Day 4: FB Art Challenge

This is my 4th Day of the Art Challenge currently circulating on FaceBook. 

I was nominated by Pam Biswas.   Thank you Pam!  For this fourth day of the 5-day challenge, I am sharing more of my favorite quilts and mixed media/fiber art pieces.  I hope you enjoy them.

This first piece tells the Legend of the Bluebonnet.  A quick summary is:  In days long long ago, during a severe drought, a young girl sacrificed her most prized possession, her doll, to the tribe's fire, following their leader's request.  The gods were happy and sent rain that night.  The next morning, when the little girl and her people woke up, they discovered the fields were covered with blue flowers, the same blue of the doll's dress.  These were the first bluebonnets and they return every spring, remembering the little girl's love that was so pure.

This story quilt was fun to make.  I explored a variety of mixed media/fiber art techniques including: painted hot glue squiggles (the bluebonnets), overlayed sheers (the sun and the rain), torched and painted tyvek (flames of fire), new fabric made from stitched threads and fibers (the doll's dress - both the tiny doll in the girl's hands and the center doll burning in the fire), and couched fibers (fields of bluebonnets). 

This piece was my entry in the 2008 Journal Quilt Project at Houston's annual International Quilt Festival.  That year, quilt artists were asked to make a quilt portraying the four elements (earth, wind, rain and fire).  Most chose to focus on one element however I decided to touch on all four elements in this little story quilt.  Sadly, my quilt was rejected from the actual exhibit, though it was in an virtual online show (with several other rejected quilts).  Click here to see "Braving the Elements".  Thank you Linda Teddie Minton for coordinating this special show.  Click here to see my entry in "Braving the Elements" which includes the poem of the legend of the bluebonnet.


This next quilt is called "American All-Stars" and is my first quilt to travel in a national exhibit and is my first entry in the annual Hoffman Challenge, specifically the 1996 challenge which featured "Old Glory".  My quilt did not travel to Houston during its year on the road.  However it was on display during the big Paducah quilt show in the spring of 1997.  I cancelled my plans to see my quilt in Paducah, as I was expecting twins.  In the photo below, my children are one year old wearing special outfits made with the "Old Glory" Hoffman challenge fabric to celebrate both the return home of my traveling quilt and the July 3rd wedding of their Uncle and Aunt.  Aren't they precious?

 My next quilt is my current all-time favorite quilt and is hanging on my living room wall.

"Red Summer Baskets" is a quilt that was a gift to me -- well, the pattern and many of the fabrics were given to me by Mary Beth Hayes, my friend and founder of Thangles.  She gave this cute pattern to me in the summer of 2012 during my visit to Wisconsin and her studio.  Click here and here to learn more about this quilt.

 

My artist nominee today happens to be Mary's sister, Wanda Eichler!  I met both sisters years ago when Mary and I were in an internet round robin group, and both traveled to Market in Houston.  We met for lunch and kept talking for three hours that afternoon.  I look forward to Mary and her husband Pat coming to Market and Festival every year.  Wanda came a few times as well.   

When I was helping Wanda with her booth, Graywood Designs, in 2010, we were delighted to see how close we were to the Make It University area.  We had fun taking turns participating in the one-hour classes they offered.  I made the four ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) that you see below.

I nominate Wanda Eichler to join this 5-day Art Challenge by posting three photos a day of her artwork, and nominating another artist to carry the challenge ever forward.  Wanda, I look forward to seeing your lovely art!

Braving the Elements -- an online Journal quilt exhibit

Journal Quilts have been a staple of the art quilt exhibits at the International Quilt Festival in Houston for several years. Quilt artists pushed the envelope and explored new techniques in an 8" x 10" size, journalling their steps, emotions, and ideas while making one quilt a month, throughout the year (click here for the 2007 Journal Quilts).

This year the journal quilts were given a larger format (17" x 22") with a specific theme: "the Elements: Earth, Wind, Water and Fire." For the first time, these quilts to be were juried! Even before the news began to arrive of whose work was juried "in" and whose was "released", there arose a dismay that all the quilts could not be seen, as in years past. Then my friend Linda T. Minton suggested that there could be an online show of all the quilts that were either released or were not even finished by the entry deadline. All on the QuiltArt list agreed that this was a fabulous idea! So with the gracious blessing of Karey Bresenhan (original sponsor of the Journal Quilt Exhibit), the technical assistance of G. Armour Van Horn, and the location space on the QuiltArt list owned by Judy Smith, Linda proceeded to put this show together.

