Hudson Artists virtual gallery

Floral #1, Michele Meredith, mixed media, 12" x 9"

Thanks to the inspired and diligent work of certain executive members, my local artists' group has launched a new initiative.

Colors on Winooski, John Vazalinskas, oil on canvas, 15" x 30"

The AHA (Artistes Hudson Artists) has opened a virtual showcase of members' work. It can be accessed here.

Just a Little Circle, Jane Wright, fused glass, 11" x 11"

This year's annual spring show was cancelled, and our monthly meetings have been discontinued, but seeing the recent work of members in our on-line gallery offers some consolation.

So pleased...

Rue de Buade #2

Delighted to learn that one of my cityscapes in cloth, shown above, has been selected for an upcoming show at the Homer Watson Gallery in Kitchener, Ontario, March 13 - May 31, 2020.

The show, a SAQA Regional Juried Exhibition, will be titled Colour with a U, and will feature 36 works in fibre. All the artists are Canadian members of SAQA. The exhibition coincides with the annual conference of SAQA this March. The conference will be held in Toronto, the first time this international group has staged its conference outside the US.

So pleased...

Two of my Cityscapes were chosen in SAQA's
recent promotional campaign.
This is a full page ad in the most recent issue of SAQA Journal.

... to have my work featured in the latest fund-raising campaign by SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates).

SAQA has given me many opportunities since I joined them some ten years ago. Right now one of my works is being shown at the Grants Pass Museum of Art in Oregon, having been accepted into an international show, Tranquility, staged by SAQA. It has already traveled to five major Australian cities, and three American venues.

Just a day or two ago I received this envelope in the mail:

accompanied by this letter:

The graphic designer responsible for the campaign has done a fine job of using my compositions to enhance SAQA's communications, don't you think? And I appreciated the tagging of each image with my name and the title of the work (in very small print.) 

As well, 

Thank you to Joanna Olson, the talented graphic designer of
this promotional poster.

... another of my works has been the inspiration for a different promotional campaign. The local "Museum of Living History", Greenwood, is focusing on their textile collection this summer, and chose one of my pieces as their promotional image. Originally made as a 40 x 30 textile work to be used for a Town of Hudson banner project, Greenwood: Layers in Time is now on display year-round at the museum. 

I just may have to have more greeting cards printed up, featuring some of my Cityscape images....

Visual Design: my interview with SAQA

Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) is an international group I have belonged to for many years. One of many posts that I've shared about SAQA was written last year, outlining some of the benefits of membership.

So I am delighted now to share with you a web-interview I did recently with Deborah Boschert as part of a Seminar Series on Visual Design, available exclusively to SAQA members. The Seminar Series is part of a whole collection of videos, articles and other resources on Visual Design for SAQA members. It's one of the projects developed in recent years that adds enormous benefit to membership.

If you decide that SAQA is a group you'd like to be part of, use the code SEMINAR to get a $10 discount for new members. 

You heard it here first!

Colleen Paul, Lauma Cenne, Helena Scheffer,
me, Dianne Robinson and Michele Meredith
at the opening of the De Musei Fabrica show, May 17, 2018

Our Text'art group show at McGill's William Osler Library has been extended!

De Musei Fabrica: Cloth and Stitch Inspired by the Maude Abbott Medical Museum will continue until Thursday, August 23, 2018. 

The exhibition is in the entrance to the Osler Library of the History of Medicine,  located on the third floor of the McIntyre Medical Building, 3655 Promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, QC.

Hours are Monday - Friday, 9 am - 5 pm.

interior view, from the second floor of the library

The Wikipedia entry for the library says it is "Canada's foremost scholarly resource in the history of medicine, and one of the most important libraries of its type in North America." If the librarian isn't too busy, lucky visitors can get a tour of the inner chamber, with its treasure of 8000 rare and historic books, some dating back to the 1600's.

The ashes of Sir William Osler and Lady Osler are
interred in the library, surrounded by his beloved books

The library was designed in 1929 as part of the Strathcona Medical Building, but in 1965 it was moved, with its oak panels, plaster moldings and stained glass windows, to the newly-built McIntyre Medical Sciences Building. A special wing was added to the circular building to accommodate the rectilinear structure of the older space.

I do hope you have an opportunity to take in the exhibition. It's a remarkable "conversation" between textile art and medical artifacts, situated in a most singular space.

Text'art: a very special group

me, Dianne, Helena, Michele, Lauma, and Colleen,
outside the Chihuly exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts

Once again, I have been struck by how fortunate I am to belong to Text'art, our group of six textile artists, formed some ten years ago at Dianne's initiative.

a virtual reality experience at the Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec

Last week we met for a quick coffee at a lakeside café, to talk about applying for a group residency. I threw out an invitation. "Who's interested in driving to Ottawa to see the new show of Impressionists at the National Gallery?" Everyone whipped out their cell phones, checked their calendars and within a minute we had agreed on a date. How special is that?

