Art Quilt Forest: Ruth Treon's Tree

 I have been madly trying to get three quilts done to submit to the Studio Art Quilt Associations Ohio regional show...and quite frankly, have been too tuckered out to write! As I just got two of them pinned to the carpet and blocked, I'm going to take a little break and post this. :)

One of the things I think which was difficult for our little art Quilt group is to figure out how much or how little to make our blanks.  
Compare Ruth Treon's branches which flow off the space, with Gwen's (Here on Feb. 1)which were well.....truncated!

Ruth also packed her quilt bits in a shoe box to pass around.

 Remember, the originator didn't get to see these until the reveal.  Here you see Ruth's surprise as Loraine looks on.

As I mentioned, Susan Pickrell decided that the boxes needed embellishment....and she really had a heyday with Ruth's box.  The cover was covered with some trapunto quilting.  Inside, Susan made a yarn cover (I don't know if she knitted it or crocheted it) for her camera and stuck in some other interesting things in case someone wanted to use them on Ruth's work.

 Here's Ruth's finished piece.  Susan did the first thing which was to work with a word (the assignment from the Art Quilt Workbook which was applied on her turn).  Her word was "shadow."  Susan wrote "shadow" repeatedly on her sewing machine over net stabilized with water soluble stabilizer. This became the tree's shadow.

I think, but I'm not sure, that Linnette Vagedes added the pieced quilt...Becky Goodwin added the angelina frost which I think turned out great, Gwen Brown the painted area in the sky, and Jo Heffner made the rabbit and the rabbit footprints.

Here you can see more closely the really cool bird that Loraine Smith added...it has a real feather tail, and it is really tiny.  The over all size of this piece is about 14" tall.....so the bird is about 1/2" long.

Art Quilt Trees: Becky Goodwin

 Here's Becky Goodwin and her tree "blank" for the Round Robin.  Becky's was really neat because everyone reacted to it in the same way.....We saw an acacia tree in Africa....

The background is a brown batik ....

When we were passing these around, the person who started the piece had to leave the room....they were kept in boxes , and we discovered we had to add paper to some of the boxes so you couldn't peep in and see your piece before "the reveal."

Here's Becky and her sister Jo Heffner as Becky looks at her piece for the first time in a year.

This turned out to be one of the best ones.  Linnette Vagedes added the eagle---and her husband and she kept on moving the eagle around the piece before it was positioned here.  She made it so that the wing would flip out and be dimensional.

Loraine Smith added the hut, which also had dimensions....I think...I don't remember who added the one lady with the burden...I think it was Ruth Treon who added the path as well.  Then the second lady was added by someone else...

The stamped giraffe in the background was really neat...as was the dimensional "bush" at the far right (Gwen Brown's addition?)....Jo Heffner made the really cool mask....in a really creative way.  She took a plastic baby spoon and cut the handle off..her husband smoothed it out for her.  She then made paper mache out of shredded paper to make the dimension of the mask. covering it with fabric.  She then painted the face marks on with paint pens as the fine elements of the mask were not noticeable unless you increased the contrast.


I'm really glad that they had the journals which accompanied this because I sure as heck can't remember who did what!
Well done!

Carroll Schleppi's Current work at Benkin Gallery

Carroll Schleppi is one of my colleagues from the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network. Carroll retired not too long ago from the mathematics department of the University of Dayton. One of the more interesting things she told me was that when she was applying to college, she expressed an interest in engineering. The only problem was that at that time, women didn't go into engineering. Instead, they directed her to the more acceptable venue for female minds....mathematics.

Carroll has really opened up her quilting in the last couple of years. I like this monochromatic study in triangle and circles. I think this came out of one of the explorations from Jane Davila and Elin Waterston's Art Quilt Workbook. Carroll named this "Outer Space c. 1930" playing up the modernistic feeling of the triangle/circle combination.


The texture in it is just wonderful. The metallic fabric really adds a sparkle as does the silver cording.


About a year and a half ago, a number of us were exploring rust dyeing. Lori Gravely (Laughing Girl Quilts) led session for MVAQN. This piece Carroll made using her rust-dyed fabric. Carrol uses a lot of bits and pieces salvaged from other things. "Rust and Leather" uses leather strips from a leather skirt she cut up. I can't imagine sewing this as suede has a habit of sticking to your presser foot.


