Art Quilts Lowell

This was not the view from my hotel window in Lowell--I overlooked the parking lot. But it didn't matter too much because I spent most of my time out and about with old and new friends enjoying their company and enjoying all that Lowell had to offer as part of their Quilt Festival. There were some wonderful quilts on display at the New England Quilt Museum that have been documented by the New Hampshire Quilt Project. The "Images" quilt show was held at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium. Of course I enjoyed checking out all the vendors.

Perhaps the biggest reason for my visit to Lowell was to see my work Noontime Gate (16 3/4" x 19 3/4") at the Brush Gallery, where I am fortunate to have it included in the exhibit "Art Quilts Lowell 2007." It looked great under the gallery lights, which made the silk shimmer and the beads really sparkle. I brought the silk back from Vietnam a couple years ago. This piece refers to the Ngo Mon Gate, which is the principal entrance to the Imperial Enclosure in the Citadel in Hue.

Here it is in situ, and you can see that the opening was very well attended.

Around town, Lowell's ARTventure Public Art Program provided artwork in response to various historic locations. There were dresses along the canal in the Lucy Larcom Park that honored the history of the mill girls.
And there was this over-sized dress specifically honoring Lucy Larcom, the most well-known mill girl. Words from Larcom's writings are printed on the apron.

The Revolving Museum is housed in the Light and Gas Company headquarters built in 1859. There were matzoh walls in the kitchen (check out Rayna's blog for photos), but I was particularly taken, er, frightened, by these gnomes that surprised me after I went into a dimly lit room behind two sets of big curtains.

Of course spending time with friends meant discovering new menus. The favorite spot for breakfast was the Owl Diner where I ate in one meal what could sustain me for the whole day.

But there was always dinner to consider, and it was fabulous, too. This is an appetizer from Riccardo's, a wonderful Italian restaurant. (The local French restaurant was great, too.) It's not just salad, but fried olives stuffed with Asiago cheese with a little balsamic vinegar dressing. Yummmmm.

Despite the heat, and it was HOT, I had a great time in Lowell. Old friends, new friends, art, quilts, food. We laughed, we cried. I'm so lucky.

New Fabric, Part II

Thank you all for being so patient--well, not all of you were--to wait for Part II. Some of the fabric you will see in Part II has already made its way into a new series I'm tentatively calling Cosmos.

All the pieces remind me of photos I've seen of cosmic explosions that have been in magazines like National Geographic. But that's not where they started. I think they started with good fabric gone bad-- redyed, discharged, redyed, discharged--that eventually got better.

Here I am working on two small pieces, getting ready to discharge them.

Here's the one on the left, above, with discharge on it.

And here's that piece after discharge, with embroidery.

Here's another piece before discharge.

And here it is after discharge. Not sure where this is going.

This is the piece that started it all and will be the first in the Cosmos series.

Another time I'll show you how the little piece on the right in the first picture is evolving.

Stay tuned.

New Fabric, Part I

It was such a beautiful day this past Saturday, I grabbed the opportunity to discharge some fabrics I had recently dyed.

On the left is the blue-ish and red-ish fabric I had dyed and then discharged. On the right, I've added various colors. This all started in March and April.

On the left, in June, I screened on several colors and shapes. On the right is what it looked like after washing and ready for more discharge.

On the left is after discharging and on the right is after washing.

And this is what the whole piece looks like now. (The sun is shining on some of it.) Don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, but I think it's done. This is one of the largest pieces of fabric I've worked on.

I generally prefer to work with smaller pieces of fabric (more of those in Part II), but no matter what the size, you never know what you are going to get, and for me that is a big part of the fun. It took me a while to let go and enjoy whatever resulted. I learned that, after all, if you don't like it, you can always go back and do more. Thanks, Rayna.

For example, I made this fabric with all the leftover dye. When I screened a grid with discharge paste, I just put it in the sun. The grid turned purple. Of course I really loved it and so when I washed the fabric, the purple was gone. I may have to go back in with purple dye.

Stay tuned for New Fabric, Part II.

What Flower Are You?

These are Bleeding Hearts from my garden. If you're interested, you might want to try out my new link on the right to the What Flower Are You Quiz. I'm not sure how accurate it is. Turns out I'm a snapdragon. I'd love to know what you are.

