I had a lot of fun with this but only decided at the VERY LAST minute to even do a submission, so I'm amazed it was accepted. Her face is dupioni, the mask is velvet, pink lame' lips, some sort of green sequin stuff for the hat and of course, the challenge fabric for the headpiece. The large mums around her face are 3-D, first mounted to Peltex and quilted, then fussy cut and only stitched to the quilt in the centers of the flowers. The edges are finished/sealed with gold metallic paint. Lots and LOTS of free-motion thread painting on the wisteria, leaves and flowers. Most of it was done with metallic Sulky in a variety of colors. Some beading and sequins on the smaller flowers and across the top of the mask. I drew off a sort of Art Deco looking feather to use for the background quilting. Little puffs of some kind of weird gold metallic mesh, and finished off with the gold ribbons in 3 different widths. GSQA had their quarterly meeting in Lafayette yesterday and they introduced the new group of circuit teachers. I am one of them so I got to get up on stage and talk to a captive audience. One of my favorite things to do! Everyone was very polite and acted like they didn't even mind me showing a huge stack of work and talking and talking. I'm really looking forward to seeing what opportunities come from this. One thing I noticed yesterday from the comments was sort of a surprise to me also. Because this is what I do, and I partly do it because it's SOOOO easy, and I'm used to doing it, it sort of took me by surprise at the complete lack of knowledge of the techniques and supplies I use. Of course, I'm basing that observation on the questions I got after the program, and obviously, the people who are already familiar with the process wouldn't be asking questions. Still, the number and type of questions struck me. Maybe that will translate into some classes! One can hope....
These are a couple of the pieces I showed.
Painted, stitched, stamped, resisted, etc.
Painted, stitched, stamped, resisted, etc.
One fat, and one skinny envelope from MAC (MS Arts Commission) last week from my grant applications. I was accepted again for the Master/Apprentice program, and will begin working with my new apprentice Gwen next month. I am really looking forward to working with her. She has her traditional skills well in hand and is a very open-minded and enthusiastic explorer of quilting. Can't wait to see what she comes up with to work on! A little background on how it works: We start off by designing a quilt, go from there to choosing our fabrics (Yay! Fabric shopping!) then the construction, quilting and finishing. So we basically go from a piece of graph paper to a finished quilt in 2-3 months. Marie Yonko (last year's apprentice) and I have pieces hanging at the MAC office in the Sillers Building until the end of Aug if anyone has a reason to go by there.
Marie Hull Gallery in Raymond contacted me a couple of months ago about doing a show down there in Mar 2012. My mind is racing with all the work I have to do between now and then, and coming up with enough interesting stuff in the same style, but I'm very happy to have that kind of worrying to do. And I always laugh when they start the conversation by saying "Would you be interested..." like they expect you to say anything but "YES! YES! A thousand times YES!"
Leslie Silver, over at the Attic Gallery in Vicksburg, has asked me to do a piece for their 40th anniversary invitational show. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to be asked to do this, although I won't even be able to make the opening reception! She is assigning each artist a specific number as their inspiration, and the rest of it is up to us. The best part about it to me is that as soon as she explained the concept, I had instant inspiration for what I wanted to do. Every other time that's ever happened, I wound up with a piece that I was extremely happy with. No reason to think this time will be any different.
