SAQA's Art Meets Science in NYC at Pfizer International Headquarters

Yesterday I received photos of the installation of Saqa's Art Meet Science Show now newly installed in Manhattan at the world Headquarters of Pfizer International. A big "thank you" to Jill Jensen the SAQA Coordinator for this traveling show.


The gorgeous modern building right across from the United Nations has very handsome gallery space and the show seems to display beautifully!

Unfortunately my piece "2009: A Space Odyssey" wasn't photographed, but there was quite a crowd in attendance for the opening including noted quilt collector Jack Walsh (Maybe he was there to buy? ) After Pfizer the next long term stop for the show is at the Visions Gallery in San Diego. Can't wait to see it there!.
Below are views of the Pfizer gallery and on the right is the show's Juror Dr. David Fraser who was viewing the quilts in person for the first time.

Noriko Endo Inspiration!

The other night I took this recently finished piece to the monthly meeting of the Santa Monica Quilt Guild for the Show and Tell part of the program. I received some great feedback and lots of questions about the technique used in "Autumn Aspens" - so to answer all those questions, here goes....

When the catalogue of the recent International Quilt Festival Long Beach arrived last spring I was excited to see Noriko Endo's name among the teachers and quickly jumped at the chance to take her "Confetti Naturescapes" class. She is a charming and talented, though very self-effacing, quilter and teacher from Japan. A truly lovely lady with a delicate sensibility and a talent for translating the natural world into fabric and thread, her quilts have an ethereal quality I am drawn to.

I had first seen her technique on Simply Quilts and had followed her work since. She has recently published her book Confetti Naturescapes which is published by Dragon Threads Publishing and is available on the Dragon Threads site. My painfully inept attempt at her technique is woefully lacking in the "je ne sais quoi" so visible in hers, but take a look online at her magnificent quilts and I will attempt to describe the process.

First we started with a photo - I chose a photos of a grove of aspen turning to autumn color on the edge of a Sierra Nevada meadow. Looking now at that photo, I realize I should have added more detail in the trunks and branches, but ah...hindsight...

From the colors in the photo we chose fabrics to match (hand dyes and batiks work the best because they are two sided) and chopped strips up into small confetti like pieces. Literally 1/4 to 1/8 inch in size. Lots of slice and dice with the rotary cutter. Following our photos these confetti pieces were piled on to batting and backing the size of our intended quilt to suggest areas of color along with larger pieces of sky to suggest sky or water.

Next, we laid down a piece of fine black tulle over the whole piece and pinned with straight pins every inch or so to keep the whole thing together to get it under the sewing machine. Invisible polyester thread was used to squiggle around the whole surface to apply the tulle and hold the little bits in place. On the next layer free cut pieces of fabric were laid down to suggest trees, branches, and any large foreground details. At this point more confetti was laid on to give an illusion of depth and shading. Noriko went around the room adding very tiny pieces of black and purple confetti fabric which she calls the "magic" of her quilts. Adding these dark bits truly makes the scene look like an impressionist painting.

A final layer of black tulle is laid on and pinned again. More invisible thread is added to secure the layer as well as any free motion stitching in colored threads to add shading, highlights, etc. On my piece I added some gray and white textile paint and some light gray thread to suggest the sun slanting over the tree trunks from one side.

At home I finished my aspen piece by trimming it, and mounting it on a quilt sandwich with thin batting to add to the size and provide a frame which I free motion quilted with silk thread.

I have ordered Noriko's book and look forward to spending many hours appreciating her beautiful work.

Chaco I - A Journey

I've spent a good part of this summer working on a challenge quilt for Quilts on the Wall - a group of fiber artists here in southern California. The theme of this show which will travel to various venues around the country for up to two years is "Discovery".

A photo taken years ago on a trip to the mysterious and impressive prehistoric religious and cultural center at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico's four Corners area seemed made for this challenge. I always tell myself I will document the progress of a quilt from inspiration to finished work, but I seldom remember to do it. This time I photographed all the stages and thought I'd lay them out for those who like me sometimes have a vision, but don't know where to start.

First, I cropped my photo and manipulated the size and to some extent the color of my original snap. After printing out the photo at 8 1/2 X 11 , I traced it on to an acrylic transparency sheet the same size. From there I photocopied the transparency film and blew it up (using Poster Pro) to the required size of 28" X 38". After gluing together all those pages i had my full size cartoon.


