What I Love (And Hate) About Designing

It's thinking I'm all done, the work ready to be framed or bound, my mind thoroughly made up and all doubts addressed and set aside...and then discovering the piece needs something else. This happened not once, but twice over the last few days, and it's what I hate about working on my own designs, yet love - that unexpected solution that sparks a bit of excitement in me again and makes the work better. I'll start with Broken Promises, my Azalea Mosaic requiring no batting, no stitch, and at one point not even a background. I was going to use a traditional mat over it and slip it into a frame. But then I found the perfect background to create a fabric mat, and fused it to that. Still, I thought it was going straight into the frame, but I couldn't do it. Something about that fused edge made me uneasy. I thought about the decorative stitches on my machine, one all jagged that would carry on the broken theme and decided it would be the perfect ending. After trying several threads and adjustments, I settled on this variegated one that picked up several colors in the mosaic. And of course, the real thing did not read the same as the sample. Grrr...

The yellow in the thread was pretty bright, so I thought I could fix what I didn't like by inking over it to tone it down. Nope, that wasn't the whole problem. The problem was the stitching looked fuzzy in direct opposition to my other clean lines. It also lent an air of agitation to the piece, and although the theme of broken promises could include agitation and irritation, that was not the feeling I had when arranging the pieces. No, it was more sadness, disappointment, a quiet resignation. So the ziggy zaggy thread had to go.


But now I had holes that were not going to disappear, so something would have to be stitched in its place. I opted for this dark green rayon thread in a satin stitch wide enough to cover the holes. I only made one pass - the brokenness can show through a bit in this cleaner finish. NOW it is ready to slip into its frame.


Then it was on to finishing Slippery Slope. One of the drawbacks of hand-dyes and batiks is that the base fabric is quite fine compared to most commercial cottons. A yellow like I planned to use would allow the busy batik it would lay upon to shadow through, so fusing was not an option. I reverted back to backing it with a piece of Decor Bond cut to the exact size the yellow portion needed to be. I trimmed the yellow about 3/8" beyond so that I could turn it to the back, creating a smooth edge finish. I mitered the corners and used glue baste to hold it in place on the back. I could lay down a line of glue, roll the edge over and hit it with the iron, immediately holding it in place.


The idea was for the yellow to look a bit as if it were floating on the background. I centered the mosaic on it and fused it in place, then centered that unit onto the batik background which had also been stabilized with Decor Bond. A little glue baste several inches away from the edges held it in place for the next step.


I didn't want to stitch this piece to the background and decided to slip narrow strips of fusible web along the under edges of the yellow, then ironed with a piece of release paper protecting the top. Using fusible under the entire piece would be overkill since I'd be stitching through that section.


And here is the stitching - I opted for the heavier silk buttonhole thread and was glad I did. It gave just the effect I was hoping for. And here is where I thought I was done, except for adding one more line of stitching.


I was a little unhappy, though, with the way my yellow frame was working. I proportioned it with wider sides to accommodate the fact that I planned to put this piece in a 12 x 16 inch frame. But it just looked a bit blah and off to me. Hmm. I don't know why I thought of it, but suddenly I wondered if it wouldn't improve things, the balance if I added narrow strips of green in that wider border side. And to my mind, this gave the piece the additional interest it lacked. On a whim, I pulled some leftover background from the first Azalea Mosaic, cut strips, compared that look to strips of the green in the center, and decided the speckled one looked better. But I also could see that adding the rejected strips out into the batik, offset like the line of the quilting, would make it even better.


Now it really is done (except I must confess it's not really in the frame yet - that's a photo-shopped one), and I am so much happier with it. I hate it when all the auditioning and thinking and envisioning goes from excitement to disappointment, when I want to be done but I'm not. But then, when these glimpses of what could be come to me, I love working through the process once more.

Karma Friends Award

Here's another blogger award and Scrappy Cat has seen fit to include me among her picks to receive it. Thanks ever so. Here's what it's all about:

The Karma Award: These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kinds of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

My picks are as follows. Please check out their blogs. Some post regularly, others less so, but all have wonderful, warm content and are generous in sharing their work and their knowledge and their feelings. Perfect blogger friends!

Olga of Threading Thoughts
Dijanne Cevaal of Musings of a Textile Itinerant
Margaret Cooter
smarcoux at Dangling By A Thread
Pat Denino at Wandering Wonderings
Constance Rose Textile Design
Linda Stokes Textile Artist
Delores Fegan - Art Quilts

Actually, almost any of the blogs I follow could win this award, so please, don't any of my other blogging friends feel left out. You get my Karma Friends Award too - you just don't have to pass it along!

