The Fall Garden

This year, I haven't written much about my garden.  The reason being that I haven't been able to work much in it, and frankly, it is overwhelming me.  I cannot physically take care of all the beds I have in my .80 acre lot.  I look out and curse the fact that I was so gonzo when I put in the gardens here.....WHAT WAS I thinking....I was reveling in the fact that I had .80 acres instead of .28 acres like I had in Connecticut.

I am sure that my neighbors are cringing.  My garden style is more naturalistic and tends to be stuffed full of things...not like the neat, carefully manicured, and regular items that most of my neighbors have.  One visitor which I don't like much....although I do like the color is goldenrod, the bright yellow flowers which you see next to the fence in this picture. (Solidago canadiensis).

Goldenrod is a weed here....a perennial weed which reproduces madly through runners and the rather plentiful seed heads.  It is a glorious plant...and while I work madly at trying to eradicate it, the British and Germans are planting it in their gardens and making cultivars.  At this time of year, I remember one of th poems my second grade teacher Mrs. Zimmer had us memorize and recite..."The Goldenrod is yellow, the leaves are turning brown...the trees in apple orchard with fruit are bending down."  ("September", by Helen Hunt Jackson).  I know I have written about it before...but at this time of year, it always comes to mind.

I usually don't let this many days pass without posting....but I'm whacking away at the goldenrod and the foxtail grass, and any other weed I can lay my hands on.  I've been giving away iris rhizomes by the carload through freecycle, and have more to replant, and move.

In addition, darling daughter is coming home this weekend with some friends to go to a conference....so I am getting the house ready, and on top of that, we are re-flooring the living room and dining room with bamboo.

The sad part is that all I want to do is quilt.  :(  Soon.  Soon I shall be gloriously covered in thread.  At least that's what I promise myself. I laugh....most people think that spring is when  you have lots to do in the garden and fall is when everything comes to a halt...but fall is also when you put things to bed, try to prepare for that ellusive time in the spring when you THINK that you have time, but in Ohio, it slips from Winter into Summer with just a blink of the eye.  Cutting back, moving and dividing the spring bloomers, and for me, trying to get done the things which should have been done in the summer, but it was just too hot to do.

About Jurying and thoughts about Quilt National

Kennedy Museum of Art, Ohio University, Athens, OH

 Ever since the notifications came out about who was accepted into Quilt National, the Studio Art Quilt Associate's (SAQA) yahoo group and the Quilt Art message board has been flooded with who got in and who didn't...and why things might or might not have been chosen.  Quilt National, the Biennial show at the Dairy Barn in Athens, Ohio is one of the shows that almost every art quilter wants to have a piece exhibited, and few get in.  The caliber of the pieces submitted and the "big names" who submit, is very high indeed.

I was interested in how many people who I consider very good and who are published stated that they were more often than not not selected.  Pamela Allen, whose work is widely published and shown was finally accepted for the first time this year, after 5 previous attempts.

This got me thinking that wouldn't it be fun to have a "shut out" exhibition just down the street at the Kennedy Museum of Art.  The Kennedy is housed in the old Lin Hall of the Ridges, formerly a state mental institution which has been decommissioned, and the buildings largely taken over by Ohio University.  The Ridges Campus is sprawling with many glorious examples of public institutional architecture, something which has always interested me.  

While several of the main halls have been rennovated and serve as galleries, not all the floors have been fixed up.  In fact, as you can see here, some of the windows have been broken out and not boarded over or replaced.  I thought it would be kind of cool to have the quilts hung in rooms which hadn't been fixed up....but of course, that presents lots of problems from environmental issues for the quilts as well as safety issues for people.  

I also started to think about the sheer numbers.....according to one person who contacted the Dairy Barn, this year there were 870 entries and 80 were chosen to show.  Hmm.  That's a lot of quilts.  Just to give you a comparison, I asked Pokey Bolton how many quilts were shown at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, she replied that she thought there were over 1,000....just a little more than were submitted for exhibition at Quilt National.  Obviously, this would be entirely unworkable.  

I don't feel badly about not getting in, for the reasons I pointed out on my previous posts on jurying.  Alison Schwab pointed out that jurying is not the same as judging and that the three jurors for this exhibition were faced with the daunting task of choosing a cohesive exhibition out of all these different pieces of art which were submitted.

Wen Redmond shared an exercise that she has done with her local group.  I thought it was so interesting and telling that I asked permission to include it here, and she agreed.   Here's what she wrote:

"I have applied to QN for many years- I think starting in the 80's. I have gotten in once.

While it was a disappointment not to be selected this year, I am encouraged to try again.