Carroll has been working a lot with texture lately. "Black 101" is intriguing

because it is all black, but you are drawn into the various areas because of the change in texture and the reflective quality. This piece, and "Rust and Leather" are both about 20" x 20"





"Brown Locks" plays with Japanese fabrics and other pieces. I don't know much about this one because I haven't been at the recent meetings.






Carroll has a cache of Hawaiian shirt prints she got from a Hawaiian shirt factory. They are all cutting floor scraps. I think she is getting to the end of them, but it has been really fun to see what she's been doing with them. You can see one of her larger pieces showing the floral prints in my previous post. It's in the "blue room."

Another piece also made from the Hawaiian prints is her "Geckos at Sunset." My overall of this piece didn't turn out well. It hangs in the "blue room" as well, next to Pam Geisel's palm tree at sunset.


I did get a decent shot of the geckos though.


The last piece is from The Art Quilt Workbook sessions. Carroll chose "beans" as her theme and this is "Falling Limas."

Batty Binder's Art Quilt Round Robin

My local guild, the Batty Binders, has an art quilt group which we sort of call "Twisted Stitchers." Most of the Batty Binders are pretty much traditional quilters. Several of us, however meet and explored Jane D'Avila and Elin Waterston's Art Quilt Workbook.

While we finished the book, they decided to return to some of the concepts and that they would do a round robin. A Round Robin in quilting is where someone does a central motif or block and then the piece is passed on to the next person who adds something else. In this case, the concepts are provided by the Workbook and all the quilters are following the theme of trees. At left is Ruth Treon's tree.

The trees look great. I'm saving one of our members, Susan Pickrell, just to show you all the samples she did. I am not participating because I am having a hard time finishing up things with the fatigue I'm experiencing...as well as having a hard time going to night meetings.


Loraine Smith loves tropical things and these colors as well as the use of batiks are her "thing."








Linnette Vagedes was pretending to be a Lisa Clone....but here's her piece.















Jo Heffner did an interesting "pieced" background, shading the background by using fused squares. I love her tree shape.















Gwen Brown is actually doing two, one which she will keep and do exactly what she does on each of the other round robins so she can keep a record of what she did. Her exchange piece is set on an angle..but the shot was so bad of Gwen that I know I'd take some heat for it if I posted....so I'm kind and didn't.





Becky Goodwin is also doing two. Here she is showing her tree which has a loose trunk so that if someone wants to put something behind the tree, they may do so. The tree is cut out, and the branches were added by doing free-motion embroidery on the piece.









The second one is her practice piece and is a free motioned pine tree. She used two 40 weight rayon threads through one needle. She had some trouble with the tension until she added a heavier cotton in the bobbin.


I'll keep you posted on the progress as we meet months.

The Sketchbook Challenge

I am sorry that I haven't been posting for the last couple of days. I've found that with all the things I have to do to get ready for Christmas and the fatigue I've been having, I just couldn't bring myself to write. However, if you've stopped by, you probably noticed the big "SKETCHBOOK CHALLENGE" badge.

A couple of weeks ago, Lyric Kinard, Jamie Fingal, Laura Cater-Woods, Carol Sloan, Melanie Testa and a slew of others totaling 16 artists issued a sketchbook challenge. The challenge is to sketch daily in a sketchbook following a monthly theme. The "leading artists" will post their pages and the followers are encouraged to post on their own blogs as well as on a flikr group site. You can find out more about it here.

I thought about this for a while. I have a sketchbook which I sketch in periodically.....and I find that sitting in doctors offices help me to do it more now. I don't do it religiously and it is more like an artist journal than anything else. I started it with Jane D'Avila and Elin Waterston's Art Quilt Workbook "class" we did with the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network. I put in thoughts, ideas for themes, photographs (both mine and others) and all sorts of stuff....including notes I took at the SAQA Ohio meeting in Columbus last month, so it is an eclectic thing. I know that drawing is the bones of art as well as being part of the process of good design. Like most things, you can't expect to get better if you don't practice. Daily. Without fail. The same can be said for quilting.

Knowing this doesn't mean following through. Last year, I swore that I was going to be disciplined as I feel like I have artwork ADD. I flit from one project to another without finishing stuff. I also procrastinate...and that's fodder for another blog post as the reasons for procrastination are somewhat surprising. I joined the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge to try to force myself to practice the habit of art quilting on a REGULAR basis as well as to explore new methods and perhaps a theme.