William Glackens

Back in April, I introduced you to "Natalie in a Blue Skirt" by William Glackens (see this post). I shared my interpretation of the painting, noting that this may not have been what the artist intended: "She appeared to represent everything that I didn't have but longed for: wealth, success, sophistication, happiness and an easy confidence. She looked like nothing could fluster her, there was no haughtiness or exclusivity in her demeanor. She wore her accomplishments modestly. She was comfortable in her own skin."

I've always wondered if this was a portrait of an important woman, or at least someone important in Glackens' life and if it was actually painted in the 1920's as I had guessed. I realized how little I knew about Glackens himself, so decided to see what I could find out about this painting, the artist and Natalie.


In the book "William Glackens: Life & Work" by William H. Gerdts, copyright 1996, I found my answer. While Glackens painted many works portraying family members, alone or in groups as in "Family Group" from 1910 above, he also created many figure paintings during the teens, 20's & 30's that were "strictly studio images of mostly professional models...occasionally identified by their first names...Sometimes the titles are individualized by elements of costume..." My painting exhibits both. The book goes on to say that beauty did not seem to be a requisite for posing for Glackens. According to his son, "Father was always prone to hire models who needed a job, and that is why so many of his canvases were of exceedingly plain females, though paintable."

As to how the models are portrayed in these "studio" paintings, I may have been pretty close to the mark: "Whether the models were poor or not, they do not appear to have come into the studio from poverty row; they are usually quite well dressed, suggesting their ownership of paintable costumes." Natalie may not have been affluent, or a socialite, but she apparently was a professional, and a confident one at that.


Glackens' palette changed over the years, and the colors used in the Natalie portrait on the right are consistent with those in other paintings from this time period, including "Family Group" on the left. There's even a similarity in pose between the women in these two paintings, the way they are angling to the left and almost lounging back in their respective chairs. I love finding connections like these.

The Wonders of Technology

I was digging around in a closet the other day and ran across some photo enlargements from the 1970's. The one above was taken in the same area as the ones I took on my day out in Post Falls earlier this year (see this post). If you remember the story, I'd dropped my camera in the river on that original visit, but had the film developed anyway. I was a little surprised at the composition - apparently I've been fascinated by tree shapes longer than I remember. I wasn't sure if this was one of the damaged photos or just a print that had faded over the years.


I have an Epson Stylus Photo RX500 - a printer that also scans and copies. So I scanned in this photo, hit the Color Restoration button, and voila...The magic of technology! It looked right to me. Today I ran across the original print in a photo album, unfaded and identical in color to the modified scanned version. Amazing.


Here's a similar composition from my recent visit (but with a tree that is not nearly as interesting). The fascination with those rock formations is as strong today as it was 30 years ago.


This is the other enlargement I ran across and frankly couldn't remember where I'd taken it or when. It did not have the same discoloration but I suspected it was slightly faded. Today I tracked it down in a slide box, scanned the slide and confirmed that the enlargement has indeed faded a bit. Now I know it was taken around 1977 and I think somewhere near Camp Cross on Coeur d'Alene Lake.


Again, certain fascinations must follow us all our lives. You might remember this recent photo of "stairs to nowhere" taken on my walk around Brownes Addition. (see this post).


And finally, another slide from that same time, also near Camp Cross and confirming that farm equipment has long caught my attention. Don't you love the rust?

Contemplating...

...threads again. This is after double checking my various dimensions, cutting the Decor Bond and backgrounds for the two remaining azalea pieces, fusing said Decor Bond and working out in my head how I will be attaching the various layers to each other.


As I suspected, I'll be using no batting on this one, and have decided to run lines of stitching about 1/2" to 3/4" apart through the center portion from one side to the other. What seems to look best, if I can trust the draping of threads, is for the line to angle from the left down to the yellow where it will go straight, then as it passes over the appliqued section it will continue dropping down in several swoops. Straight again over the yellow, then angling down and off the edge, sort of following the drop in the leaf print on that side. (Does it help to know I'm calling this "Slippery Slope?" Click on the top picture and you should be able to see what I'm talking about.) As for color, a definite no to the purple and the green, a no also for one of the red and yellow variegated threads, but a possible yes for the other one. I think either of the yellows (one silk buttonhole weight, the other rayon light weight) might work but it depends on how much I want the thread to show I think. I'll let my subconscious work on it overnight and see what I think tomorrow.

The Troublemaker

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible.

Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

Well that explains why I've irritated people all my life...

Mourning Quilts

Mourning quilts have a significant if not morbid place in American quilting history. When I first ran across them in my study of antique quilts, I couldn't quite get my head around the idea. (The Kentucky Coffin Quilt described here especially creeped me out.) Not anything I thought I'd ever partake in. And then my husband died - 9 years ago today. Not right away, but eventually the making of a mourning quilt just happened, and happened again. I came to realize it was a natural enough expression of my grief & love through a medium that was helping me to hold on.