A walk through the woods, trilliums as far as the eye can see

Our current members are Lauma Cenne, Michele Meredith, Colleen Paul, Dianne Robinson, Helena Scheffer, and me. (Two past members, Pam Chasen and Linda Forey, left us when they moved away.) All of us are also members of other, larger groups (art, quilting, photography, weaving...), and each of us comes to the group with a unique skill set.

We meet once a month. Usually a lunch is involved. Sometimes we just meet in one of our homes, to catch up on each other's news and projects. Often we will experiment with a new technique or material. Gelatin plate printing? Collagraph printing? Ice dyeing? We've tried them all.

At other times we will visit a resource, like Papeterie St-Armand, or Au Papier Japonais, or C & M Textile and the other shops on St.-Hubert St. that sell threads, buttons and lace.

With an invited guest, we toured the Musée du costume et du textile du Québec.

Often our destination is a museum. Local favourites are the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the McCord Museum, and the Musée d'art contemporain.

on a tour of Habitat 67

At other times we will take in a show at a gallery, often chosen because one or more of us is showing our work there.

At least once a year we will take a road trip to Ottawa, Toronto or Quebec City. And then there is the retreat at Dianne's cottage, something we all look forward to every summer.

at the opening of our current group show

Most recently, we collaborated on a group show, De Musei Fabrica: Cloth and Stitch Inspired by the Maude Abbott Medical Museum, now on display at McGill University. This special challenge has brought us closer together. And who knows what the future holds?

Why am I writing this? Firstly, to express my gratitude and appreciation to the members of Text'art. I really cherish the support we are able to give to each other.

And perhaps to encourage you to pull together a small group of your own. Meeting with six or seven people with a common interest offers an intimacy, a flexibility and a mobility that's not available in a larger organization. It works for us!

Habitat Interiors

Last summer, our Text'art group visited Habitat 67, the iconic harbourfront building designed by Moshe Safdie. Tours were made available as part of Montreal's 375th anniversary, and we took advantage of this rare opportunity to explore the residential complex. You can read about our experience here.

Colleen Paul, one of our Text'art members, has kindly sent me a link to an item about a current show of photographs by Montreal-based James Brittain that expose the "interior life" of Habitat. His large-scale colour photos are currently on view as part of Toronto's CONTACT Photography Festival,  continuing until July 31, 2018.

Brittain has photographed nine units to date. His images show how residents have created livable spaces in this experimental housing complex.

Hudson Artists Spring Show 2018

I do hope you will be able to join me at the upcoming Spring Show of the Hudson Artists, opening Friday, April 20, at the Hudson Community Centre, 394 Main Road in Hudson QC. More than 30 local artists will be showing their most recent work in a variety of media. Refreshments are offered, and proceeds from the raffled painting will go to the local Le Nichoir bird sanctuary.

Hours are Friday, 7:30 - 9:30 pm and Saturday-Sunday 10 am - 5 pm.

I will have three pieces from my newest series in hand-dyed linen on display. These are the 24" x 24" works that were included in the Galerie Carlos solo show earlier this year. And I have committed to working on the sales desk the Friday evening of the vernissage. Hope to see you there!

Out of the Blue, hand-dyed linen, 24 x 24

Guns: A Loaded Conversation

I am a juried artist member of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), a group of more than 3000 that promotes the art quilt worldwide.

SAQA has recently put together a curated show of 33 art quilts on the subject of guns. This timely and powerful exhibition opens in San José, California on April 22, 2018.

A slideshow of the 33 works is available here. Click on any one of the works to see it more closely. A written artist statement and an audio clip narrated by the artist are also available.

137 Bullets,  Diane K. Bird, 41 x 43 inches

"Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams lost their lives on November 29, 2012. Russell sped away from a Cleveland police officer who had attempted to pull him over for a traffic violation. The ensuing chase ended in a school parking lot, where police officers shot 137 bullets at the pair trapped in the car. They claimed gunfire emanated from the car, but no gun was ever found. Malissa was shot 24 times and Timothy was shot 23 times. Their humanity was erased with the shooting. My quilt tabulates the bullet count that took their lives."

Art Quilt Quarterly

Delighted to have a piece included in the latest issue of Art Quilt Quarterly. This journal is produced by SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) and is aimed at collectors of art quilts, museum curators, and professional art quilters.

Haut-de-Cagnes, 2016, 11" x 9"
hand-dyed and hand-painted cotton, machine-stitched 

You can find out more about this publication here.

New Project Underway, Part 2

Our textile art group has committed to put together a show of six works, each one inspired by a different aspect of the Maude Abbott Medical Museum collection. I have blogged about this project a few times in the last couple of months.

My piece is inspired by the museum's surgical instruments. It is essentially a quilt that will be stretched over a canvas, 36" x 24". A bit like a sampler, a bit like a patchwork, it is composed of 17 different elements.

