more non-traditional surface design stuff

Of course, after posting the last list, more things come to mind. Maybe if I made a list before beginning to type it would be easier. As it is, I'm just winging it with whatever comes to mind after I start writing.

• Political signs - Those corrugated political signs make great work surfaces. They're sturdy, a good size to work with, free, and have a plastic surface that makes them reusable many times. You just have to remember to collect some after an election.
• Fingernail polish remover - Does good copier transfers and bleeds Sharpies to either remove the marks altogether or make them sort of watercolor-y looking.
• Alcohol - Plain rubbing alcohol also bleeds and blends Sharpies for a sort of tie-dye effect.
• Aloe Vera gel - Thickens inks and thins acrylics. This usually needs to be washed out after drying.
• Instant grits, mashed potato flakes and oatmeal - Mixed thick, spread on fabric and dried, these make good crackle textures for surface design.
• Vinegar - Wet fabric with vinegar, wrap around rusty items, cover with black plastic and you get rust stained fabric. Also removes odors if fabrics are washed in it.
• Bleach, bleach pens, Soft Scrub or Sunlight gel with bleach - Used to discharge fabrics. Each one works with different fabrics, but the experimenting is part of the fun! Always remember to neutralize the chlorine with Anti-Chlor or a similar product afterwards. Any fish tank chlorine remover (available at the grocery or dollar store) works to neutralize the fabric.
• Tea bags - The most common use is probably for tea-staining but you can also use wet tea bags or strong tea when rust staining to get a grey/black with the orange. Loose tea can kill some odors in fabrics too. Place the tea in a closed container with the fabric for a few days.
• Spaghetti, string, yarn, wire - Cooked spaghetti arranged on one of the aforementioned political signs (weigh it down so it dries perfectly flat) or string/yarn saturated with thinned Elmer's or thick wire make good rubbing plates, as does dimensional fabric paint just by making your shapes on the surface and letting them dry. They can all be mounted on a piece of cardboard or wood block to make stamps with.
• Bar soap - Slivers of left-over soap can be used for markings on fabric that will be washed. A bar of Irish Spring (get them free at the St Paddy's parade in New Orleans!) in a closed container will kill odors on fabric. Ivory soap can be used to spot clean delicate textiles.

This is not a comprehensive list by any means, and I'll continue to add things as I think of them. Again, please feel free to add any others you think of in the comments.

more class stuff

Elvis is in the house! This is the background (last one in the previous post) after I've "done stuff" to it. Painted (brush, roller and spray) stenciled, stamped, and paint penned. The entire lyrics for "In the Ghetto" were written on the first layer, then the piece was stenciled and stamped and some other stuff, then I printed off the small Elvii on an old sewing pattern and added those. Echo quilting around the crowns and the word "Elvis" in the middle. I'll add more gold glitter fabric paint tomorrow after I get it trimmed and bound. Simple diagonal grid quilting for the rest of it.

This is the second to last background shown in the previous post that I have stenciled, stamped, yadda, yadda, yadda, and added a gel transfer of a photo of Pinetop Perkins.

Trunk Show - literally!

We had our Spring gathering for the MQA this past weekend (it went beautifully!) and after it was all over JJ Foley asked to see some of my work since I had neglected to bring anything for show and tell. JJ was our speaker Saturday morning and those of you who are unfamiliar with her work are really missing out on some beautiful stuff! http://drawnink.blogspot.com/ She brought "9 Pages" with her and it's even better up close than it is in photos. Isn't that always the case though? At any rate, after the gathering was over we walked out to my car so she could see some of my own work. We literally had a "trunk show" on the trunk of my car! Or maybe that would be a "trunk turning" perhaps?

Marilyn Dedeaux did a great presentation on her self-portrait quilts she's been doing since taking a Yvonne Porcella class and it was all I could do not to make her an offer on the blue and orange one! Shelley Taylor did a presentation on her memory/signature quilts and I noticed several people who have family weddings coming up gathered around her asking questions after her talk. She may turn into our resident signature quilt expert!

All in all, a great weekend. Good to see the people from around the state that I only see at the gatherings, lots of catching up and shopping and chatting. Very relaxed and no big crises cropped up so I call it a success!



