An Artsy Day in Portland

I've "known" June Underwood since about 2001, when I joined the Alternative Quilt List in what felt like a very cheeky move. I found among this international network of textile artists a gentle, nurturing, supportive community in which to stick my toe in the scary waters of art quilting. June was one of the first to assure me that a quilt I'd gotten up the nerve to share was indeed more art than traditional quilt, and that she could see the deeper meaning in it. With that one kindness, I continued moving into the art quilt medium, gaining confidence that eventually led me to where I am today, both geographically and in my creative journey. June, no doubt is blushing to learn this, and she was not the only one to offer kind words of encouragement as well as helpful critiques, but she WAS the only one posting from the Pacific Northwest where I originally hail from. It was a connection to an area I was incredibly homesick for. I started following her blog as much for the pictures of Portland and the Columbia gorge as for the ones of her quilts. I knew I would eventually move back to the PNW and looked forward to the day when I could meet her in person. That day finally came and as you can see, it was a jolly event!


June was gracious enough to grant my request for lunch with any like-minded art quilters she could round up and scope out the art exhibits available for perusal. Here's Gerrie Congdon and Joanell Connolly (above) and Terry Grant (below), all names I recognize and artists I was delighted to meet. Gerrie was fresh off a stint at the Surface Design Association Conference so had show & tell from a class and postcards & brochures from the various exhibits she saw plus, of course, stories to tell. (Check her blog for pictures and commentary.) She also had an extra copy of Fiberarts Magazine which I snagged. Thanks, Gerrie! I shared it with my Hood River and Walla Walla friends as I wended my way home, and now I'm looking forward to reading it myself!.


I thoroughly enjoyed the great food and "shop talk," the best way I can think to describe the various topics we covered. I'm feeling a little isolated in the Idaho Panhandle and part of what I gleaned from conversations this day was personal experience with options I've both considered and those I've rejected. It's always nice to find out others are thinking along the same lines or have had similar experiences, or that you may have dismissed something that could actually be a good thing. Oh, and I couldn't help chuckling at the some of the titles of books behind Gerrie & Joanell. You know you're in Portland when "Reefer Madness" is on the shelf.

June discovered that the Portland Art Museum was featuring an M. C. Escher exhibit (a be-still-my-heart moment for me when I heard), so off we went to check it out. Escher is best known for his "impossible worlds" and complex tessellations, which were well represented in this exhibit. It also included his early drawings while in Italy where you could already see the beginnings of his fascination with stairways and odd angles. Having just taken a drawing class, I was particularly interested in these drawings, some of which were studies, working sketches, and even a few that were incomplete. The exhibit did a fine job of showing the steps involved in developing an idea, and in some cases included the actual woodblocks used to create some of his prints. Terry had the most printing knowledge of the bunch and pointed out things we would not know to look for.

The Museum was also showing a retrospective of artists associated with the Museum Art School (now Pacific Northwest College of Art) as it celebrates its centennial. I am woefully unfamiliar with the names of these regional artists, let alone their work, so this was also interesting to view. Because the art spanned such a large time period, it was also interesting to guess when they were executed. Some definitely reflected their time, others were more timeless. My favorite artist from this show was William H. Givler, particularly his "Waterfall." There's not much about him on the Internet, let alone this particular painting, but this link includes "Mountains with Slender Trees" which is a similar style and color palette, although painted 25 years later. I think it was this color palette plus the blocky lines hinting at the more complex detail left out that drew me to his work. This AskArt link shows several paintings and gives a little additional info.

To wrap up the day, June steered Joanell & me to the nearest Starbucks for a needed sit-down and infusion of caffeine. More "shop talk" ensued, and before I knew it, June was proposing a challenge to me. She doesn't work in textiles much anymore, having taken up oil painting (see this painting of which I am the proud owner), so her proposal was for us to create original pieces in our own medium, then create additional pieces inspired by each other's art. Of course, we will have to blog about it, so stay tuned.

