Hudson & Region Studio Tour

Water Tower #3

I am delighted to be a participant in this weekend's Hudson Studio Tour, as it marks its tenth anniversary year. I will be opening my home studio to visitors on Saturday and Sunday, September 28 and 29, 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Michele Meredith will be showing her intriguing new work at the same address. Both of us plan to give small demos of our techniques.

To see who else is on the tour and how to find their venues, please visit the website.

Hoping to see you here!

It's a Baby Quilt!

Okay, sometimes it's fun to make a simple quilt, especially when it's in such a cheerful palette.

My niece Kristen is expecting her first child in two months. I was asked to staff the arts & crafts table at the baby shower, so instead of the usual games, the guests were asked to do a simple drawing on white cotton squares. They used fabric markers designed to be washable. I cut other squares from my stash of printed cottons and put it all together. It measures 42" square.

It made for a fun activity, and will be a lasting memory for Kristen of a happy time. I hope the quilt will be well-used.

Ginette Parizeau at the Hudson Medi-Centre

Award-winning watercolourist and member of the Hudson Artists, Ginette Parizeau exhibits her beautiful paintings at the Hudson Medi-Centre until November 16. Please come by during clinic hours, 465 Main Road, Hudson, Quebec.

Textile Triennial

Yesterday I visited a few of the shows that form part of the "Triennale Internationale des Arts Textiles en Outaouais". The Shenkman Arts Centre in Orleans, just east of Ottawa, is hosting three of the thirteen shows in the Triennial.

Travel

Place

Sports

My favourite was a show of the woven tapestries of Archie Brennan & Susan Martin Maffei, all made in the mid-1990's. The larger work of Susan Martin Maffei is a single series, The New York Times. With one horizontal exception, all of the pieces were tall, about seven feet in height, and narrow, about 30" wide. All of her pieces featured the New York Times newspaper, brilliant colours, and a small black-and-white vignette of a New York City street scene. Most of the pieces featured a large, single figure, dominating the space, and a flattened perspective.

 

 


The work of the second artist, Archie Brennan, was monochromatic. The palette may have been determined by the natural colour of the wools used in the woven tapestries. The series, titled Dersu Uzala, was comprised of smaller works, perhaps 3 feet high and 2 feet wide. The images were stylized, and many of the pieces featured text as part of the design.

The work of each artist, who are married to each other, was very distinctive, but both had a graphic style. This show is open until September 22.

I also viewed Felted Language, an exhibition of felted works by contemporary fibre artists Claire Guerette of Gatineau and Diane Lemire of Chelsea. Below is a panoramic shot of the show, in the Trinity Gallery. It is comprised of mostly small, doll-sized, felted figures. Most of the garment-like objects are made of felted wool, with the addition of somewhat incongruous embroidered garment labels. This show is open until September 24.

The most varied of the three shows at the Shenkman is Past and Present. It consists of textile work of all sizes, framed and unframed. The art is hung in the working offices of the AOE Arts Council. I was warmly welcomed by the receptionist and encouraged to wander through the boardroom, the staff kitchen and the work stations. I didn't take photos because I felt it might intrude on the staff. This show is open until October 10.

Delighted to report...

...that my SAQA auction piece, Boathouses #2, was among the first six pieces to sell on Day 1 of the event! You can see the piece on my blog posting of August 25.

It was bought by Studio Nysha, which also purchased Mary Pal's piece. I met Nysha Nelson at the SAQA conference in Santa Fe this spring, where he had the winning bid on my Boathouse postcard in the 5" x 7" art quilt auction.

My day is made! And SAQA has added $750 to its operating fund.

To follow the SAQA auction, please visit their site. And just to tempt you, here are three of my favourites from this week's auction lot:

Local Color: The Southwest, 
Julie Filatoff

Round Hole, Square Peg,
Miriam Otte

Once we built windmills,
BJ Parady

Collographs

Another activity we tried at Dianne's art retreat this July was making collographs. At a previous get-together, the members of text'art prepared collograph plates. In other words, we glued textural material to heavy-grade corrugated cardboard. We tried to keep the height of the items consistent from one material to another. For example, if you used grains of rice, that's only 1 mm in height. If you used beans, it might be 5 mm high. Shapes cut from corrugated cardboard, burlap, elastic bands, paper clips, or any number of (more or less flat) items from the hardware store or the pantry all qualify.

After allowing the plate to dry, we waterproofed it with a coat of acrylic medium or paint.






Using the plate to make a print onto cotton is pretty simple. Basically, position the plate on a table and apply acrylic paint to it with a stencil brush, foam brush or foam roller. Then carefully lay the cotton onto the painted surface and apply pressure.

Options:
- begin with hand-dyed cotton or with plain,
- use a brayer or your hands to ensure contact between the cotton and the painted plate,
- use a cushioning layer like batting or felt between the cotton and the brayer/hand,
- overprint by stamping or stencilling.






Once you have your printed cotton, the question arises, "Now what do I do with this?"

For these pieces, I have appliquéd shapes in fiberglass screening to the print, and have used hand and machine stitching to enhance the shapes made by the paint.

These pieces have been matted and wrapped, ready to be offered as "unframed work" at several shows this fall.

No titles yet. Any ideas?

Landmarks

Landmarks #3

This summer, some members of our text'art group met at Dianne's cottage for an art retreat. One of the techniques we played with was dripping diluted acrylic paint onto damp fabric, with sand sprinkled onto the cotton to act as a resist. The idea came from Mickey Lawler's article, "Sand Painting", in the June/July 2013 issue of Quilting Arts magazine.