Some of the elements depict the surgical instruments themselves. A surgical tray typically has multiple scalpels, clamps, needle drivers and scissors laid out neatly, and I have referred to this presentation in my piece.

scalpels: shapes are fused and stitched

shapes are made with a satin stitch

Grips are fused then zig-zag stitched,
with a small meandering stitch as background

scissors, needle drivers, clamps: their outlines are stitched onto antique linen

Other instruments are depicted with photo transfer directly onto hand-dyed cotton.

I have used my imagination for other elements in the project. They resemble images one might see looking under a microscope, and evoke cellular growth: perhaps healthy tissue, perhaps pathology, but all utterly imaginary.

This was made by layering organza and tulle onto hand-dyed cotton,

then stitching in chains of rectangular shapes and

applying heat, to burn away the synthetic fabric.

These look like nodules in striated tissue. They were made with free-motion machine-stitching.

Seed stitching, done by hand with lightweight wool. 

The ovoid cells were fused and stitched into place,

while the lines were made with machine-stitching and couched wool.

Beads were added later.

couched yarns and hand-stitching,

with tiny buttons added for interest

pebble-like shapes, with spaces that show the mottled quality of the

hand-dyed background

Trapunto technique was used to stuff these circular shapes, about the size

of a loonie. I "deconstructed" a maxi-pad and used the rayon fluff as stuffing.

Highly therapeutic.

French knots as nodules on hand-dyed cotton background.

A sampler of suture stitches, tacking together pleated cotton.

Found this antique instruction manual on Wikipedia.
It served as a guide for the suturing.

Cloth and Stitch: Inspired by the Maude Abbott Collection will be installed at the entrance to the William Osler Library, McGill University, and will run from mid-May to mid-June. I will be sure to post here as the date approaches.

Meanwhile, there is much to be done to document the show: bios, photos and artist statements for each artist, a brief history of Text'art and an intro to the exhibition itself. The Museum will produce a booklet and a poster for the show, and promote it throughout the McGill community, and several weeks of lead time are needed for this.  Putting this together has been a new experience for our group of six artists and we have every intention of rising to the challenge!

British Patchwork & Quilting

So pleased to learn that 12 by the Dozen was profiled in the current issue of British Patchwork & Quilting. I was a member of this group for about 7 years, having resigned just last year.

Mentioned in the article is the week-long get-together the group had in England in the summer of 2016, when seven of us met up at Birmingham's Festival of Quilts. At least two former members also shared in the festivities.

Despite the occasional swapping out of members, this international group has continued to forge ahead with quarterly challenges. Their latest series is inspired by individual artists, each of the twelve members setting the subject in turn. The most recent "virtual exhibition" focused on the works of M.C. Escher. Previous challenges have centred on Klee, Klimt and Hundertwasser.

You can learn more about 12 by the Dozen by going to their website and blog.

New Project Underway, Part 1

Our Text'art group of fibre artists has undertaken a project in association with the Maude Abbott Medical Museum at McGill University. (I blogged about this last month.) Due in seven weeks, I am happy to say that my contribution is well underway.

As it's not yet complete, I thought I would share some of the products and processes involved in my piece, which is inspired by the surgical instruments in the museum's collection.

One of the first things I did was to collect an assortment of hand-dyed linen and cotton from my stash. I looked for subtle colours without a lot of chroma, in keeping with the antique quality of the artifacts in the museum. Originally I considered this to be a complementary scheme of gold and blue, but there is a touch of red in there too, so it might be better described as a dulled-down mix of the primaries (yellow, blue and red). Or you could just say it is a mix of warm and cool hues, including neutrals.

Lauma, one of the Text'art group, contributed some aged linen that added the perfect hint of antiquity.

A small patch of texture was created by stitching scrim to a background of hand-dyed cotton. 

One of the elements in my composition is made of layered synthetic tulle and synthetic organza on top of hand-dyed cotton, with a stitched motif of "pebbles". It was then distressed with a heat gun. The photos below show how the upper layers have been burnt away, creating a very "organic" texture.

trying out the heat gun on tulle (above) and organza (below)

A sample, made by layering organza and tulle on top of cotton,
stitching, and then applying heat to burn away the synthetic fabric

Now, why would I have two heat guns, you might ask.
One of them is stronger, the other more moderate. I think.

Artist Transfer Paper was an effective way to incorporate photo images into the project. It's also a useful method of adding text to a composition.

I've had this product tucked away for several years.
always being careful to seal it tightly after use.

an example of image transfer, applied to mottled, hand-dyed cotton.

Light Steam-a-Seam 2 allowed me to "fuse" cut-out cloth shapes onto a cotton or linen background, later to be machine-stitched into place.

The seed-like shapes have been fused onto a background of hand-dyed cotton.
The photo shows some of the threads and beads I am "auditioning"
to add detail to this element.

And finally, when the project is completed, I will add a coat of Fabric Shield, which protects the textiles from dust and from fading due to sunlight exposure.

Hope to share more glimpses of the work in progress soon.