On the Road, Part II

This is my daughter. Can you tell she hates it when I take her picture at times like this?Yesterday we took her to D.C. for what the Peace Corps calls "staging". This is preparation for her assignment to The Gambia in West Africa. She's at the start of many lectures and innoculations. Tomorrow she's off to Banjul, the capital of The Gambia, for the beginning of about three months in-country training. She will be an education volunteer if she successfully completes this training. To make this fiber art/fabric related, I am hoping she sends home some wonderful fabric from The Gambia. They batik, tie-dye, and also beat some fabric with wooden sticks until it shines.

The round trip from NJ to DC took 9 1/2 hours: 1 1/2 hours longer than usual. (There was a terrible accident on the NJ Turnpike.) As we neared home, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky. A little while later as we got even closer, another rainbow appeared. A sign of things to come, I hope: one rainbow for each of the next two years.

Your assignment: can you find The Gambia on a map? Do you know why "The" is part of its official name?

On the Road, Part I

This is one of my favorite pictures from being in Kansas City for the Surface Design Association's Conference at the beginning of the month. I don't know what this sculpture (?) is doing on someone's back porch, but I sure was surprised to see it.

I also liked this sign at the Kansas City airport. Luckily for me the weather was just glorious for the most part. I even got a little sunburned despite the fact that I was hardly outside because of all the interesting lectures (including New Materials Interacting with Temperature and Light, Cultural Identity Through Fabric and Thread, The Art Quilt Paradox: Studio Art Quilts and Contemporary Quilting Today, Extra/ordinary: Craft Culture and Contemporary Art), demonstrations, First Friday studio openings, and the Fashion Show.

My favorite picture would be from the members' show which included the piece I mentioned in an earlier post, Irony. This is a better shot than those I took at the show. Just ignore the background. Of course this was taken in my basement "studio". I hope the glimpse of its horror isn't too much for you. This is a detail shot I think I posted in March, but now you can see how the whole piece turned out. The best part is that Irony is one of the 100 chosen to travel. Not sure where it's going yet, but I'll be sure to post when I know.

The coolest thing was how they were displayed. Most of the work was hung on wheels of spokes suspended from the ceiling. You can sorta get the idea from the above picture. Mine was just on the wall, center right above.

That's the Kansas City Road Report. Stay tuned for On the Road, Part II.

Titles

I knew there was a lot of bird activity in the backyard yew hedge, but was never quite sure what was going on. The other day I happened to glance into the hedge as I was walking through an archway, and noticed a bunch of sticks. When I looked closer, there were at least four little beaks peeking up. I think they're robins as I've seen an adult robin hanging around. I can't believe how close the nest is to the gate that I always have to bang about three times to close properly. I'm sorry I never noticed the nest before, as I missed the egg stage, but I guess mama bird chose a good place after all.

It's easy to call that picture Little Birds, but lately I'm having trouble titling my work. This is the result of my quilt guild's annual challenge, to be unveiled at our annual Strawberry Supper in June. The challenge was to choose (blindly) one or two crayons from a bag, and then make a quilt using those colors and adding more if you like. It could be expanded so that if you got the color Mac and Cheese, for example, you could make a citrus quilt because it reminded you of fruit colors, or you could make a quilt the color of the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Box, or you could make a comforting quilt because Mac and Cheese was a comfort food. It was pretty open.

My first pick was Bluebell, which I thought was pretty tame, so I drew again and got Neon Carrot. I challenged myself to use only these two colors, with some variation. I also challenged myself to make a "Gee's Bend type" quilt, so I used only scraps from previous projects that I keep in a container next to my sewing machine. If your work tends to be somewhat neat--but never perfect--like mine, it is a challenge to do things a bit more loosely. The size of the strips and bits I had dictated the size of the blocks. With the border, the finished piece measures about 22" x 23".

On the back I used a vintage apron I had worn to death (you can see signs of use) but couldn't part with and an orange fabric (with carrots on it!) I used in a quilt for my daughter. Piecing that old apron into a usable amount was tricky. I then free hand quilted it without marking any lines. You may disagree as to whether the Gee's Bend quilts are art or not (I'm not going there), but those quilts were not just plopped together for utility's sake: choice and planning went into the mix.

Because this piece is small, it went pretty fast once I put my mind to it. Now, what to call it. Any ideas?