Next installment of my travelogue...Maryhill Art Museum.

Back From Vacation

I've been home for a few days, and it amazes me that it takes nearly as long to recover from a trip as it does to prepare for one. I'm still wading through newspapers and mail of the real and "e" kind and all my sewing paraphernalia is still parked in front of the studio door. But the refrigerator is restocked, the photos downloaded from the camera & it is time to share my travels. It turned into much more of an art immersion experience than I anticipated, one experience building on the next. And so I will break up my activities over several posts, beginning with the event around which the trip revolved.: my stay in Hood River, Oregon.


As you know from the previous post, my friend Judi was having her first solo show. The Gorge White House is an early 1900's Dutch style house in which they've turned the two main rooms on the ground floor into a wine tasting area and shop. Here's Judi with two of her pieces, the one on the left in her current style (interpreting her nature photos into fabric), the one on the right a nod to her traditional quilt background. The foxglove with it's beautiful silver frame sold - very exciting! Although the space was small and wall space at a premium, the owners of The Gorge White House did a masterful job of hanging her fabric art, all of which looked richer and more dynamic than I remembered. Truly, the photos on the Gorge's website do not do these works of art justice. Be sure to click on the picture for a better view.


The next day, Judi made room for me to set up in her studio at home. Judi works on one side of the room - here at her ironing board tracing, cutting and fusing small pieces for the commissioned art quilt in the background. This is inspired by the clients' photo of a favorite Oregon creek along the Gorge. Judi is using a modified "Snippets" technique in the upper portion involving layer after layer of tiny leaves interspersed with trunks and branches and even a few fir branches stitched on water soluble stabilizer. The lower section is also multi-layered with rocks "under" the water and poking up through the water, sheers helping to create this effect. This fine attention to detail produces a depth that makes the piece very 3-d. Even though she explained her process and I watched her work and could study the progress, I had the sense I couldn't figure out how in the world she was doing this. It will be a stunning piece when done.


Here's my work station on the other side of the room. The table in the back corner is Judi's mother's work space where she works on watercolors and other art. Both Judi and her mother, Julia Zweerts Brownfoot, are represented at the Columbia Art Gallery.


...which is where we headed the next day. The gallery has a huge classroom space which Judi was able to acquire so two friends could join us. Rhonda and I set up at one table with Marby claiming one all to herself. Rhonda was busy free-motion zigzagging around folk-style applique flower blocks - dozens of them that will go into a quilt for a sweet young girl. Marby volunteers in the schools to bring special art projects to grade school children. The blocks on the design board in this picture are part of her most recent project with them.


Here's Marby having the same reaction to Judi's commissioned piece as I had - a mixture of awe and you must be crazy! Behind her is the rest of the grade school art project. She chose a picture of sunflowers, enlarged it and cut it into sections. Each student got a section to work on and fabric to choose from and constructed their own block. Now Marby is putting the finishing touches on the blocks, setting them with "attic window" sashing. She's braver than I am! I believe the finished quilt is going to a special teacher at the school.


And what was I working on these two days? My next assignment in the row robin challenge, of course! I'd decided on what to do and pulled fabric before packing up and only had a few iffy things to get advice on from my trusty band of quilters. One of those iffy things was which color thread would work best around these appliqued circles. I had no time to test before leaving so threw in three colors as my best guess. I really thought that green was the ticket, but my test piece above said no - way too bright. The blue didn't show up and the purple - well, Judi liked it but I wasn't convinced. What to do, what to do...I was about to give in to the purple when I remembered reading about blending your own perfect color by running two threads through one needle. Wow! I couldn't believe how well this worked. The blue toned the green down perfectly. These are Madeira Rayon threads and I tried Sulky Totally Stable Iron-On, Tear-Away Stabilizer underneath. I've used the regular Sulky Tear-Easy with good success (pinning it in place), but this was so much better and truly tore away easily. I highly recommend it.


