My Latest Work....

My blissful week at Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar in Pacific Grove in March has finally resulted in a finished quilt - "Fossil Fueled".

My son's childhood fossil collection became the inspiration for this fused applique' quilt. Begun in a workshop entitled "Quilt Like Leonardo Da Vinci" with the ever creative Barbara Olson ( shown talking about her own gorgeous quilts below) in which we were asked to make detailed still - life compositions from natural objects, the quilt evolved from photographs and pencil sketches of fossils of sea-life from the Permian and pre-Cambrian periods.

My final photographic composition is shown at left. Hand dyes, batiks and printed cottons were used along with metallic copper braid, glass beads and textile paints for the final illusion in my fiber composition.




We were encouraged to arrive at Asilomar having read Michael Gelb's book How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci and were challenged to use many of the thought processes and exercises in the book to jump start our own creativity. For me the incredible beauty of the Asilomar State Park environment is usually enough to inspire me (especially this year with beautiful sunshine and blue seas even in mid March - see the snapshots below) but exercising my left brain in new ways was a fascinating experience.

One of the reasons I adore the Asilomar Conference Grounds is the opportunity to walk on the State Beach each morning before breakfast and classes. A boardwalk stretches from the dining hall over the dunes to the beach beyond. Fabulous on a slightly misty morning and even better at sunset!

Who Me? A Quilt Teacher ??

My husband would be the first to say that I would be a terrible teacher. His 16 years in Elementary and Middle School education probably gives him some insight in this particular matter, but his experience on this subject comes from some difficult hours spent trying to teach him to turn on the computer and use email. I did get him through his online traffic school experience, but he has stated on more than one occasion that "You [meaning me] can't teach anyone anything!"

So it was with more than a little trepidation that I agreed to give a workshop to my fellow members of the Santa Monica Quilt Guild. I have enjoyed using machine stitching and thread painting on a lot of art quilts over the last few years and have been fairly successful at local shows, so last summer I was asked to be part of a summer "Quilters College" that took the place of our normal speaker at a guild meeting. It was a 15 minute gig - just explain a few of your thread painting techniques. Of course I had to do it four times - once for each group that circled the room among four other teachers and of course in the middle of it my machine refused to participate and I could no longer do an actual demo, but basically all went well and members were very enthusiastic. So enthusiastic that I was asked to do a full day workshop sometime during the upcoming year.

Well, my time came last Saturday with a room full of 16 eager quilters. My initial panic subsided while I was setting up and knowing that I was prepared with handouts, samples, some easy designs for simple projects was a great help. I was pleased to be able to inspire some very talented students to go way beyond my class projects and take the initiative to move off on their own. I was also able to solve some machine problems for those who had done much free motion quilting, including one lady who had a brand new machine and had never lowered the feed dogs! It took a while, but with lots of time spent with the manual she was eventually up and running with the best. I was initially caught unawares by two visiting Japanese quilters who spoke almost no English, but they seemed to enjoy the day and actually gave me a lovely little gift at the end!

To sum up, I had dreaded failure and embarrassment, but by the end of the day I was not only tired and happy that it was all over, but pleased that I had exposed some very traditional quilters to some aspects of art quilting and thread painting techniques in particular that I think will be useful. I was also very pleased with the reception and the comments afterward. In fact some of my friends have suggested that I should be open to teach this workshop at other guilds.

I hasten to add that many of the techniques I demonstrated to the group were not necessarily my own. Some I had learned through workshops from nationally known professional teachers - especially Ann Fahl whose floral work I greatly admire. I was able to show these techniques using my own quilts as examples. I have a new respect for all those teachers who travel the country earning a living from teaching workshops week after week. Believe me, though satisfying, it's not easy!

I'm Published in Jean Biddick's New Book!

Jean Biddick a talented quilter and teacher from the Tucson area has just had her second book published by AQS. Entitled Masterful Machine Pieced Quilts it publishes for the first time some of her award winning quilt patterns based on European inlaid stone mosaic floors and describes her drafting and freezer paper piecing techniques for these amazingly complex and luscious quilts. Last year she put out a call to her students asking those of us who had completed a quilt from her classes to submit photos of our quilts. I sent off photos of my "Roman Holiday" am so thrilled to see it finally published in her book. I ran into Jean at the Empty Spools Seminar at Asilomar last week and was thrilled that she had brought and advance copy.

This quilt was inspired by a trip with my husband and 15 year old son to England in 2005 where we spent a lot of time visiting the Roman ruins and excavations in the south and west of England. We spent a wonderful day in Bath at the Roman Baths and the nearby museum. The central motif in this quilt was adapted from the sculptured pediment of the excavated temple on the site and depicts Aqua Sulis the God of the sacred warm spring which fed the baths.

The surrounding motifs incorporated printed images of Roman mosaics as the centers of the paper pieced compass stars and appliqued images of Roman artifacts unearthed in southern England which were adapted from my original photos.

The quilt is actually the result of two workshops taken at Quilting in the Desert in January 2006, one from Jean who inspired the pieced mosaic circular frames for the images and the other from the wonderful Sharon Schamber who inspired me to attempt a combination of paint and Pieclique' technique to bring the image of the God of the Spring to life.

