm willing to bet that I've been there more times than most of you (unless you live in Chicago). 

And still others are out-of-the-way US places, such as Quincy IL, where I spent a trimester of graduate school living in the Lincoln-Douglas Hotel, an establishment without a public ice machine, necessitating my learning to drink scotch neat.

I'm mounting these on 5x8 index cards, and at the end of the year I'll probably make them all into an accordion book.  But should it be horizontal or vertical??  Or both???

Found poetry 7