Then I began auditioning fabrics and colors, later fusing my choices on to a cloth foundation. I used some absolutely stunning hand dyed sateen from Judy Bianchi of Sebastopol, California for the masonry. When the large pieces were all fused I added more color, depth, shadows and highlights with various fabric paints including Jacquard and Tsukineko. I drew all the shadows between the stones with Fabrico markers using my cartoon as a guide.


Free motion quilting using several passes of silk thread gave texture to the ones and more depth as you look from door to door, to door. As you can see the piece needed trimming and when the quilting was finished i realized that the trimmed size was smaller than the required 28 X 38. I fused a narrow border in a purple stripe that is my new favorite print right now , did some decorative stitching on the join between the border and the image and then added a facing for a clean edge.

I'm happy with the the finished quilt above on the right , in fact my other photos of this wonderfully evocative place may inspire more - perhaps Chaco II?

SAQA - Art Meets Science

I was so sorry not to be able to see my quilt in the SAQA Art Meets Science exhibit at the Festival of Quilts in the UK this weekend, but I've had many reports that it was a great show and very well received.


I received a message today from Jill Jensen who spearheaded the show that Alex Veronelli of AURIfil Threads posted a video of the exhibition at Festival of Quilts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU1NBKzvGDM

Jill said the exhibit was very well received and SAQA is getting very positive feedback. It is on its way back to Houston so that it can be checked in, then repackaged for shipping to Pfizer headquarters in New York for its next gig. ..

The catalog is now on sale online on the SAQA site and the quilts for sale are also pictured at http://www.saqa.com/store.php?cat=22 Be sure to check it out!

The Golden Boy

It is sad to say that this morning my beautiful, talented but aged palomino gelding Jesse passed away peacefully in Sylmar. He was foaled in 1976 in the Owens Valley purchased for a brilliant young rider (not me) and trained beautifully by Loretta Kemsley. I bought him as a 8 year old and enjoyed many years with him practicing dressage, Western Riding, equitation and a little scary barrel racing until he and I both retired from riding several years ago. I decided that I didn't bounce as well as I had once - and Jesse agreed.

He was lovingly cared for in his retirement by Loretta. At 34 he had known a long good life and he has left me with many wonderful memories of adventures and friendships.

I'll always remember how though often full of the devil and happy to find an opportunity to dump me whenever possible, he somehow new he was carrying a precious package as I was riding into to my 7th month of pregnancy. Every step he took was as if he was walking on eggs. He never put a foot wrong.
When I got back to riding after our son was born - all bets were off! I'll miss him, but I have all those golden memories.

A New Guld in Los Angeles - Westside Quilters

Westside Quilters is a new guild for both traditional and art quilters now forming in Los Angeles. Our inaugural event is a a fundraiser at the Fowler Museum on th UCLA campus on Saturday, August 28 at 1:00pm to visit three batik exhibits with a gallery talk by a Fowler Museum educator. There will also be a presentation and trunk show by quilter, blogger, contemporary quilt collector and owner of the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection and SAQA member
Del Thomas. $20.00 tickets at the door are tax deductible

The first regular Westside Quilters meeting will be Saturday, October 9th at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Westwood with award winning art quilter Carol Taylor as the featured speaker. For more information on both events and other upcoming programs and membership please visit- www.westsidequilterslosangeles.org
Email: WestsideQuilters@yahoo.com

Just One More Thing From Long Beach.....

I just learned that there is now a video available of the West Coast Wonders 2010 exhibit which debuted at IQF Long Beach last week. It's on the Quilts Inc. website at http://quilts.com/lbqf10/enVivo/index.html

Just click on the videos link on the left and then on the West Coast Wonders button and it will run. My quilt "Balancing Act" is toward the end, but you can also check out the two wonderful quilts entered by my friend Sandy Lauterbach.

While your there, click on the "Beneath the Surface" button and see quilts from this exhibit from the Dinner at Eight Artists curated by Jamie Fingal and Leslie Tucker Jenison. The exhibited included a wonderfully whimsical work "Gone Fishing" by my friend Sherry Kleinman. Her quilt is not featured in the video but can be seen on her website. It's worth a visit!