And in other news, as of the first load this morning, I'll be moving into shared studio space at the craft center http://www.mscrafts.org/facility.html to be up and working in the studio by Feb 21. I'm excited and nervous. Excited at the opportunity offered, but nervous that I'll hit a complete mental block about what to do once I get there. I love talking about my work and explaining how I do what I do, and I have no problem with people watching me work, I'm just worried about every design idea I've ever had flying out of my head with no new ones to take their place. I'm also excited at the idea of a real studio with things where they're supposed to be and enforced work time with no phones ringing or people needing something. I can just sit down and concentrate on what I'm doing without the distractions. I'm really looking forward to that aspect of it. Maybe I'll get my crap quota out of the way faster!



That's JJ Foley on the left and her daughter's mother-in-law in the middle. My mind is drawing a total blank on her name and the name of the other woman.

This photo was snapped by Myra Hester, and I should be flogged for neglecting to attribute it to her when I published it!

Quilt Tsushin magazine

The issue of Quilt Tsushin that we're featured in has finally arrived! Well, not arrived at MY house, but everyone else seems to have received their copy. I took pictures of "my" pages yesterday when I got to see Dorinda's copy. My fingers are crossed that mine will arrive shortly. We can't wait to find out what the article actually says either, but for now it's plenty exciting to just see photos of our work in an international magazine. I can't believe it's been so long since they were here doing the interview and photos either. Time flies and all that. It's a huge honor to be included in the same issue as Gwen Magee and I'm still sort of in a fog about that. Maybe after I have my own copy in my hot little hands it will seem more real to me. The colors are way off on a couple of the quilts, but I don't even care!!!

When I get my copy, I'll be able to scan the pages instead of photograph them so the pictures won't have the flash reflection.

Finally!

Some actual fabric-related content. Two finished tops that have to be quilted, but at least the tops are done. No idea what possessed me to make these, since I don't usually do fussy, pieced, precise measurement quilts, but they are what they are.

The one with the red is about 45x45 and uses a variety of commercial prints and a square of an African print on a background of Osnaburg. I'm thinking they'll both have very heavy quilting in a matching color and straight lines. Of course, that may change once I start quilting them, but for right now that's my intention. Lots of straight lines and angles for the quilting. You probably can't see it, but the WIDE borders are mitered at the corners, so at least the borders will probably be channel quilted in squares around the outside.

The one with the shiny insets is the Osnaburg again, with a beautiful gold/black block printed ribbon. Each piece of ribbon is surrounded by small black piping, and the small stripes on the left are more piping. The heavier vertical line is an even thicker piping. Top and left edges will have Osnaburg binding, bottom and right edges will have black binding. This one looks MUCH better in person than it does in the picture. It is about 36x45.

Another post!

Can y'all believe it? Two posts in three days! I've been having fun with the fabric painting stuff that (hopefully) will eventually become whole-cloth pieces. Or maybe I'll just keep painting fabric and then have a stack of painted fabric and no quilts. I'm sort of stuck on the graphic stuff right now, but I can feel the Jackson Pollack coming soon. I like the geometrics but I have to restrain myself from getting more and more non-geometric as I'm working on them. When I get to the point that I want to just do it freehand, I stop and call it finished. It's a bit hard to force myself to keep it graphic looking, but I think it's good practice to work on pure abstracts. Line and shape and color are much more important. Maybe another 1 or 2 of these, then it's off to the freeform abstracts. I'm looking forward to the comparison between the 2 styles when I get enough to compare.

I added a little more red to the first one, and did the second one this morning. I like the second one much better.

"Don't feel bad" I tell myself

Nobody else is updating their blog with any frequency either. But I do have pics today! My youngest daughter on the cover of a local magazine and a whole cloth piece that I just HAD to do. It's been rattling around in my head for a a couple of weeks and I finally just bit the bullet and did it. I like the process so well I'll probably do some more of them. No idea where the abstract, graphic sort of feel to it came from but I see great possibilities for different designs. I had originally intended to use some text on these, until the subject came up on the QuiltArt list and then it sort of felt like I'd be jumping on the bandwagon with it, so that idea may have to wait, although the lyrics and words I want to use are still there and still an option. White PFD fabric with acrylic and rust staining. Stamps, stencils, templates and masking tape shapes. The rust stained stripes are from the piano sound board in my front yard. Most people have garden decorations. I have a 400 lb chunk of a piano. I also rust stained stripes on a white linen dress with it the other day. Totally cool, and the dress only cost a quarter at the Salvation Army.