The quilt above didn't exactly start out as a mourning quilt. It's one I'd planned to make for my husband., but hadn't made its way very far up the priority list We followed motorcycle road racing on TV and attended several AMA rounds at Road America. Joey Dunlop was a particular favorite of Allen's, a hero of sorts, because he was still racing and winning in his mid 40's. Allen being about the same age loved seeing Joey get the better of the young whipper snappers when we'd watch the Isle of Man TT races. When I ran across instructions for making an authentic Isle of Man quilt, there was no question that I'd make one, and use Joey's racing colors.

As fate would have it, Joey & Allen both died just 3 days apart while riding their beloved motorcycles. A year later I decided to start the quilt anyway, using some Dutch reproduction fabric Allen had approved of (and then blanched when he found out how much I'd paid for it). The quilt is essentially made up of log cabin blocks with the "logs" being overlapping folded strips hand sewn to a muslin foundation. Where the authentic Isle of Man part comes in is in the measuring and cutting of the pieces. All pieces are torn using parts of the hand to determine widths. I had not anticipated how therapeutic all that ripping of fabric would be!


From there on, it was picking up a block to handsew while watching tv - nothing steady, just when other handwork wasn't pressing or I felt the need to focus on pleasant memories, and yes, to mourn. We took some great trips on that motorcycle, searching out the beautiful and the odd in the Upper Midwest and into Canada. Above is Allen at the lookout above Lake of the Clouds in Michigan. Below is the Canada trip where the goal was to see a moose. The moose crossing sign just cracked us up.


By 2004 I'd finished as many blocks as I had fabric and sewn them into this small quilt. In that time I'd collected poems and stories and words of encouragement, as well as the names of more motorcycle racers who had died. It seemed appropriate to pen these on the back. Every July I get out the quilt, read all those words and names, and remember. It brings me close to him somehow, and brings me comfort. It's a quilt that I don't share much, being so personal. I suppose my recording of the additional deaths over the years would strike some as morbid, another reason I hesitate to share. It has given me some insight into those women and their mourning quilts that I couldn't get my head around, that's for sure.


There's racing on TV later today, and you better believe I'll be watching. In the meantime, here's one of those things that got written on the back of the quilt. It's called North American Prayer.

I give you this thought to keep-
I am with you still-
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand words
that blow,
I am the diamond glints
on snow.
I am the sunlight on
ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars
that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone.
I am with you still
in each new dawn.

Those Little Details

Here's what I did yesterday. I was bound and determined to wrap up some loose ends - having too many "almost finished" things hanging around gets to me before long. Azalea Mosaic II got its label sewn on (sleeve went on the day before) so it is ready for exhibit. Azalea Mosaic III and Jungle were just waiting for me to cut foam core board to size, pin them to it and slip them into metal frames. I can't tell you how much I love the way my smaller work looks displayed this way (the quilted and edged portion is sewn to fabric that has been backed with Decor Bond interfacing.). Now they too are ready for exhibit. (For more info on this framing method, see this post.) Click on the picture for a larger view. I also took the time to fill out my documentation files for these - they just need pictures now.

This will allow a more or less fresh start on Monday and has freed up a lot of work table. Thus, I could allow myself the holiday today! Happy 4th of July!

Ruth Hargreaves

Winter Pond

When I was checking out my space for the upcoming ArtWalk, I discovered a local artist who's work I really like. Ruth Hargreaves works mainly in oils/mixed media on board. The exhibit I saw was abstract in nature, with many of the pieces evoking landscapes or parts of landscapes. I could recognize my tree images in some of them.

Not Easily Tamed

When I tracked down her website and read her artist statement, I found Ruth and I have even more in common than subject matter. It sounds like her creative journey has been similar to mine even though she works in paint and I in fabric:

"My interests cover a wide range but primarily focus on abstract and the exploration of texture, color, and emotion...While being exciting, surprising, rewarding, and enjoyable, this, for me, involves a steep learning curve and has its share of angst."

Night Drift

Angst...Yup, anyone who has followed my art quilt career knows about the angst I regularly subject myself to. But there's more:

"While abstraction will remain my central focus, I periodically need to return to realism. The tight control comes easily to me, is comfortable and fairly predictable in outcome. In a word, 'safe'."

Beyond Obligations

Ruth's abstraction can be likened to my art quilting in general, her return to realism my return to traditional quilting on occasion. I guess we all need to take risks, but also need that safe place to return to reassure and recharge.

Ruth has graciously given me permission to share these select works from the exhibit as seen on her website. To see more of Ruth's work, check out her galleries: abstract, mixed media & realism.

Azaleas Bloomin'

The azaleas pretty much came and went while I was out of town, but they are sure blooming in the studio this week. Here's the last in the series, at the end of much fabric auditioning. I have yet to determine the exact width of that yellow border but the general proportions of the three pieces are pretty close. I will add some stitch to this, although whether or not there will be batting is still a question.