Why?

This simple exercise that can be done with any show n' tell group. I learned of this exercise from Margaret Sheehan when I was one of 3 regional rep's for SAQA of VT/ME/NH.

Count the number of folks who want to 'play' and divide by 1/4. This will be the number of folks selected for a 'exhibit'.

Title the exhibit.

Select 'judges'.

Each judge will independently select 1/4 of everyone participating to be in the 'exhibit'.

Have the 'winners's stand in front of the room, holding their work. 

Judges will arrange the 'show winners' in the order of how the show will be presented.

Judges will explain their criteria for their selections. 

Have the audience participate by agreeing or not or just simply rearranging the order of the 'winners'.

This exercise demonstrates the subjectiveness of the particular judge, how themes affect the show selections and how hard it is 

to select a coordinated and exciting show, and therefore, not to be discouraged when not selected!"

I thought this exercise was brilliant, and people who submit their work to shows and are not accepted should think about this each time they are disappointed.

So, go forth, and make even better art!  

And....take a look at Nina Marie's blog roll of quilty blogs on "Off the Wall Fridays"

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Recent Work

One of my goals this year was to enter Quilt National, a biennial quilt show held in Athens, Ohio at the Quilt Barn.  I've been meaning to do this for a while, but never quite seemed to get around to it.  For those of you who don't quilt, or aren't into art quilts, Quilt National is one of the most prestigious shows.  This year, over 800 pieces were submitted, but only 80 were chosen by the panel of three judges.

Quilts had to:

• possess the most basic structural characteristics of a quilt
• be an original design of the entrant
• have been completed after September, 2010
• measure no more than 100” or 254 cm. in either direction.

This piece, "View from the Abyss" was the piece I entered. Although you could enter up to three pieces, and in fact are encouraged to in order to show that you have a cohesive body of work, I didn't .  If I could, I would have entered more, but the other part of the rules is that you can't have shown them anywhere.  Not on a blog, not in a show....no where.  I admit, when I finish a piece, I want to put them up immediately. In addition, the other pieces which I would have entered were already shown at Aullwood and at the SAQA regional show in Zanesville.

Curating exhibitions like this is difficult.  Lots of people when they submit and don't get in begin to feel that they just aren't good enough. This is not always the case.  Pieces have to speak to the jurors.  It has to stick with them.  Sometimes it is color that grabs them (but in this case, Candice Phelan showed me her submission and it was really amazing), sometimes the design, sometimes the message.  The jurors make their own selections, discuss them, and ultimately pick.

That's a heck of a lot of quilts to go through.

So, I'll work even harder for 2015...and hopefully, my daughter will still be in Athens....and maybe, just maybe, I'll get in.  In the meantime, I'm going to rework this piece a little, and try again...somewhere else.

Sometimes you find surprises

When I was poking around in my brother's "graveyard for farm machinery and trucks" behind the Quonset hut which serves as his shop looking for photographic fodder, I was startled to hear a noise off to my right. Just near this pile of wreckage was a young buck white-tailed deer, about three years old with his antlers tangled in some wire.  I cringed as I remembered another deer who had gotten caught in old fencing and died back when I was growing up in Michigan.  I knew that I couldn't approach him for fear of it struggling and hurting itself further, or worse yet, getting me with it's antlers or kicking me.

Just as I went towards it, it broke free and went bounding into the field.  I was grateful for that, but the whole thing startled me so I didn't get any pictures!

This weekend, I got a few pleasant surprises as well.  This weekend was the Batty Binder's October retreat in Palestine, Ohio.  I didn't plan on going, but one of the members was leaving early, so they asked if I wanted to come up for the night.  I also got a telephone call from my daughter.  One of her friends was coming home for the weekend and my daughter was craving home-cooked food....and wouldn't I be willing to send some food back with her?  I didn't really realize that my daughter liked my cooking so much.  Yes, there are some times which I know she really enjoyed my food, but I think she sort of took it for granted.  So...before I left for the retreat (hurredly throwing quilting stuff into a bag as well as getting some overnight stuff together) I whipped up  terriyaki chicken, herbed carrots, garlic green beans, and curried rice.  I also tucked in some frozen corn chowder I had made with the last of the market's sweet corn.

The most surprising thing?  She called today and told me how yummy it was.

A Pleasant Surprise: Nancy Erickson

Nancy Erikson's works at Montan Art & Framing

I went to Montana Art and Framing just to see Heidi Zielinski's work....The gallery is quite small, but behind the featured artist's gallery as another show, and then off to the left were what I suppose is the gallery's "stable" of artists.  My jaw just about hit the floor when I turned and looked at this small wall.  I recognized the artist immediately as Nancy Erickson.