Although I loved this quilt when it arrived (the two rows on the left), it's not a style I normally work in. That's ok - part of the challenge is to force us to work with different styles and color palettes. I was stunned to find I didn't have similar fabric in my stash, although I thought I did. With the exceptions of my hand-dyes, I don't have much in the way of clear bright colors. Nearly everything I own looks toned and muted next to these fabrics. So I gave up on the idea of fussy cutting florals as in the original row and added batiks and those circles with the hummingbirds. So I learned two things from this experience that I can take forward into my own style - I need to quit buying so much muted fabric (no wonder my pieces so often are dark and moody even when I'm thinking brighter thoughts), and I have twice the options in my thread stash by virtue of my experiment with sewing two colors together as if they were one thread.

Next up - a fabulous day in Portland...

Opening Reception

I'm off on a road trip tomorrow, my excuse being to attend my friend Judi's opening reception for her first solo show. If you are in the vincinity, please stop by and see her art, and introduce yourself. I'd love to meet some of my readers face to face.

Sunday, June 7th, 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
The Gorge White House
2265 Highway 35, Hood River, Oregon,
Just 4 miles south of town, 541-386-2828

Artist Reception for Judi Kane, Textile Artist
Complimentary wine tasting from Waving Tree.
Check out our Artist page for more information.

To get a taste for Judi's style, see these posts here and here.

While I'm looking forward to seeing her work hung at this winery, I'm looking forward even more to several days of sewing together. However, I'd forgotten just how much stuff one has to pack up when working outside of one's studio. Good thing I'm driving!

Drawing Studio Session 5 - Positive Space

Yesterday was my last drawing studio, and it was back to drawing more antlers and feathers. I admit this disappointed me as the teacher's comments in the previous session led me to believe we'd be doing a shading exercise. Well, I suppose this is a shading exercise of sorts. We used the picture plane again but unlike in the negative space drawing, we were to do more than just draw the outline of the objects. This time we were to add details, especially in the feather. We started by setting the ground, then worked on lightening and darkening to bring out the positive space. Quick mention was made of shared edges (no hard delineating line) and composition (mine needs cropping to eliminate some of the negative space in the bottom right quadrant.). This didn't feel much different from the negative space one for me, since I ended up darkening the background (others experimented with leaving their still life objects darker and lightening the negative space). But I liked leaving some shading on the antlers, then really had a breakthrough when I decided to block out areas of shadow within the negative space and make them even darker. I got an enthusiastic "Yes!" from the teacher, so will work on this a little more to blend and shade.

I continue to read in the book (Drawing on the Artist Within), doing additional exercises as I run across them and wish that we'd gotten farther in our 5 weeks. I was not alone. We have the option to take additional sessions as drop-ins or join the next group later in the year. It's tempting...I can see how much I need more of this.

What Is That Thing?

On the way to movie night, I spotted this piece of metal in the dirt by the side of the road. Besides being dirty, it was rusty too, so I didn't want to drop it directly into my bag. I could envision people asking as I looked for something to wrap it in, "What is that in your hand?" and me answering, "Occupational Hazard."

Because, in fact, I have no idea what it is, and it didn't occur to me to wonder what it had fallen off of. I just saw an interesting shape, paused to pick it up and admire it, and just as quickly decided to keep it. It could be traced around. It could be sun printed. It's heavy enough to be a paper weight! And my friends who rust dye are probably drooling over the marks it would leave if wrapped in damp fabric. Spotting and carrying home such bits & pieces to use in my art, you see, is definitely an occupational hazard.

Azalea Series?

It certainly feels like I'm working on a series. Or maybe I'm just determined to use up all the leftovers from the original fused version of Azalea Mosaic. Whatever you call it, I'm having fun. This one will be named "Broken Promises" (about 5 x 7 inches). I'm very tempted just to mat and frame it as is, no stitching or quilting. Just really like the shapes and colors. There's one more yet to come, provided I can settle on an arrangement for the very last of the bits and pieces.