Well...that one sort of flew out the window. Many of the problems this year were with my health....falling and breaking my arm while photographing mushrooms for one of the FFFC challenges sort of threw me for a loop. Finding out I have breast cancer mets to the bone again also put me back into the treatment/doctor's appointment/testing loop, as well as the extra energy necessary to push when pushing was needed. I'm still a mom of a daughter who is presently a senior in High school with all that entails (cross country, track, college visits, applications, etc.) who also has had some health issues this year (a tonsillectomy, wisdom teeth removed...blah blah blah). So...these are excuses. Lyric Kinard is able to do this in spades--she has more kids than I do.... I need to be able to do this AND keep a house and a garden....the garden is important to me, but I AM downsizing a bit and trying to make it work easier. But I still need to make a list of priorities and goals and mark down what I need to do to achieve those goals.

In addition to the prioritization, I need to look at the time eaters and make sure that they do not consume the time in non-productive ways or ways which don't help me meet my goals...and yes, having a reasonably well-adjusted daughter and clean house as well as gardens are also my goals. But, I need to make sure that I also work on progressing with the art quilt ends.

The first image in this post is of an egret. I took the photo in Florida the last time we were there. On the right is the sketch I made for the first entry in the Art Quilt Workbook's mini quilt. It has yet to be quilted, but at least it is committed to fabric. This second one is the abstraction (not very abstract I admit) of the image of the caged rooster I took at the Miami County Fair. Yes, I need to work on being more abstract. I'm afraid I'm very much of a realist, although I really appreciate abstraction.

In addition to actual sketches, I also do some doodle like things. I tend to make patterns very large and do sketches in which one image takes up the whole page. I think I would be better served to make smaller images and then be able to compare right on the same page what design works better. That's what I was doing here.




Sometimes, those sketches actually turn into finished pieces! Miracle of Miracles! This was the first FFFC piece I did. Since I was in Montana at the time, I finished it ON TIME (I didn't have many other responsibilities other than to help with the cooking, visit my family, and drive food and trucks around during harvest). One of the reasons I joined FFFC was so that I would NOT turn every piece into a large endeavor. I am afraid that I'm not very good at that. Ever the eternal optimist I always think I can do more than I can....I keep on thinking that I've hung up my wonder wonder woman cape...but I keep on putting it back. You can see the finished piece and the process here.

I am adding this challenge, plus I am going to try to work my way through Lyric Kinard's Art Plus Quilt by myself as well as try to be much more disciplined in other areas of my life as well. Things are going to be hard and I am going to have to struggle to keep my goals in front of me. But I am going to try to do it. I always said, Aim for the Mountain top, as you might just reach it. Aim for the middle and you'll never get beyond it. It's sort of like what Jamie Fingal said on her post introducing herself and her method. She used the following quotation: "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. " (unknown). You can see her whole post the sketchbook challenge blog here.

So what's this last page? My daughter and I were flying somewhere...I think Montana and in the airport restaurant we ate in, there was a rope of chilies. I sketched it...then I started messing around with abstracting it. I was supposed to be doing something for MVAQN which used triangles....this sketch is as far as I got, but at least I'll be able to go back to it and fiddle around some more and perhaps commit it to fabric.

Aullwood: Carroll Schleppi

Carroll Schleppi is another one of my Miami Valley Art Quilt Network buddies. Lest you think that the show only had MVAQN members, I assure you it had plenty of others as well....I just have an easier time getting permission to post photos from people I know.

Carroll has been making art quilts for quite a while and came to art quilts first by doing her own thing rather than working within the traditional guild structure.

This particular piece is entitled "Homage to Anne" and was done as a memorial piece to Anne Hubler (1929-2009) who was the president of MVAQN for many years and a force in the art world in Dayton and had influence across the country. Carroll tried to incorporate Anne's method of sewing little bits of fabric, often donated from other MVAQN member's scraps, onto a background by hand. I accidently incensed Anne ones for referring to this as "snippits."

Carroll considers Anne one of her mentors and had this to say: "I thought of the beauty of the Sun setting and leaving the beach darker but with the lasting memory of a glowing sunset."

This is Carroll's "Falling Limas." Carroll participated in a MVAQN "class" where we worked our way through Jane Davila and Elin Waterston's The Art Quilt Workbook. For her series, Carroll selected beans. Carroll is a rarity as she considers lima beans one of her favorite summer treats.