Happy accident! This version which I planned to mat and frame, no stitching required, was on the design while while I auditioned fabrics for the other one. While this red didn't work for Mosaic V, I was quite taken with how Mosaic IV looked on it. Changes my mind entirely about that matting thing.


This morning I put a few stitches into the hand-appliqued version that started this whole thing. Then I squared up Mosaic II, auditioned several piping fabrics, thought it a good idea, and proceeded to finish up the edge of this quilt. Just fabulous colors in that batik. Alas, after completing 2 sides, holding it up and stepping back, I decided the piping just wasn't working. Sigh...because I'd spent a lot of time pinning and carefully sewing it on, ditto with the binding, so that perfect 1/8 inch would peek out from the seam.

I must be maturing. If this were last year, I'd have spent a lot of time, perhaps even days, trying to convince myself that it DID work - not based on anything other than the time invested in applying it plus taking it off again and the fact that it had looked right in my head and the auditioning process. Reason might eventually prevail. - or not. Today, it took about 10 minutes to conclude I didn't like it - reason enough to remove it. But why, I wondered? Basically, the piping did nothing for the quilt, added nothing. If anything, it distracted the eye. So off it came. The only emotion was a bit of anger at not reaching my goal for the day (getting the binding on), but it was tempered with grudging pleasure that I'd not wasted even more time fighting the inevitable. Just put the disappointment aside and get back to work. I've been working on this series for a year now, and it's time to wrap it up.

Azalea II Quilted

At last, I'm back to finishing up what was interrupted by my recent trip. I'd told myself that the first order of business would be to get two small pieces mounted and framed, but there was Azalea II lying there at the machine, begging for me to sit down and quilt it.


Before I left, I picked up more of the Sulky dark green rayon thread that I was sure I'd be using for the quilting. As I stood there matching my mostly used up spool to the proper spool in the display, something told me to pick up a slightly lighter version too. Guess I remembered my assessment that my green threads were either light or dark. Wouldn't you know it, when I sat down to try my three choices on the edge of the quilt, it was that medium green afterthought that was the perfect one. I also tried a different length and width of the embroidery stitch than I'd tried on my earlier samples. It looks like crown vetch to me, was easy to manipulate around the corners as I followed a zig zag path between the mosaic "tiles," and the rayon picks up the light nicely. This, I think, is the first time I've used machine embroidery as the quilting stitch and I was pleased with how it worked.


I think this fulfills my need for something viney on the quilt and makes the squares pop up from the surface as I envisioned I wanted them to do. (The picture above shows the quilting in process. - the batting is Hobbs 80/20 black) Yes, after all my dithering and wondering and testing and imagining, I think this is the effect I ultimately wanted. That other stuff might end up on another version, but this one seems to want to be fairly pure.

One more decision to make - I plan a 1/2 inch binding of the background fabric, but I'm wondering if I should insert a narrow piping of the tropical batik from the purple section?

Clouds

The clouds looked very strange yesterday.


Wispy and slightly out of focus.


Yes, I know, clouds are supposed to be soft and puffy, but these went beyond that.


And then it all went surreal...


Honestly, this is how they really looked


And I had the strange sense it was my eyes going blurry.


But it was just the clouds.


June is concentrating on clouds at the moment.


She would have had a field day with these.

Row Robin Revisited

When I opened the studio door after my trip, I spotted the fabric I'd left out just in case I felt my addition to the row robin quilt needed some fussy cut flowers fused to it. Honestly, while I thought my row was ok, I don't really like to settle for ok. I think it looks much better now, plays better with the other rows.



It was surprisingly enjoyable to do this cutting and fusing, a good way to get back into the rhythm of the studio. To see what it looked like before adding the flowers, see here.

A Final Look at Walla Walla

I had a chance to stroll from downtown through a lovely residential section of Walla Walla, and thought I'd share some of the possible creative inspiration along the way. Click on any picture for a larger view. This Art Deco building has always caught my attention.


As always, decorative detailing is of interest.


Then there's this early 1900's building. The second story does not match the first and has so much going on.


The climate is perfect for gardening. I liked this grouping of colors.


And this gorgeous lavender rose bush - I had one when I lived here.


Look at the twist in the surface texture of the bark.


And white of these trunks demanding attention, limbs going off in all directions.


Soon it was time to head home. Last year when I drove through the Palouse about this time, the greens I saw in the fields were much brighter and more varied than they were this year. See this post. Yet as I drove out of town, I saw these brilliant fields saying goodbye.

So that wraps up my travelogue. My head's still spinning with all I saw and did. Tons of inspiration gathered along the way, and now it's time to get back to work, put some of it to good use..