Still pondering whether I need to add stitching to the big piece before layering for quilting (see this post and Rhonda's excellent observation), I stitched out some additional pre-programmed embroidery stitches. After much staring, I'd decided that the meandering vines only needed to be over the green tiles, and that a King Tut green variegated thread I have in abundance should work as well or better than the Oliver Twist thread I used on Azalea Mosaic III.


I narrowed it down to two and stitched them across the small test piece on the left. I could pin this little piece to the quilt top and step back, to sort of see the effect. I decided too much light green was popping off the surface so tried my favorite stitch in a dark green Sulky Rayon. That last bit of stitching finally clarified for me why I'd been so uneasy about putting any of these machine embroidery stitches on the top: They are just too even, the repeats too perfect. They need to vary more, like the individual tiles, like nature itself, and that's just not going to happen with these programmed stitches. Click on the picture to better see what I'm talking about.

That was it, all I needed, enough information gathered, conclusive decision made. I pulled the top off the wall, layered it and safety pin-basted for quilting today. I'm still considering using one of those embroidery stitches for the quilting between the squares, but that can be easily tested on the quilt itself and removed without leaving holes if necessary. In the meantime, discarding the idea of using any of those embroidery stitches resulted in a sudden rush of other ways to add something more appropriate. Whether or not I'll pursue any of them is still up for debate.

Drawing Studio - Catching up

No class yesterday because it was a holiday, but since I was home and looking for something to do to justify sitting on the porch in the lovely 70 degree weather, I did some reading and then some drawing. I'd picked up the books my teacher is basing her instruction on and decided it was high time I cracked one of them open. I started with Betty Edwards' second book published in 1986, "Drawing on the Artist Within." This has great quotations in the sidebars, including this gem:

"Seeing is totally different from looking...Art is a specialist's activity in this culture, and is just a symptom of the process of seeing."

Maybe that's why we so often refer to our drive to create as being "bitten by the bug" as if it is some kind of disease? I didn't read long until the bug insisted I put down the book and return to my drawing.


This is the second of the hand drawn on a ground exercises. I still need to go back in with eraser to create highlights and darken around the edges but as for the actual shapes, it is as done as it is going to get. I really struggled with those two fingers curling around the phone. Short and pudgy time after time. Turning the whole thing upside down to work on them was a great help.


Then it was on to my second negative space sketch. Working out the relationships between the lines and the cross-hairs came a bit easier this time. Yes, this takes practice.


And here it is with the negative spaces darkened and all other lines erased. I still have trouble seeing anything but the white space, have to really work at letting the negative dark space pop forward. I scanned ahead in the book to the section on negative space and was relieved to find mention of Artist Mark Wethli's response to the question, "When you want to see a negative space, can you see it right away, the very instant you look at it?" His answer was, "There's always a little time lag before a space pops into focus as a shape. But the lag gets shorter all the time."


Remember my work with creating rubber stamp designs cut from erasers? I really struggled with those designs, partly because I was having difficulty envisioning which parts would be printing and how they would look. I looked at them again yesterday and very shortly I started seeing the negative space for how it defined the design area I'd been so concentrated on. Suddenly the images were popping back and forth, negative becoming positive, positive negative, and I could see how each would work as the stamp. Then I focused on the diamond design that I knew wasn't working but couldn't see how to alter so it would. Bingo! Now I got it and could see what to do to make this one work as a stamp. Proof to me that these drawing exercises are having the desired effect.


But back to my second negative space sketch. I still had the sense that I would see the negative space better if it were not dark. As I mentioned before, I seem to see the opposite of what the majority of people see first. So I decided to test my theory and reverse the light and dark areas of the sketch. As I suspected, now I could easily see the negative spaces. Maybe I'll find something in the book that explains that.

Back to Auditioning - Part III

While I am finishing up the Azalea Mosaic Test piece, I am still confronted with a dilemma for the full size piece. I'm not convinced that adding the same sort of machine embroidery over the large piece (which I believe is around 24 x 24 inches) will do anything but detract from its strong graphic lines and colors. Yet a little voice keeps asking if it doesn't need more...of something, but I don't know what. I'm not sure which voice to listen to.

