Michigoose's gander at quilts & life: Aullwood: Merry Havens and me

Yesterday, I mentioned that my pieces hung next to Anne Theobalds, and here you see the right side of the wall. I am very pleased to hang with the other artists on this wall. One of my "friends" from previous years of Aullwood submissions is Merry Havens. Merry's pieces are the round one which hangs above my frog in the center, and the dark rectangular one at the right with the circular elements. This is the third year I have reviewed Merry's work here, and I always enjoy her approach.

Merry Havens, "Mama Africa", 25" dia., $625.

This is Merry's "Mama Africa," and I love how she's worked background and the continents. Some of the fabrics are African print. Her work reminds us that Africa is the cradle of mankind, and although the earth is made of many parts, it creates one whole. She quilted the words "Mama Africa into the edges of the quilt.

Merry is a science teacher, and lives in Thornton, Colorado. Her piece "Many Worlds/One Earth" shows her education background. The piece is composed of circles representing flora and fauna from various elements...painted with acrylic paints on the circles. Two of the circles were ink jet photo prints on cotton.

Merry Havens, "Many Worlds/One Earth," 45" x 16", $700

Merry reminds us that "As vast and differentiated as our Good Earth may seem, we are all room-mates."
Her teacher side comes when she queried the viewer to find out which was the ink jet photos. This is a nifty thing to do in the label of this piece as the Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm hosts many families and children in their programs and as visitors. Her use of the different black and white prints (some very small prints) directs the eye and gives textural interest to the piece.

Her last piece I really enjoy. You can't see it in the group photo I showed here because it is up and to the left of the area However, if you check yesterday's blog post, I believe you can see it there.

I think I enjoy this next piece most because there is so much to look at. It is rich and dripping with things to examine.

Merry Havens, "Wild Earth," 29" x 18" NFS

Much like a crazy quilt, Merry has embellished this piece greatly, with buttons, beads, stones, jewelry elements, seed pods and other interesting things. She has appliqued and couched ribbon and fabric creating a modern crazy quilt with strong references to nature.

The amusing thing is that Merry took this on as a challenge from her quilt group to break away from using bright colors, but to work with earth tones instead. She added her wildness, however, with her embellishments.

I tried to capture the dimension from the natural seed pods Merry attached. You can see more of Merry's work here. She also has a blog which you can find here.

Merry's use of buttons and embellishments is related to my current work. I didn't intend to show it here, but I am because a couple of people have asked me to.

Lisa Quintana, "Soil Horizon," 16.5" x 31.5" $500.

This is "Soil Horizon" which is meant to illustrate the various soil layers. I hand stitched vintage mother-of-pearl and plastic buttons, hand stitched the dandelion like flowers and seed stitching on the upper left portion, as well as dinosaur prints along the left side.

I also couched decorative threads and yarns along the side. I hand and machine quilted the main body using a wool batting which I allowed to come out at the sides.

The background is a stretch (oh fun oh joy) panne velvet which I heavily machine stitched. I need to take another photo as you can't really see that in this....and I didn't bother to take a picture of mine alone at the show.

Lisa Quintana, "Voice of the People", 26.25" x 31.5", $500.

You have seen my froggy friend before. It is done after the Northwestern tribal "button blankets" and was actually designed for a Miami Valley Art Quilt Network challenge where the theme was "frogs."

It is appliqued on wool and wool blend felt, embellished with lots of mother of pearl buttons, and white shell beads. I machine quilted it.

The frog, according to many Northwestern native groups, is known as "the voice of the people," and is the go-between for the spiritual and physical worlds, probably because as an amphibian, the frog straddles both the aquatic and terrestrial worlds.