Aullwood Art Quilt Show: Ruth Powers

"Spring Encounter", Ruth Powers, 46" x 40" $3,200.

 Almost every year, Ruth Powers of Carbondale, Kansas, shares some of her spectacular work.  No surprise here, Ruth does a lot of nature related work.

I am always floored by her artwork as many of her quilts while pictorial, are pieced.  Ruth does a drawing or takes a photo (or both) and renders it into slivers of fabric which are painstakingly numbered for assembly by machine.  While I have seen quite a bit of her work in shows, books, and have looked at her classwork, particularly on Del Thomas' blog, I don't think I could ever do such a piece.

"Spring Encounter", Ruth Powers, detail

Ruth uses a lot of commercially printed fabric and batiks, although she does work with hand-dyed fabric from time to time.  She always manages to make the fabric work for her, combining shades, and textures to make the absolutely perfect image.

Here, you can see the fawn, still in his spring spots looking through an old barbed wire fence.  Ruth discharged (removed color) from the fawn's back in order to make the spots.  I'm really sorry that the first image is a bit washed out....photography in the Aullwood Nature Center can sometimes be challenging!

Ruth Powers, "Mon Grand Pere", 44.75" x 36.25" $3,000

Ruth Powers, "Mon Grand Pere," detail

The next piece is also a wonder.  I love the incredible sky.  So many times the sky in Ohio looks just like this, and I can see the Laurentians in the background.  Ruth did this piece in 2008 to commemorate her French-Canadian grandfather who farmed his land with horses, and sythed his hay.  She used over 18 different prints in order to render the grasses.  I love the play of shades and the sentiment, but there's also a lot of wonder inthe details.









Here you can see the blade of the sythe as is cuts through the grass. I should have taken another shot  showing Grand Pere's head as the shading is great there too, I see a beard and a pipe...and I love the shadow play on his shirt!  I really like this piece for the heart it shows, and I suppose my love for Canada, and history also comes into play.

Ruth Powers, "In the Bleak Midwinter," 32" x 34" $2,000

Ruth Powers, "In the "Bleak Midwinter," detail. 

My favorite, however is this one.  Ruth used some hand dyed fabric from Linda Frost for the sky in this piece, and I love the threatening sky with the sunset (or sunrise, I've seen both like this) and the bones of the trees with the shadows on the snow.

Ruth used curved seaming on this one to give the drifts just exactly the right appearance.  I also love it as I have always been taken by the appearance of shadow on snow, how it changes from lavender  to cobalt blue and sometimes grays.

I was also amazed at her brush---I couldn't quite figure out how she did it as the lines from the gray blend  right into the red color, but I didn't think she inked it.  I asked her and she said it was just a commercial batik which she worked hard to line up the areas to make it seem like it ran from one color into the other.   She outlined stitched those pieces in dark thread which also connected them.

Ruth is also a fantastic machine quilter.  Look how the choices she made in the quilting really complimented and gave depth and reality to the piece.

Of course, I think another reason I really like this piece is because I like to sing...and I used to sing a lot.  Sometimes at home, almost always in the garden, and I also sang a lot at church.

When I was in the choir at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Meriden, Connecticut, we often sang "In the Bleak Midwinter", and I can remember our wonderful soprano section really doing this well (of course I was an alto, so I just gave depth).  I also like the poetry, and share this with my niece Katie who is a Victorian Literature professor, currently doing a post doc at UNC Chapel Hill.  The lyrics were composed by Christina Rossetti, the sister of the famous artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who were both spearheads of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in England.  Christina wrote the lyrics at the request of a magazine, and Gustav Holst put the piece to music.  I'd like to think that we sounded like this, but I know we didn't.




The lyrics, particularly the first part, have always sounded like home to me, and I'm sure to Ruth as well since she lives in Kansas where the snow swirls around trees and the sky glowers, just as she has represented it.

Here's the first part of the lyrics:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, 
 earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; 
 snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, 
 in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

You can see more of Ruth's work, and even buy some of her patterns (of which I admit to owning one, "Third Weekend in October," here.

As an addenda, I decided to put the entire lyrics of Rossetti's poem here.  Some of it is a little florid, but still lovely.

In the Bleak Midwinter

Christina Rossetti (1872)


In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.