The cover shot is for a new magazine called Metro Teen and it's published by the same people who did the other magazine she was on the cover of. There are several pictures of her throughout the magazine too and they all look great! I might be biased.

We're gonna give it a shot

Me and my big ideas! We're getting an on-line art quilt crit group together. So far, we have 7 people participating, and once the fog clears from my brain I'll be putting together the "official" guidelines and rules. Right now, I'm just sending out links to existing crit forms and info so everyone will have an idea of the direction we're trying to go. I'm actually sort of looking forward to it too. I've discovered that I can learn as much about my own work by analyzing other people's as I do by analyzing my own. It's almost easier to define and verbalize the elements of someone else's quilt. Maybe I just "know" in my head how I want to do something without having to put much more thought into it than "it looks better at the bottom than it does at the side" when I'm working on my own stuff. Looking at someone else's, I have to decide specifically WHY it looks better at the bottom and be able to put that into words.

Concentrating on the art aspect can only help and it's never a bad thing to be able to get some insight into how others perceive your strengths and weaknesses in design, color, etc.

WOOOOOOO freakin' HOOOOOOOOO

Got this in email this morning! Any of you who will be in New Orleans for Satchmofest are invited to drop by and see it. I am SO excited about this!
Talk about doing a happy dance, I'm dancing so hard I think I pulled something.

Good morning Rhonda,
Congratulation, we are delighted to have “PRIMARILY JAZZ” as part of the Sixth Annual Satchmo juried art Show. Please plan on delivering it on July 24/25/26 (10am to 4pm) at French Quarter Festival office@ 400 North Peters St in the French Quarter. (522-5730 or 957-3540). If you need directions let us know. Call or e-mail your time choice or if you need other arrangements. Joann

flotsam and jetsam

My blog is listed on the new Quiltinggallery.com website and it has generated a bajillion hits. No complaints from this end about it since it will most likely motivate me to post more regularly. I occasionally ("occasionally"....hahahahaha....I crack myself up) need a little structure to keep the procrastination at bay. Maybe that's why I work so well under deadlines. Anyway, check out the website. You can search for quilting blogs by state or country to find like-minded souls in your area, or other areas if you're traveling. I've also run across some fun blogs just mucking around with no real purpose.

"Primarily Jazz", the Louis Armstrong piece, is finished and pics were submitted last Friday for the show. No official word from the review committee yet on acceptance, but I did get an email from the owner of the gallery and she liked it. I felt like Sally Field. Even if he doesn't get in, I'm happy to have a piece that I really like and the fact that the gallery owner likes it too will soften the blow if it's declined for exhibit. I was especially happy with the use of the hand-painted fabric and the thread painting for his face.

This is a piece of fabric painted last year at Art Colony in Sonji Hunt's class. I can't believe how many yards of painted fabric I ended up with and how often I use it. I've even gone back and added more painting to some that were OK to begin with but just needed that something extra. I've also taken what I learned that week and started from scratch painting pieces for specific purposes. And of course, I've screwed around just to see what I came up with with no real destination in mind. I think of Thelma Smith every time I pull out the tubes of acrylics too.

I got started on a new piece yesterday using 'Liquid Gold' fabric. Damn, I love that stuff! Of course, right off the bat I screwed up my fusing and had to cut it all apart and fuse it to more WU. It'll be fine though, since I'd fused it to black and I just cut the shapes out. It'll never show when I fuse it back onto black and stitch it down. I'm in a quandary now for the next step although I know the shapes and design I want. Just not sure of the colors. Definitely a keyboard, a bass clef and a staff, but that's about as far as I've gotten. Strangely enough, it's the size that's throwing me off, not the actual design. I may need to re-think the black background too. Arrrggghhhhh.....I hate when I get an idea but it only comes to me half finished. Maybe my muse is on a coffee break!

And I have been sewing clothing! Yes, actual stuff to wear. It's been several years since I've sewn any wearables, and many more years since I've sewn anything for myself. I picked up 5 or 6 colors of linen last week and drafted a pattern for crop pants and tank tops. I'm having too much fun playing with my vast assortment of fancy variegated threads and the specialty stitches on my machine. The best art is, the first time I wore one out in public someone asked where I had gotten it. WOOT! And my penchant for creating a piece of jewelry at the last instant to go with my outfit is apparently intact. I made a necklace, practically on the way out the door, to go with the oatmeal colored set.