Sometimes we threw salt onto the damp paint to add another effect.

Landmarks #2

It's wonderful fun to see the interaction of water, paint, sand and salt. When looking closely at the serendipitous result, the question arises, "Now what do I do with this?"

In the case of Landmarks #1 and #2, I introduced another texture by stamping. I then stitched some meandering lines in metallic thread to outline the organic shapes, and added beads to create a focal point.

For Landmarks #3, I skipped the stamping but used the same kind of stitching, then added metal grommets, creating tiny holes in the cotton.

Landmarks #1

These three pieces have been properly matted and wrapped, and will be offered for sale as unframed work at the Studio Tour, the Hudson Artists fall show, and the Arbor Gallery. I settled on the title "Landmarks" because they remind me of topographical maps.

I hope to take some of my other experiments and transform them into small, interesting pieces. I'm enjoying this brief diversion from making Cityscapes: a return to the layering of paint, collage and stitch that I have so enjoyed in previous series.

Water Tower #3

In response to a Challenge from my 12 by the Dozen group, I've used another photo from New York City as inspiration, taken somewhere in Manhattan.

Our challenge was to make an 8.5" x 11" piece, using a particular green. For the windows, I found a scrap of hand-painted cotton, made some years ago, that has a range of greens from blue-green to yellow-green. I figure the exact colour of green must be in there somewhere.





Once again, low-immersion dyeing has provided the mottled fabric for the sky, suggesting cloud formations.

If you'd like to see how others in the group have handled the challenge, please visit our website.

SAQA on-line auction begins soon!

I was delighted to have my donation to the SAQA on-line auction chosen for one of their Dream Collections, titled "Simple, Subtle, Appealing." The Dream Collections are groups of six art quilts, selected by a curator based on a theme of their own choosing. This is another way of looking at the 421 art quilts that have been donated to SAQA for its annual on-line auction.

AND I WAS THRILLED to have my piece chosen as one of Virginia Spiegel's Favourite Four. You can see for yourself by visiting the August 28 post on her blog. This is an OMG honour, as Virginia is a well-known and highly-respected art quilter, who has been on the scene for some years. Another of her four favourites is by Leni Wiener, who "coached" me at the Santa Fe conference, and whose work I so admire.

Boathouses #2

The auction begins Monday, September 9 at 2 p.m. The 12-inch square art quilts are grouped randomly into three lots, with a new lot on the auction block every Monday. Bids on Day 1 are $750, and then the price declines every day of the week until it reaches $75 on Day 6. Last year over $60,000 was raised, and it is expected that will be exceeded this year.

If you would like to see the entire selection of donations, visit the auction website. There you will see the full spectrum of subject, technique and palette in contemporary art quilting, as well as more information on placing a bid. My piece, Boathouses #2, is listed on page 1b.

Like any auction, this one can be exciting for participants. I find it fascinating to see which quilts go early, and I like to keep an eye on my friends' work, to see how their pieces fare.

Soulanges Canal Bicycle Path

my banner

Last Sunday was the perfect summer day. The sunshine and light breeze made it a good day to visit the Soulanges Canal bike path, where my banner Villaggio Toscano has been hung, along with Michele Meredith's banner and 52 others.

Michele's banner

We started from Coteau-du-Lac, around the 18 km marker, and biked eastward. The path was sometimes winding but more often straight, sometimes shaded but more often exposed to the sun. Along the way I saw wild grapes, apple trees laden with ripe red fruit, and many kinds of berries. Often the path bordered private gardens and at other times fields of corn stretched into the distance.

Most of those on the 27-km path were cyclists, but there were also roller-bladers, joggers and walkers. One athlete was on a skateboard, pushing himself along with a long pole. He was either a paddler or in training for a position as a Venetian gondolier.  Others were fishing along the shoreline.

Picnic tables and rest stops were positioned along the path.



I was pleased to see my banner (at the 4 km mark) and Michele's (at the 13 km mark). The artists were in (more or less) alphabetical order. Next time I will bike west to view the other section. I can only imagine how it will look with the autumn foliage in full colour.

Boathouses #7

My agreement with the Arbor Gallery is that I will show six of my Boathouse pieces in their pre-Christmas exhibition and sale. Boathouse #2 was donated to the upcoming SAQA auction, leaving me short one boathouse.

Boathouses #7

I revisited my photos and chose one that I have used before, for a 6" x 8", and reformatted it to a 12" square. The photo was actually taken by my friend Lauma, but I had to alter it by eliminating the foliage and imagining the position of the walkways.

Lauma's original photo 

Again, I have used a low-immersion hand-dye for the mottled sky and an arashi-dyed cotton for the water. This new Boathouse fits in well with the others in both theme and palette. 

Berkhamsted #1

Inspired by a photo taken in Berkhamsted, I have made a small Cityscape.

Berkhamsted is the pretty little English town where my cousin Lin lives. Her garden gate leads to the towpath along the canal, where you can watch the swans, and the narrow boats going through the locks. A ten-minute walk along the towpath brings you to the High Street or the train station, with its frequent service to London. A very walkable town with all the conveniences.

As part of my contract with the Arbor Gallery, I am asked to make a 5" x 7" piece, which will serve as a gift to one of the Gallery's many donors and volunteers.

I will participate in the Arbor Gallery's pre-Christmas show, "Gifted". The gallery is located in Vankleek Hill, and the show runs October 31 - December 15.

I like this image, and may well return to it, using a different palette or a different value scheme.