By the end of the week my River God was completed and the larger ring was 3/4 finished. The surrounding motifs were painted and/or appliqued, ringed with more piecing and applied to a quartered background which represented the river reeds of the prehistoric spring. The fabrics were all collected with an eye to emulating hard stone tesserae and were mostly hand dyed or marbled. The background was embellished with over 500 crystals to give the effect of sparkling water. The outer mosaic border was paper pieced.

One real disaster on this quilt occurred while I was quilting it on my domestic machine. My halogen elbow work lamp slowly lowered itself too close to one of the borders. Soon I was smelling burning fiber and realized that a portion of the border was actually smoldering. I dumped water on it to put out the fire, but was left with a gaping scorched hole through all three layers. Some surgical replacement of batting and applique saved me and today I can't find the area at all.

A long story, but this quilt was a long, wearying project with a lot of personal meaning to me. I'm so happy to see it published in Jean's book.

Wonderful Exhibit at The Museum of Ventura County

"Becoming Art at the Seams" opened with a very well attended reception on Friday, March 12. My husband and I braved the traffic from West Los Angeles to attend. I had expected maybe a handful of guests, but there seemed to be hundreds - so many and such a crush that I never really saw all the quilts! I managed to get back for a much quieter look last Friday with a friend and thoroughly enjoyed the wide variety of art quilts including those by my friends Linda Miller and Sherry Kleinman and some new discoveries like Loris Bogue and Patty Latourel. Loved their work! The show is beautifully presented - congratulations to Curator Ariane Karakalos are in order. Well worth a visit!

Hey, I' m The Cover Girl!

Yes, that's my quilt "Forrest's Flowers" being used as the promotional image for "Becoming Art at the Seams: a Juried Exhibition of Contemporary and Art Quilts" opening this Friday evening at the Museum of Ventura County. 28 quilters from Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles Counties are included in the show.

The opening reception is this coming Friday night and I am looking forward to meeting the other artists and seeing old and new quilting friends. The exhibit runs until June 20th. If you find yourself in the Ventura, California I think it will be worth a visit.

More information is available on the Museum of Ventura County website at www.venturamuseum.org

A Great Workshop - Do it Yourself

I go to Guild meetings all the time and hear members complain about finding workshops that interest them. They are traditional quilters and bewail the fact that their Guild only offers art quilting teachers - or the other way around. They don't want to travel too far for a workshop and pay costly travel expenses. They would rather do workshops with a smaller number of people they know they have an affinity with. There is a specific teacher they want to study with, but their Guild can't afford to hire them.

My art quilting group has found an answer to all these dilemmas. Organize a workshop yourselves. We are the Fiber Fanatics a small group of art quilters who are also members of a local quilt guild in southern California. One of our group found that Indiana art quilter Bob Adams was spending the winter in our area and was available for workshops. We all looked at his website and admired his free motion techniques for art quilts. Our organizer, Sandy, contacted him, arranged his fee, set the dates and graciously volunteered the use of her home and her large dining room table! She checked with her electrician to make sure that her wiring would take all of our sewing machines. That's one thing I never would have thought of!

We chose a two day workshop with dates that fit everyone's schedule. The cost when divided between eight of us turned out to be fairly reasonable given all the individual instruction we would have with our small group. Not having to travel far proved another bonus. Rather than brown bag our lunches, I was asked to organize communal lunches with each of the participants bringing a pot luck dish for ten people one of the days.

Sandy's home is beautiful with a view out of large windows to a tropical garden below - a wonderful setting. The workshop was cozy and casual and we all had a wonderful time. I heard no grumbling or complaints - just the happy hum of sewing machines.

Bob Adams' workshop was highly interesting and informative. We played at drawing with free motion line on our sewing machines and tested out multiple colors of thread on various colored cloth samples to see how to lighten, darken, neutralize and change color on fabrics using only straight lines of thread. He demonstrated how quilting line can change the mood and emotion of the quilt. His very masculine quilts using imagery from infrastructure (manhole covers, overpasses, etc) are very interesting and very different from our usual - can I say it? - feminine sensibilities. We were fascinated by some of his methods for surface design.

Bob and his wife Natalie were charming, down to earth people who made the whole two day session easy and fun. We all had a wonderful time.

This is in fact the second "in house" workshop our group has planned. Our first was a few years ago with the wonderful artist Patt Blair. They have both gone so well that without doubt we will do more! I totally recommend it.

"Becoming Art at the Seams" - Museum of Ventura County

I'm very pleased to have had two quilts - "Forrest's Flowers" and "Up at the Villa With Michael" accepted into the Museum of Ventura County's "Becoming Art at the Seams"! The show will run March 13 to June 20. The Opening night reception will be on Friday March 12, 6 to 8pm. See website for details: www.venturamuseum.org .

It's especially appropriate since my husband's Grandfather Forrest Smoot whose Epiphyllums inpired this quilt lived for many years in the Ventura area. For more on that quilt and its story see the blog post below.