SAQA Donation 2016

Using my own stencils, including two by fiber artist, Ginny Eckley, commercial rubbing plates, my own stamps and my own free-motion, stitched and painted design, I emptied out my paint dishes then looked for a way to unify the work and give it a voice, discovering once again that sometimes a work begs to be cropped and strategically pieced to find its voice.  See Figures 1-3.  Finding Its Voice (Fig. 3).  It is my Studio Art Quilts Associates, Inc.'s donation work for 2016.

Raw Work                                                                          Fig. 1

Cropped and Grouped Work                               Fig. 2

Finding Its Voice                                                         Fig. 3

New Thread Trash Work

Thread Trash is one of my favorite fiber items to work with.  Beginning with its dimensional possibilities in fabric compositions where it sometimes took center stage and more often side stage, very effectively, of course.  With the work below, I tried my hand at total-coverage compositions using only thread trash.  All work was stitched down on stabilizer with 100 wt. silk thread (Figures 1-4).

This new work fits very nicely with this year's selected creative-inspiration word - Remission, or Re-mission, depending on how you view it.  Painting with Thread Trash reminded me of painting with coffee filters and papers towels.  The dimensional aspects of it reminded me of working with felted wool and wool roving which can be highly dimensional.

Untitled                                                                           Fig. 1

Freeform Reflections                                                    Fig. 2

Round Top, Texas                                                          Fig. 3

Crystal Beach, Texas                                                       Fig. 4

  

February BAFA Meeting Design Exercise

The Beaumont Area Fiber Artists met Saturday past.  Our design exercise was on manipulating negative space with torn shapes, cut random shapes, folded image, and random same-shape paper.  Of note:  Kathy's and Christine's dimensional folded image (Fig. 5, top right, fabric and Fig. 10, second from left, paper) and Sylvia's examples in fabric - random shapes and "torn" (Fig. 7-8). Everyone loved Beth's cut random shapes in form of arrowhead (Fig. 9, 3rd from left), Dot's contemporary Gate (for lack of a better description) (Fig. 11, also third from left), Susan's waves of geese (Fig. 5, bottom right) and Liz's random shapes using both positive and negative image (Fig. 2).  I posted two sets of exercises, one from 2010 and one from 2016.  I thought the second set a bit more imaginative and communicated better (Fig. 12-13).

Liz B                                                          Fig. 1

 Liz B.                                                        Fig. 2

Liz B.                                                      Fig. 3

Liz B                                                      Fig. 4

Christine S.                                        Fig. 5

Susan C.                                        Fig. 6

Sylvia W                   Fig. 7

Sylvia W.                                                      Fig. 8

Dot C.                                                                                Fig.9

Kathy R.                                                                          Fig. 10

Beth M.                                                                            Fig. 11

Cmf                                                                                  Fig. 12

Cmf                                                                                  Fig. 13

                                                                          

Golden Triangle Quilt Guild Show 2016

Over 400 quilts were displayed at the Golden Triangle Quilt Guild Show in Beaumont last week.
My quilt, Age of Asparagus (Figure 1), was fortunate to win a blue ribbon in the Guild's color challenge, modern design, category.  My color was from Crayola's line and was called Asparagus.  All squares and rectangles were raw-edge, free-motion quilted directly onto the quilt top.  Quilting was the most massive quilting coverage I have ever done on a quilt.  Asparagus tips and stalks in body of quilt were from stencils I created using a live stalk as the model.  I drew out a larger version for the stalks in the border.  Stalks and words were painted with pigmented inks and black Gesso. When I finished it, I wanted to cut it up and re-work it into something smaller, probably, because I am not used to working large and it didn't seem like something I would create.  Even a friend who knew my work didn't recognize it as mine.  Since she liked it, and since it did win a ribbon, I took that as a compliment.

I received my critique back last week so I thought I would write a word about the judges.  Two of the judges were NQA certified judges and one was a 30-year veteran quilt appraiser.  They definitely knew what they were looking at (not all of them do and not all are NQA certified).  Her comment on Asparagus was spot on: "A study of value and its contrast is noted and appreciated".

Age of Asparagus        59" x 84"           Fig.1

Happy New Year!

It was like a New Year's celebration at our Beaumont Area Fiber Artist's meeting this morning.  Many of us had such fun stuff to share.  One visitor, Cissy, from South Katy hastily constructed a floral T-shirt drape out of thread trash for Show and Tell.  It looked so fabulous that I am kicking myself that I didn't take a photo...!  I told her she had to work it up and bring it back and show us what she did with it.  Hmmm!  I see a future design exercise here.