Carroll grew a lot with her workbook pieces, and one of the best things is that she sold her first piece which was part of this series.

She also practiced using flanges on the piece.






Her last piece in the show is "Out of the Depths." Inspired by a photograph of sea life from the Monterey Aquarium, Carroll "envisioned the creature rising from the depths and reflecting the beauty of the sun through the water on its 'blooms.'

Carroll is a retired mathematics professor from the University of Dayton.

Thoughts on Crafting our Art

The other night I got together with a couple of my art quilty friends. We discussed how it seemed that a workshop group we had had sort of gotten away from the original concept of studying design in order to better our work and went into the area of being a technique class.

We also started talking about how if you are studying design concepts and elements that you might just not create a finished quilt. In working with Jane D'avila and Elin Waterston's Art Quilt Workbook some of our members seemed to think that a finished piece should be the outcome of following the exercises.

Interestingly enough, Kathy Walker who is hosting this months' Fast Friday Fabric Challenge gave us a link to an overview of the elements of design with an accompanying worksheet drawn from Exploring Visual Design: The Elements and Principles, Joseph Gatto, Albert Porter, Jack Selleck. Davis Publications. 2000. You can take a look at it here .

This got me thinking a little bit. OK, a lot. It has been a while since I have been creating art on a regular basis. I know that I, and probably a lot of people, tend to create intuitively, not really thinking about each element of design. This is fine, but it can mean that sometimes we create things and don't know why they work, or why they don't work.

Kathy, and for that matter, Jane and Elin, always remind you when you're working on something to "keep in mind the elements of design." Hmm....I felt like a "bear of very little brain." Telling myself that I have to keep in mind all the elements at the same time that I was trying to do composition/art was just a little more than my brain could bear...I could just hear the gray matter exploding. It occurred to me that sometimes when people do this, it can be contrived....
How does one avoid this?

I suddenly remembered taking piano classes as a child (from age 4 to age 12). I remembered balking at doing the Czerny and Schirmer exercises....running scales, triads and making sure that the fingering was correct. At the time, I hated it as I didn't really see the point. In high school, long after I had stopped the lessons, I continued to play for fun. I went through a period of playing ragtime and Clementi's sonatinas.....then the light bulb came on. All those scales and fingering exercizes were to train our brains that if you were playing in a particular key that your fingers should be in these particular positions...these positions, which seemed so arbitrary and useless when done alone, were actually a great boon--only if you were in the positions could you make the leap to the next chord or run ....having your fingers in an incorrect position would slow you down and you wouldn't be able to be where you needed to be and make the music flow seamlessly. All those exercises had taken and been stored in my little brain and I didn't have to think...my fingers were just where they needed to be.

By doing exercises, and practicing art everyday, even if it is just a doodle or an series of lines or sketches without making a full blown piece is how we ingrain these elements into our work so that it too comes seamlessly. We don't have to think about it. If we have a problem and something doesn't seem to work, then we can look at it, keeping the elements of design in our heads and create good, solid pieces.

Then too, I also believe that key to being a good cook is knowing the concepts and the rules, THEN you can break them or leap from them. Making art quilts, or making art in general fits this idea.

I actually thought of this while deadheading my flowers. Deadheading (taking the spent blooms off) can be very boring...particularly when I am dead heading gaillardia which has to be cut individually. If I don't deadhead, then I won't have as many flowers for as long as a period of time. So, while it isn't my favorite task, it is an important one. Just as doing exercises without making salable pieces of art is, and that's OK.

I had to laugh...as I looked at my blog dashboard, I found Elizabeth Barton's post to be somewhat along the same lines.....how not to look contrived...how to make things look effortless. If you haven't read this post, or if you are unfamiliar with Elizabeth's blog, please take a look....I always learn something and just appreciate how well she says things. Take a peek here


So, what's up with the photograph you might ask...well, that's what happens when you ask your husband to take a shot for you because your hands are full....since he doesn't know my camera, he ended up taking this gem of a shot of himself. Obviously, he needs more practice!

Art Quilt Workbook: Pears

One of the things which has been keeping me busy is that I am leading a small group of quilters through Jane D'Avila and Elin Waterston's Art Quilt Workbook. I participated in this project with the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network in a group which Mindy Marik led, so when my local guild, the Batty Binders of Troy, had a group who decided they wanted to go on this journey, I offered to lead them as having done it once before and being involved longer with art quilting, I thought it would be easier for me.