I have admired Nancy's work for ages.  Granted, I only knew it from seeing pieces in books, then at Quilt National.  Her style, like many top quilt artists, is a signature style.  The pieces which the quilt world are probably most familiar with is one reminiscent of pre-historic cave paintings...but with a more direct contact.  Her oil paintings and drawings with paintstick are also my favorites.

Nancy Erickson Golden Wolf #2 (Toklat Pack) ©2009  $450

You'll probably recognize it from this piece, "Golden Wolf #2 (Toklat Pack).  I love how she suggests things without making full marks.  I love how the eyes engage you and glow...giving you the essence of the spirit of the beast she is capturing.  The Toklat Pack is one of the most famous American wolf backs, inhabiting Denali.  It is threatened, and you get a sense of the fierceness of the creature in this fabric portrait.

I was also very pleased to see some of her other work there...She, like so many other artists I like, works in a palette I adore: golds, turquoise, red orange, burnt sienna, yellow umber, raw ochre....She manages to tell so much in just the quickest of lines, line which isn't necessarily completed, but suggests movement and texture.

"Solitare", Nancy Erickson ©

Her pieces also show the strength and often the struggle if the animals she depicts. In "Solitaire" she captures the polar bear perfectly...for much of their lives, they do travel solo...and I have often seen pictures of them with the yellow/orangy cast on their fur.

"Where's the Ice"  26"H x 40W, 2008  ©Nancy N. Erickson    oil paintsticks on archival paper

In "Where's the Ice" you get an understanding of the bear's personality....as well as their predicament.  I love the floating on the ice patch, fiddling with his toes while a large seated bear looks on...reminding me ever so much of some weekend warrior sitting in front of the television drinking beer...

You can see Nancy's work and find more about her on her website, http://www.nancyerickson.com  I hope you enjoy her work as much as I do!

I have been participating (or trying to participate :) ) in Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday's creativity blog... You can see her work and other participants links here:

On the Outside Looking in- two Montana Quilt Shops and Avon, Montana

Birdseye Mercantile, Avon, Montana

My niece and her husband have moved to Deer Lodge, and on one of the days they had off, they graciously accompanied us on a little excursion.  They first took us (my sister Mary, me and Trucker the Wonder Dog) to Avon, Montana, a cute, if once less than it once was, town northeast of Deer Lodge.

Someone said to me the other day that in Montana, a Bar and a gas station constituted a town...well...in some cases that could be said as true.  Montana does boast the population density of 6 people for every square mile. In reality, thats sort of a misleading fact, as 54% of the population is concentrated in the cities....with the largest being Billings (pop. 100,317), Great Falls (64,387) and Missoula (69.491).  Many little towns sprang up around mines, crossroads, logging areas, or fords across rivers and passes across mountains.  Many of them, like Avon, used to be much more prosperous than they are now.  I spotted a building which I suspected was a blacksmith/Livery in earlier days, a Church and a few other buildings.  This one is the most notable and houses an antique shop and quilting shop.  It's Birdseye Mercantile and is in a building which was built in 1887, back when Montana was still a territory (it entered into statehood in 1889).

Drew and Beth brought me here because of my former life as a museum curator and of course, my quilting habit.  Unfortunately, it is only open the later part of the week.  We did satisfy ourselves in peeking in the windows, and I toddled down the street shooting pictures of interesting buildings.

Quilter's Corner, Deer Lodge, Montana

Drew, Beth's husband, was kind enough to take me to Deer Lodge to see the Quilter's Corner which WAS open.  This too was in an historic building, an old bank which was converted to a lovely quilt shop.

The counter was the original bank counter, lots of marble, fancy woodwork, pressed tin ceilings and brass abounded.....as well as quilting supplies and fabrics to suit almost every interest in quilting. Lovely batiks almost found their way into my luggage, but since I am bound and determined to reduce my stash, I only bought a variety of Perle Cotton threads to work on the project I was completing out there and a length of clearance fabric which

Quilter's Corner, Deer Lodge, Montana

were in Beth's favorite colors as I thought I would try to make her a little something for her new house.

Little Blackfoot River at Avon, Montana

From Ridge just south of Avon, Montana

Trucker, the Wonder Dog.

After we stopped at the Mercantile in Avon, we headed across an old girder style bridge over the Little Blackfoot River....which was gorgeous in the late summer light.  We headed up into the ridges to have a picnic lunch while looking at the land.  The sad part was that so much smoke from the forest fires north and west of us meant that the sky wasn't as clear and crisp as Montana skies normally are.