Sometimes dragging one's feet on these matters is a good thing. One may think it best to move along, jump in, admit it's unfounded fear holding one back from taking the next step, but sometimes it's time well spent. The subconscious works away at the problem and presents ways to approach it when you least expect it. My biggest problem here is that I need to see the effect full sized. In the last couple of days I've finally thought of ways to do that without committing thread to actual art. Above is one solution; I had a printout I was using to guide my placement of fabric squares. No reason I couldn't take colored pen to that to mimic the stitching I had in mind. It may not be full size, but it's giving me more clarity than my test piece or what's been floating around in my head.

Another thing I'm considering is using a clear overlay that can be drawn on. Tablecloth vinyl would be perfect for this, or cobbling together some transparencies to cover the entire top would be another solution.

Other thoughts that have come to mind: Just go ahead and quilt it and see what I think. Then if I feel the need to add vines, I could do it some other way. Believe it or not, I actually considered painting them on (that drawing class must be to blame for this unexpected confidence that I could successfully wield a paintbrush thus). Or perhaps they could be drawn on with a fabric marker. Hand embroidery is another possibility.

But doesn't this quilt understand that I just want to be DONE with it??? Apparently not. Definitely open to suggestions here.

Back to Auditioning - Part II

I finished up my Azalea Mosaic test piece by satin stitching around the edge with the same Oliver Twist green thread I'd used for the vine/leaf machine embroidery. 100% happy with how that looks! I assumed that a black background would suit it best, but of course, wondered about purple as well. Perhaps that would help the purple squares stand up more to that intense yellow. Again, I've cropped these auditions in Paintshop Pro and added a black border to represent the metal frame I plan to mount it in.




I was surprised that I didn't like it better. Although any of these more or less work, none give the impact I was looking for. A little strong, a little busy, a little dull...close but just not right.


So surely the black will be the no brainer, really set it off nicely. This is the same black as auditioned with jungle. It's a batik with hints of purple and blue in it. Huh. It seemed to sap all the life out of this little piece. Didn't expect that.


But the green...oh, I kept coming back to this green and every time it made me smile with pleasure. The satin stitching even pops off it instead of becoming lost on it. I think I have a winner here. Finished size will be 18 by 11 inches. Click on any picture for a larger view.

Back to Auditioning

I often get impatient with the creative process. At a certain point, I want to be done with the decision making, the influx of clever ideas, the laboring over final details. In short, I want to be done and dusted and moving on. But my pieces often don't agree with me. Case in point: Jungle. I'd already spent a lot of time pulling all kinds of possibilities to mount it on (see this post), narrowed it down to one, solved a new problem that cropped up demanding more auditioning and mulling, and was only waiting for a break in higher priority projects to quickly finish it up.


Wednesday, I squared it up and sewed on a narrow binding to create a little spark and delineation between it and the dark background I'd chosen. I placed it on that background and sighed...not at all sure that it was showing it off at all. Worse yet, I had this nagging feeling that it required some beads added to help jazz it up. It just looked a little boring and faded to me. Maybe the binding was a little too much pop? So much for finishing this up quickly. I'd already started pulling some fabric to audition for another piece, so started trying it out on some of those.


Greens looked awful. Purples looked awful. I even tried various tropical oranges and blues. Nothing made me pause and wonder for a second. Then I wondered if the burgundy crushed velvet I'd used on Twisted Tree might be just what I needed - rich and mysterious like the jungle itself. Uhhh, nope (the photo makes it look like it works better than it actually does). I was ready to resign myself to the black as the only answer.


This one was absolutely an afterthought. It was draped over the back of the chair next to the design wall. It was there only because I'd washed it a few weeks ago and hadn't gotten around to putting it away yet. It intrigues me the most, the way the bits of orange seem to balance the orange in the binding. It may be the solution to my dilemma. What do you think?