Click here to enter the home base of "Braving the Elements" and see some wonderful journal quilts via this online exhibit. Or click here to see a thumbnail index by title of all the quilts in the online show.


I have seen the actual Elements quilt show at Quilt Market featuring all the journal quilts that the jurors selected. Oh My! It is a grand show. I realize that the quilts that got in are amazing, and it is a strong exhibit.... even without my piece!
To see mine, click here (for my blog post) or click here (for the online exhibit).


If/when I receive permission from artists in the juried Elements exhibit, I will post images of their journal pieces here as well.

A hearty Congratulations to everyone who made an Elements Journal quilt and finished it! Both of this year's Journal quilt shows are fabulous!!!

Legend of the Bluebonnet

A field of bluebonnets -- a classic sign that Spring has arrived in central Texas -- is a favorite time of year for me. The legend of how the bluebonnets came to be in Texas is also a favorite story -- either the version retold & illustrated by Tomie de Paola or the poem below.




"The Legend of the Bluebonnet"

The Texas fields are covered
With a blanket of deep blue.
But for a little Indian girl,
This would not be true.

Texas land was buried and dry.
Rains just would not come.
Indians danced and prayed for rain,
And beat upon their drums.

The Chief made a proclamation.
He appealed to one and all.
A prized possession must be sacrificed
Before the rains would fall.

The Indian camp was silent,
While each person searched his heart.
But when it came to sacrifice,
With possessions they would not part.

Suddenly a little girl stepped forth,
Holding her blue-clad doll.
She placed it in the roaring fire
and raindrops began to fall.

The rain brought forth the grass,
Among its blades, flowers of blue.
To be a sign for all the time
Of a love so pure and true.

-- Author Unknown


This poem is the inspiration behind my 2008 Journal quilt. It portrays all the Elements (earth, wind, fire and water), the theme of this year's Journal Quilt exhibit, also a juried exhibit for the first time this year. One prerequisite specified that entrants were not allowed to post photos of their journal quilts before the International Quilt Festival opened (end of October 2008, in Houston). Since I have received the official notice that my quilt did not survive the jury process and that it has been "released" back to me, I am free to post photos here on my blog. Likewise, I will enter it into the Online Journal Quilt exhibit, called "Braving the Elements" and being curated by my friend Linda T. Minton.

Of the 150 quilts entered into the 2008 Journal Quilt jurying, 48 were selected to be in The Festival exhibit, including 3 by friends of mine. Congratulations to Linda, Susan & Nancy! If your Journal quilt was released from the official exhibit like mine, be sure to send it in to Linda's online show, "Braving the Elements" -- she needs all your info and jpgs by September 15. (I'll send mine to you this week, Linda. Promise!!!)

Oh my, deadlines

Deadlines -- sometimes a motivating force, other times a screeching stop, end of energy.

The current deadline I am facing is a motivating force (whew). It is for this year's Art Quilt/Journal Quilt exhibit at our annual IQA Market and Festival here in Houston every October & November. Sadly I can tell you no more at the moment ....

Because:
a) I must finish it first (a sprinkle of beads may be the final touch that remains undone);
b) the rules stipulate that you cannot post photos of your journal piece anywhere .... until after the Houston show, I think;
c) all of the above is true.

So stay tuned, if I get accepted (we'll know by the end of August) I will announce it here. If I get politely declined, then I will be posting a longer piece with photos.

Back to work now ... The deadline (have I mentioned this?) is TOMORROW!

yikes

Big Foot -- the story

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago... well, actually it was April 2007, I went on my first quilting retreat with my Beyond the Borders art quilt friends. We stayed at a B&B, "The Belle at Round Top." (This was prior to owning a digital camera so here is their website for the curious. It is a beautiful B&B and we were honored to be the first quilting retreat there.)
http://www.belleofroundtop.com/content.aspx

Having finished my first project early in the evening, far too early to stop sewing for the day, I started on the next piece in my cottage series. I planned to stray from my original "Happily Ever After" by zooming in on a-still-undecided-object in the picture. I began by building a hillside using rotary-cut fabric slivers, remnants from an earlier project in shades of green and brown. The last thing I added that night was an appliqued tree trunk. Imagine the quilt below with simply the sky, the hill and the light brown tree.


That morning before settling down to work again, everyone wandered by the communal design wall to comment on each other's progress. "What a great foot!" someone said. Imagine my surprise when I discovered they were looking at my tree! Wow, my tree did have the same profile as a bare foot! I quickly thought of the best name for my work-in-progress -- "Big Foot, the Tree"! I did not mind at all that my tree looked like a foot, instead I was quite happy as now I had both a great title for this quilt and an idea for the next piece of the series. Naturally the second quilt became "Big Foot, the Foot".