As you can see below, it was still pretty.


Trucker, my niece's English Shepherd kept us grizzly free...or maybe cougar free...We didn't see any here (which I have seen both of at my brother's in Cut Bank), but we did see mule deer and antelope, and lots of Elk scat.


Trucker was content to just stand and look regal...in reality he snoozed while we munched our sandwiches.

 English Shepherds are pretty interesting dogs used as working dogs on farms in Northern England/Southern Scotland.  Although I had a collie in high school, Trucker has the hard stare-down of a real herder.  You can find out more about this working breed here.

It was great to be around a dog again...and it was amusing how he came into my room on the last morning I was there and laid his head next to mine on my pillow...However....I am NOT going to get another dog (she says repeatedly to herself).

Heidi Zielinski Stitch: Lines of Communication

 When I was in Montana, I was happy to be able to take in Heidi Zielinski's fiber art show at Montana Art & Framing, 709 Ronan St., Missoula, Montana. The exhibition ran from September 7th until September 28th, 2012.  I got there just a week before it closed, and intended to review it last week, but I was having computer issues as well as a couple of show deadlines for myself breathing down my neck.

First, for a non-Missoulan, Montana Art & Framing is a tad hard to find...it is definitely a destination, not something that you would happen to pass by and decide to drop in. Ronan Street runs at an angle, and if you go during a particularly busy time of day when the traffic on the main street is backed up, you can easily miss it.  Like we did....and then, when we approached it from the other direction, there was an odd thing about the street sign that we weren't really sure that we were going where we were supposed to.

In addition, the gallery is in a large, warehouse like building which shares space with other small enterprises.  When we finally got there, the show was much smaller than I had anticipated, just over a dozen pieces.  The gallery space for this particular show was in front, with the side partition hiding the other artists that the gallery represents....at least I think that is what it was, although it may have been another separate show...or two...or three.

We were greeted by the shop pooch, and then the owner came out from the side where he was framing pieces.

Heidi lives in Stevensville, Montana, but grew up in Missoula, which is just about a half an hour northeast of Stevensville, so in essence, this was a hometown show for her.  My niece and my sister accompanied me, and since they don't quilt or really know much about fiber art, it was fun to get their feedback.

Of course, like most newcomer's to the fiberworld, they were taken by the colors Heidi used.  I often find that that is what pulls someone in at first, then the finer elements begin to intrigue, particularly the textural element. I admit, the palette that Heidi uses is one I tend to use as well, warm rusts, golds, blues, greens, particularly turquoise and warmer shades.

Heidi Zielinski, "Searching for Center", $210.00

 This was my favorite piece.  I enjoyed the simplicity of it, which was counteracted by the lovely changes in texture and the movement in the balls, as contrasted by the line of beads at the left of the piece.   I enjoyed the contrast of the static and dynamic....of course the fact that it uses red on a natural ground didn't hurt much in drawing me in.

I enjoy the addition of the hand stitching and the beading. The thin line of piping at the binding edge also adds to the piece.

"Searching for Center," detail.

Heidi Zielinski, "In a Cool Blue Forest," $400.

My companions liked this one the best.  It is really a pretty simple piece, I believe that the center portion is a commercial print, but when I just researched it I couldn't find it to save my soul... I think one of the things which appealed to them is the calming elements of the piece....it is balanced, even though the "center" panel is just a bit off center...the colors of course, also bring that feeling of calm.

Heidi chose to use a beaded dangle "trim" across the top of the piece.  This works...it isn't too obtrusive, yet it gives just a little sparkle which is repeated by the gold printed commercial cotton behind it.



The detail shows the quilting in the upper portion of the piece, nicely machine quilted and I think it is a nice balance to the piece, and contains the leaf panel.  Without it, it would flow too much into the upper portion...and fly off the body of the work.

"In a Cool Blue Forest," detail.

Heidi Zielinski, "A Quiet Place," $280.00

We all enjoyed "A Quiet Place."  I am not sure if Heidi inked the trees, or printed them, but the simplicity of this piece and the monochromatic color scheme was a nice contrast to the other pieces in the show.  Of course, the fact that my brother-in-law, brother, and sister-in-law are all foresters, and my sister is a botanist....and we grew up in the hardwood forests of Michigan, and my niece grew up in western Washington makes us a little tree happy.  I also think I was drawn to it because I spent the ride from Deer Lodge to Missoula stitching...bare trees.

"A Quiet Place," detail.

You can see more of Heidi's work and read more about her on her website, http://www.heidizielinski.com