When is an exhibit not an exhibit – or displaying art in the time of coronavirus

Nonseries Work

I find myself spending more time in my studio during this “odd time.” I’m working on several new pieces that I will show you soon. But now I’d like to brag about an exhibit that my art quilt group has in San Diego. It started last year when the Visions Art Museum contacted our Fiber Optix group to see if we would be interested in having an exhibit. Visions is a prestigious gallery that biennially hosts one of the top fiber international juried exhibitions. Our group was delighted to participate.

We submitted digital photos of our quilts. They were juried; I had two accepted. Then in February everything changed. The museum closed. The two quilts I shipped were held in a FedEx office and eventually returned to me; they now hang in our hall.

The museum didn’t give up and decided to have a virtual exhibit. I invite you to explore it.

Here’s how:

Enter the Fiber Optix: Recent Works exhibition here.
Scroll down, reading the information about our group.
Under “Meet the Artists,” you’ll find me. Click on my name to see the “interview” the museum did with me. (Click on the mini version and you can actually read it.)
Go back to the exhibit page and scroll down to the quilts. Mine are “Janet and Me” and “Influences.”
Click on each quilt for details, plus my inspiration.
Do the same for others from our talented group.

Thanks for coming to the opening. I’m sorry you missed out on the wine and nibbles… and that we missed out on a trip to San Diego. These ARE odd times. Keep safe and keep creating!

New Work

Nonseries Work, Parkinson

I’ve been working on some new pieces. Several of them are based on aspects of living with Parkinson’s disease, which I have had for about 15 years. I began this series last year, designing and making relatively small art quilts. I have several more that I need to transform from my brain into fabric.

My Battle with Parkinson: Hope

“My Battle with Parkinson: Hope”
Size: 20″w x 20″h
Materials and techniques: Hand-dyed fabrics, polyester quilting thread; raw-edge machine collaged & machine quilted.

Statement: I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease more than 15 years ago. Each of us who battles with this disease has similar and different symptoms. All of us have hope that the extensive research being done about the disease will lead to a cure.

My Battle with Parkinson: Frustration

“My Battle with Parkinson: Frustration”
Size: 19″w x 20″h
Materials and techniques: Fabrics hand dyed by the artist, polyester quilting thread; machine appliqued, raw-edge collaged, machine pieced, & machine quilted.

Statement: I’ve dealt with frustration almost from the day I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I experience it when I’m working in my studio and in everyday life.

During the last year I have lost three good friends; two have passed away and the third, Janet Steadman, has moved from nearby Whidbey Island to Omaha, Nebraska. This led to the creation of the next piece.

Janet and Me

“Janet and Me”
Size: 17″w x 28″h
Materials and techniques: Hand-dyed cotton fabrics, polyester & silk quilting thread; machine pieced & quilted.

Statement: From the first “art quilt” I made, Janet Steadman has been a mentor, advisor, and encourager of my work. When Janet moved more than 2500 miles away, she cleaned out her studio, including two large garbage bags of scraps that I inherited with joy. This art piece combines some of Janet’s hand dyes as companions to mine.

Giraffes, Influences and a Village – All in 2018

Endangered Species, Nonseries Work

At a time in my life when I’m slowing down physically, I also seem to be slowing down artistically. Lately, I’ve found it takes me about 5 times longer to complete a project than it previously did. In the last year, I’ve added only 3 completed art quilts to my collection. Even so, I had a number of starts and stops and plenty of ideas. Here’s what was completed in 2018:

Illusive Giraffes (detail)

“Illusive Giraffes” started out as two white strips on a black background. From the beginning, I thought they looked like giraffes, so I decided to pursue the pieces as part of my Endangered Species series. I overdyed, added pieces cut from a remnant of hand-dyed silk (given to me by a friend many years ago), machine-quilted the giraffes and embellished the piece with leaves cut from ribbon and attached with beads. My husband was pruning our fruit trees and contributed the hanging stick – literally a stick. From humble beginnings come a piece of art.

Influences

“Influences” started as a challenge from Nancy Crow. I liked the initial piece but felt it needed refining. To make it more workable, I cut it apart. Yes, I used a rotary cutter and slashed it into sections. Some of these I slashed again, and even again, so that the piece had blocks (areas) of smaller improvisational piecing. Then I machine-quilted it with different thread colors. As I worked, it became my piece and not a workshop sample.

It Takes a Village

According to Wikipedia, “It takes a village to raise a child is an African proverb that means that an entire community of people must interact with children for those children to experience and grow in a safe and healthy environment.” My quilt “It Takes a Village” is so named because it took a community of quilters who over the years have donated scraps. I used their pieces, many already sewn together into strips, to create log cabin-like blocks. The triangle centers (leftover from a previous project) are roofs for houses, barns, a schoolhouse, a church, a bird house and even a houseboat – all detailed by the machine quilting.