One of the exercises that D'Avila and Waterston has you do is to take their pear pattern and make your own pear. Interestingly enough, almost everyone I've talked to, as well as me, have balked at this one. I think that part of it is that people who are interested in doing art quilts are somewhat mavericks. We don't want people telling us what to do and how to do it....or at least we'd like the option of doing it OUR way. One person pointed out that after having had long discussions on copyright etc., she didn't want to be doing someone else's pattern.

When I did the project, I balked. I snarled. But, understanding that the authors wanted us to learn to look at analyzing objects for values/shadow/light and dark, I did it. Begrudgingly, but I did it.

I explained this to the Twisted Stitchers (what we sort of decided to call ourselves as it was less objectionable to the general public that the Artsy Fartsy Quilters, which I fear we call ourselves more often than the former), Gwen grumbled that she didn't WANT to do someone elses pear....and that maybe she'd make it rotten.

Hmm..... The little piece at the top of the page here is Linnette's. It was very fun as it used checks, and plaids and all sorts of traditional quilting fabrics. I regret that I didn't take a picture of it as she showed it to us originally. The lightest piece, that which is on the far right, originally stood out like a sore thumb. The print was a pinkish flower outlined on a cream background, and given the rest of the choices, it was just too big of a jump. She knew she didn't like something about it, but couldn't put her finger on it. I explained what I thought it was, and she moaned that she couldn't fix it.

"Of course you can," I told her. "Take your colored pencils and color it." Coming from a traditional quilting background, that had never occurred to her. She immediately went to work and toned that piece right down. In reality, it is a little lighter than this, as when Linnette took the picture for me, it is a little darker than it is in real life. I do think that being given permission to change something with paint or colored pencils opened a whole new world for her.

Gwen did two pears, and here they are. The first was following along the exercise as she was instructed. The second, loose raggedy one at top is her own interpretation which I think is just marvelous.

I especially like her choice of fabric for the shadow.

We were a small group as about four of us were missing last week. I'm looking forward to our next meeting to see what others did when they completed their homework. I know it is going to be pretty exciting.

Doing a Group Class on the Art Quilt Workbook

Mindy Marik, a member of the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network recently finished leading a group of quilters through Jane D'Avila and Elin Waterston's Art Quilt Workbook. I started with the

group and got bogged down. So much so that I skipped two of the classes. Here you see three of the members looking at the pieces which have been completed as "homework" and sharing.

The group discussed the projects and each of the member's pieces which were brought in. You can sort of see one of the member's, Carroll Schleppi's "Framed Peas" in the foreground.

One of the things you had to do was to pick a topic or theme for all the projects. Each project was to be 9" x 12" and oriented vertically. Carroll's was "beans", mine was things with feathers (although most of what I did were actually birds, I was thinking anything with feathers---horses, angels...whatever), another did feathers, Lori Gravley did "circles" .

I found it difficult and extremely frustrating, although others in the group did some really neat pieces. I found that I balked at the restrictions. I was frustrated because it always seemed like life was pushing in and I just had too much to do to complete them...which seems like all of the "projects" I've been working on lately for the various groups I'm in.

It is a question of balance although most people say it's commitment. I have a huge garden which is weedy or in need at present, I'm pulled by my very social non-driving teenager and her activities, I'm often a single parent because of business responsibilities and I also have an in-home business selling used books on Amazon. I also am very stupid and often find myself doing things for other people that perhaps I shouldn't. In with the pots and pans, books and trowels, cars and appointments, I flit from one project to another.

The Art Quilt Workbook has you do several exercises on composition and design as well as ones which focus on a technique. I found it daunting as I felt I needed to be able to produce something worthwhile which stood up to the work of my colleagues. I also found that there is something in the way I think that when I see an example in the book, I get stuck and create something along the same lines...I can't get the example out of my head in order to get my own original juices flowing.

Instead of being inspiring, it has left me with a sense of doom and even more partially completed projects. This isn't to say that what others were doing wasn't great. It was. Mine just stunk and that just leaves me feeling even more ambivalent about the projects.

Mindy put in a lot of work and did a great job of facilitating. The group has decided to continue, but to explore different techniques or artists led by volunteers. The one book which will be used for "inspiration" is Masters: Art Quilts: Major Works by Leading Artists (The Masters) by Martha Sielman.

I'm still debating if I am going to continue or just do my own thing...like work on completing partially finished projects.