At last year's BAFA retreat in LaPorte, we did an ugly fabric exchange with 11 participants.  Each participant received a wee portion cut from a 1 yard contribution.  We were told we could add one or two fabrics but many just used what they received.  Janelle made hers on an apron from Sherry's scraps.  How fun is that?  Sherry did a portrait of her dog, Zipper!  Jerry used her ugly fabric front and back.  Susan did two, etc.  Dot did strips and tossed in a great theme fabric.  Work shown on the wall (Fig. 1).  Individual work following (F. 2-11).

Because we had a 3-month vacation from the group for holidays, we also had to do a Mini-quilt from one of last year's design exercises (Fig. 12).  Several in various stages of progress were shown.  I will post photos of individual mini-quilts when I have more...

Show and Tell - See Figures 13-23.  Susan's work (Fig. 13-15) was from an online class with Katie Pasquini Masopust.  She plans to work a series with her treescapes.  Melissa showed her Shibori-dyed classwork and talked about plans for those and her purchased Silk Jacquard piece (16-18).  Jerry, who has elevated Zentangle to an Art with a Capital A, showed her happy baby quilt (Fig. 19) and Zentangle Inspired Art (Fig. 20-23).

.

     BAFA Retreat 2015 Ugly Fabric Exchange 

     Fig. 1        

Dot Collins                                                     Fig. 2

Susan Cornell                                                 Fig. 3

Susan Cornell                                                 Fig.4 

                          

Kathy Risinger                                              Fig. 5

Jerry Lynne Domingue                               Fig. 6

Back - Jerry                                Fig. 7

Jeanelle McCall                          Fig. 8

Sherry Walker with Portrait of Zipper - Fig. 9

Sherry Walker     Zipper        Fig. 10

                             

Connie Work-in-Progress                            Fig. 11

Mini Quilts from a 2015 Design Exercise - Fig. 12

Bottom:  Jerry Lynne Domingue from oval, circle, spiral

Middle Left:  Dot Collins from circle, oval, rectangle

Top Left:  Kathy Risinger from Zentangle

Middle and Right:  Connie from Zentangle

Susan Cornell  Online Class W-I-P      Fig. 13

Susan Cornell Online Class    Fig. 14

Susan Cornell Online Class  Fig. 15

Melissa Tweedel - Shibori Dyed Class        Fig. 16

Melissa Tweedel                                         Fig. 17

Melissa's Purchased Silk Jacquard             Fig. 18

Jerry Lynne Domingue Baby Quilt            Fig. 19

Jerry Lynne Zia 1                 Fig. 20

Jerry Lynne Zia 2                     Fig. 21

Jerry Lynne Zia 3                Fig. 22

Jerry Lynne Zia 4                    Fig. 23

IKE Installation

I finally was able to hang art installation work at the kid's house next door (Fig. 1-2) as their bathroom remodel is in the end stages.  One long wall worked very nicely.  8" squares were mounted on 8" canvasses set on a 12" grid.  Close up (Fig. 3).  The work tells the story of their pre-hurricane cabin, Time Bandit, which was demolished during Hurricane Ike in 2009.  Time Bandit was reborn as Top Shelf in 2011.  IKE began as a quilt top and morphed with lots of texture (thread trash), tulle, puff paint,gesso (white, black and clear) and quilting into the installation work shown below.

 IKE Installation                                          Fig.1

Property of Richard/Jennifer Fahrion

IKE Installation                                                                Fig. 2

IKE Close-Up                                                                    Fig. 3

Upcoming BAFA Meeting January 2016

Since Beaumont Area Fiber Artists decided to take off the last three months prior to our upcoming meeting on January 30, 2016, we decided to give ourselves some challenges.  First all those who participated in the Ugly Fabric Exchange in July 2015, were challenged to create something out of that fabric.  Jerry Lynne Domingue was the first to finish a work (Fig. 1).  My UFE work is still a work in progress (Fig. 2-3).  We also were to create a work using one of our quick monthly design challenges for 2015.  I focused on two of my Zentangle exercise drawings printing them off onto cotton fabric.  I used Watercolor Inktense Pencils and Tsukineko Ink Pens to color background and/or Zen design (Fig. 4-5).  I thread painted the Fish design for practice (Fig. 5).

Jerry Lynne Domingue                                  Fig. 1

Ugly Fabric Exchange Challenge  WIP        Fig. 2

UGEChallenge-WIPCropped                         Fig. 3

MiaZia                                            Fig. 4

Threadpainted Zen Fish                                 Fig. 5