Aullwood 2011: Fairies and Ruth Powers

Ruth Powers "Foxglove Fairy"  41" x 42" price negotiable

Ruth Powers almost always submits a quilt or two to the Aullwood show and I have to say I really admire her technique.  For those of you who are not familiar with Ruth's work, she almost always does nature scenes and her quilts are machine pieced bits of commercially printed fabrics.  I am in awe.

Here we have "Foxglove Fairy."  Ruth has been working on a series of fairies and this particular one was constructed to explore working with water reflections.  Ruth felt that the quilt didn't have enough "oomph" and so added the foxglove fabric.  I love how the water looks.  Take a look on her blog and follow the construction of this piece....just start with Friday, February 11, 2011 Another Fairy" 

Foxglove fairy detail

You can see here, I hope, a little of how she does this and the water reflection.  Ruth is from Carbondale, Kansas and exhibits a lot.  I think my most favorite fairy piece Ruth has done is "Don't Piss Off the Fairies".  Ruth did this for one of the SAQA 12" x 12" auctions, and Del  Thomas snagged it for her collection in 2009.  Take a look at it at Del's blog.  It just tickles me because we don't usually think about things like this. 

If you're not interested in negotiating with Ruth in order to buy this quilt, you can make one from one of her patterns in a more traditional ...or rather restrained view with her Fairies in My Garden pattern. 

I don't have fairies in my garden...but I have lots of the next best thing...ruby throated hummingbirds.

Ohhhhh! I think these are my favorites: Ruth Powers and Ginny Eckley

Without a doubt, my absolute favorite pieces from this show were by Ruth Powers and Ginny Eckley.

Here's Ruth Power's Oriole. Ruth has orioles visit her every year, and here she depicts them with the leaves and berries of the Porcelain berry vine (amalopsis), but she took artistic license and changed the porcelain berries from their improbable but actual colors of lavender and cobalt blue (unripe and ripe colors) to orange.

I just love the crispness of this piece, and of course the way that the oriole pops from the blue background. It is bound in orange which also gives it extra "pop" as well as contains the image. Without that orange binding, the piece wouldn't be what it is, but the eye would run off the edge of the quilt.

Ruth tells me that the director of the Aullwood nature center purchased this piece. Ruth lives in Carbondale, KS and usually works on nature themes. Ruth works with commercially printed fabric, which is becoming unusual in the world of art quilts these days. Many art quilters prefer to dye their own fabrics to get exactly what they want.

I've been contemplating ripping out my variegated porcelain berry vine, and Ruth's piece almost makes me think I should keep it....

Ruth's second entry in the show is "Raven Brings Light to the World." Raven figures prominently in the stories of the native tribes of the pacific Northwest Coast. He is a trickster, as well as the great benefactor for causing the sun to be brought to the world.

Ruth's depiction was done for challenge of mythologically based quilts.


Look at the wonderful use of beads! Sometimes I think that beads are gratuitously used, not in this case! I also love how the pieced background gives such movement and luminosity to the piece.

Ruth's website is:

http://www.ruthpowersartquilts.com

and is well worth a look!




The other piece which is among my favorites is by Ginny Eckley of Kingwood, Texas. Now, I'm going to give you a teaser...









Ginny uses painted images on her quilts and also silkscreens. Here's Carmine Trio, which I like, but it isn't the one which knocks my socks off.

I do like this, again partly because of the orange reds, yellow ochres and raw siennas....I just love those colors, and yes, I'm a color junkie.

It's also sort of sweet how the birds are feeding their babies....no matter HOW big they have grown...sort of like us, I suppose...



Here's a detail. You can see better on this detail the other reason I like this piece. Look at the borders.... they are pieced from a sari-like border print, and another piece which is reminiscent of a border print on a particular type of paisley shawl which was popular in the 1820s. The light wasn't very good, and I didn't want to use flash, so I apologize for the darkness of the shots.














This is my favorite piece of Ginny's, and I'm hard pressed to chose it over Ruth's. It is called City Birds. It's a subtle piece, working in a very neutral palette, yet it just glows for me.

I loused up the shot I took of the wrought iron fence, but it is fabulous! The control and detail she has achieved, and the wonderful texture she has given this piece makes me wish I could sit and talk to her to find out exactly how she did this.

I'm not fond of starlings....but in this case, I'll make a huge exception.


Ginny's websites are as follows:


http://www.fabricpainting.com/

www.photoezsilkscreen.com

I hope you enjoy these two artists' works as much as I do. I wish they were nearby....or maybe, if I'm lucky, they'll be teaching in the area sometime soon.