By the way, I used my Paintshop Pro software program to crop my photos so that you see approximately the amount of fabric that will extend beyond the binding, then added a border to represent the black metal frame I'll be mounting the finished piece into. I think it is critical to seeing which fabric will work best. It will finish at 13 x 11 inches. Click on any picture for a better view of the subtleties of each fabric

Playful Diversions

I got sidetracked yesterday as I was preparing my negative space drawing for posting here. As I thought more about how negative space can be an interesting design on its own, I wondered how this drawing might react to some of the effects in my Corel Paintshop Pro software. How different would my results be with this basic black and white drawing from the color photos I've played with in the past here, here and here? I started with the final rotation of the drawing seen above.


This is buttonized, an effect I hadn't tried yet. This got me thinking about that technique of using a "view finder" to move around a picture until you find an interesting section. Also, I can start to see what would happen if I played with fracturing or overlaying a separate geometric design and changing values within the different spaces.













I noticed there was a brushstrokes effect. Ok, so how would a pencil drawing look with brushstrokes? One of the random settings produced this, which I then could not resist colorizing in one of my favorite palettes. This is the sort of thing I've been thinking about trying with actual paint and brush, so must give it a go.


Magnifying lens is another effect I hadn't tried. I like this idea of making a small portion larger and superimposing it on the actual design. I've done the opposite of this - taking a detail and superimposing it smaller which is also effective.


I had no idea what the feedback effect would do - it was perhaps the most surprising.


Here's another feedback at a different setting. I really like these.


And how cool is this polar coordinates one?













The rotating mirror reflection effect reminded me about playing with my actual set of mirrors. Do you see primitive faces and figures in these?


And finally, my all-time favorite...the wave effect. I just keep clicking the random button and seeing things I love. This and the kaleidoscope effect quickly showed how differently I responded when no color was involved. More waves below.

Drawing Studio Session 4 - Negative Space

Another Monday, another drawing session - this time with a bit of drama. Our teacher got stuck in construction traffic making her over an hour late. So we muddled forward with phoned-in instructions we didn't clearly understand and didn't truly catch what we were supposed to be doing and why until she finally arrived. It was more focus on negative space, this time eliminating all detail in the object we were drawing. Can you guess what my still life was composed of?


Once the basic outline of the still life was sketched in, and then the space around it darkened in, we were encouraged to view those spaces as interesting shapes in and of themselves. The teacher picked up mine and turned it this way and that, really liking those spaces. So you won't have to twist your head, I've rotated my drawing for you.


Have you guessed yet what it is? The composition placed in front of me was overlapping antlers with a feather threaded through the prongs.


We used the picture plane again to trace the outline before drawing on paper. This was more difficult since the plane could not be rested on the object we were tracing. In the first drawing, we simply drew the same size as the picture plane, but on the second one, we went back to drawing at a larger scale. You can see the cross hairs on my second assignment (kitchen utensils "interestingly" arranged) which create a grid like is on the picture plane to facilitate in that enlarging. I still find this very hard, so the teacher suggested I do a quick sketch to get the general shapes in position, then go back and fine-tune to a more accurate rendition. That suggestion helped a lot. As you can see, I didn't get much beyond that sketching out, so have some "homework" to do this week.


Intellectually, I know what negative space is. Yet every time I run across that term as a design tool, I haven't really gotten what it means, why it is as important as positive space, nor how I can use it for design ideas. The teacher admitted that this exercise was very simple, but because of its simplicity, it would help our brains get used to seeing the negative space on its own. I do sense that I am starting to get it, to move out of the intellectual realm as I experience "making" negative space. Something tells me that I would see it more clearly if the negative space were left white and the positive space darkened. I've noticed that my eye often see the reverse of what most people first see in images that can be viewed two ways. For instance, when looking at pictures of old quilts, the quilted motifs often look sunken instead of raised up as they truly are. I seem to see receding images. and really have to work at making the image pop the other direction. Maybe that's why I struggle with this negative image stuff. How do you see?