Both quilts start the same, with a clear blue sky, a rolling green hillside, and a mottled brown fabric for the big foot. But at that point they differ -- one features a distant view of a dark cottage with smoke swirling up from its chimney and an overhanging branch in the foreground, while the other features a flower garden partially trampled by an intruding foot.

I envisioned more quilts in this series -- an elegant Big Foot in a stiletto high heel with a sleek polished toenail peeking out, a sporty Big Foot in a tattered tennis shoe topped with a stinky rumpled sweatsock, etc., etc., etc. These quilts live in my dreams at this point (although I plan to make them one day ...).

Let's look back, for a moment, at how I tried to differentiate between the two Big Feet. To make the tree trunk look more tree-ish, I added mottled brown veins running up and down the trunk and clumps of grass growing closely around its base ...



To make the other look more foot-ish, I stitched the hairiest leg I could imagine adding a yellowed, scurvy-looking toenail on the toe.


This foot has flattened the flower garden, and yet one blossom remains pristine and untouched by the invading stomper.

One can only wonder if the big foot has crushed these flowers accidentally or not. What do you think?

Here it is ...

For my first blog ever....

I thought I would share "Hearts A'Flutter", a fiber art piece I created to fulfill the first two challenges with the Textile Challenges group:
1) Cut-back Applique in which layers of fabrics are cut-away to reveal further depths underneath, and
2) Altering the Surface using any technique to alter the fabric's surface (pleating, painting, beading, etc.).

I used a diversity of fabrics and threads: cotton, velour, rayon, tulle ultra-suede, artificial flower petals, vinyl (that looks like leather), eyelash yarn, Sulky rayon threads, cotton threads, ending with a sprinkle of sequins and beads.

While I would love to say that I finished this piece because I was eager to share it with my new friends in Textile Challenges, the truth is that I worked hard to get it ready for the first group show of Beyond the Borders, my local art quilt group. The show, held in February 2007 at the Copper Shade Tree Gallery in Round Top, Texas was so hugely successful for both the gallery and my BTB group that Gerald and Debbie Tobola, the gallery owners, invited us back for a second show this year, again held in February.

This time I submitted a few journal quilts, all variations of my first journal quilt "Happily Ever After" (inspired by a Sulky presentation to our Daytime Guild in May 2006 and not in this year's show). This piece reminds me of my small cottage home -- except this quilted home is in the open, rolling countryside while I live in the heart of Houston, surrounded by many homes & fences.

"Feeling Blue" is my first mono-chromatic quilt -- but if you look closely, you will see I couldn't resist putting in a field of bluebonnets, the state flower of Texas. Just like "Happily Ever After", this quilt has four rolling hills, two trees and the cozy cottage -- all of which are fused and machine appliqued.

When I began this journal series, my idea was to play with color within a single pattern, to examine how color choices impact the feel of a finished piece.

"Calico Cottage," the third quilt in this series, features vintage calicos from my fabric collection dating back to 1970s and earlier (leftover strips (1.5" wide) from an early strip quilt made for my sister Gretchen -- more on that another day). I affectionately call this one my wonky piece. In using the old pre-cut strips of calico, I had to piece backgrounds from which I freehand cut the sky and each hillside (the foreground is the only solid piece of fabric). The rooftop is pleated, the tree-tops are semi-ruched, and both tree trunks are pieced from two semi-coordinating strips. I also played with placement of color -- blue hillsides and ground, green tree-bark, and of course the tiny, white calico cottage!

I must showcase my Beyond the Borders art quilt group too. Here are a few of us at the close of our Opening Night at the Copper Shade Tree, February 1, 2008 -- our second gallery show!


In front: Gerald Tobola, Linda Minton, and myself, Cathy Winter.
Behind us are: Connie Fahrion, Debbie Tobola, Barbara Jensen, Susan King, Liz Broussard and Nancy Dickey.
Not pictured but also featured BTB artists that night are Mary Ann Littlejohn, Jo Sweet and Rex Watson.
We are in the front room of the gallery. Look closely at the walls behind us to spy art work by Connie, Susan, Mary Ann.....

This is an amazing group of fiber artists that I am thrilled to call my friends. I always look forward to seeing them at our regular meetings.


I cannot close until I include this link to the Copper Shade Tree so that you can see the Best little art gallery in Texas!!! (at least in my humble opinion)

http://www.coppershadetree.com//index.php