If I get a flash of genius on the new piece, I'll get pics posted later. It's a relatively simple design so it shouldn't take long to assemble once I get a clear picture of it in my head. It's just that whole 'clear picture' thing that's throwing me right now.

We are supposed to hear today about acceptance for the artist book exhibit at the Abecedarian Gallery in Denver. I don't have high hopes for that one getting in, considering the competition I'm up against, but it's an intensely personal piece that I just had to make, so it wasn't wasted effort.

Hellzapoppin!

"Overwhelmed" is the word for the day (week, month, whatever.) I'm off to Greenwood Monday morning for the Grand Opening of Hoover's Kitchen, and a presentation of my work to Sylvester Hoover, for exhibit and possible purchase of some. Sylvester owns and runs DeltaBluesLegendsTours.com and is interested in putting some of my stuff in their gallery. I'll also get to see Dr. Marvin Haire again, which I'm looking forward to. I got invited to exhibit at the Brick Street Fine Arts Festival in Clinton (I think I already posted about that) and got another invitation yesterday to exhibit at the Crossties Art and Jazz Festival in Cleveland, MS in May. Teaching at the new quilt shop, quiltartsonline.com and a couple of presentations for local guilds. A workshop in Oxford in Feb, MQA meeting in Natchez and hanging the quilts at ARTichoke. The reception will be Feb 21, from 6-8 pm. I have a break for most of March and then the editor of the Japanese Quilting magazine will be here on April 15 to interview me and Gwen Magee and Dorinda Evans on her whirlwind tour through the state. We each have a different aspect of quilting that she's interested in.

I'm feeling sort of schizophrenic with the current work I'm producing, but it's been a kind of serendipity how it's working out. The show at ARTichoke is specifically Blues music-themed stuff, but I have to sort of switch back and forth between other things too so I don't get burned out. My switches have just happened to be towards jazz and some New Orleans stuff, and then the Art and Jazz festival invitation came so it works out that I won't have every single thing that's finished all hanging in one place. I'm hoping to actually have enough finished that I have a choice of pieces to hang together. That whole "body of work" thing, donchaknow?

And totally off the subject, but on my mind, would those of you who show prefer being in an invitational show, or getting juried into a competition? Which one is more exciting to you?

better late than never!

I know it's been a while since I posted but life happens! Not only do I have the show coming up in February, but I've just received the paperwork for an invitational show (Brick Street Fine Arts Festival) in March. Maybe I'll have some stuff left over from the show at ARTichoke to use. Either that, or I'll be sewing madly to get MORE stuff made for Clinton. Or I can use some of the non-musical pieces I have already. It seems like things are breaking loose all at once and it's sort of scary! I'm booked all the way into August (at least one a month) for workshops and presentations and classes and demonstrations. If I keep going at this rate I might actually MAKE more than I SPEND with my art.

Now on to the pictures.......

This is "Coltrane" and it's done on a piece of hand-painted fabric I did during Sonji Hunt's class this summer. It's actually the back of the fabric and it already had the Wonder Under on it. If you iron it long enough and hot enough with a non-stick sheet, the WU eventually loses it's sticky without losing the cloudy effect that I liked about it. The image of John Coltrane is a (copyright-free) picture that I adjusted the color on to be sort of a reddish pink. Printed off on 4 pages, assembled and then coated with several layers of gel medium. Paper removed and the resultant image is sort of translucent. Again, I wound up using the backside of the transfer because of the effect. Very minimal quilting around the image. 16x21, hand painted muslin, gel medium transfer.

And "The Jazzman Cometh"

Another hand-painted background from Sonji's class, and a painted image from some original artwork by Stephen Avgerinos in Bloomington, IL. Used with permission of the artist. Once more, the backside of the fabric was used and very minimal quilting. 24x34, hand painted muslin, stenciled Jazzman and lamppost.

some new stuff, in no particular order

All of these but the first one with the outline of the guitar player are ready to be quilted. He should be ready, but the fabric I had for the border (which is now the background for the horn players) was NOT the same color it looked like in the store. I got it home, pulled it out to do the borders and BLECCCHHHHH. Not even close to what I wanted. I'm sure some black will show up somewhere on either that one or the horns before all is said and done, either as a border or as binding. A little glitch in my plans for this week and it doesn't look like I'll be getting much done at all, so I'm glad to have these this far along. Takes a little of the pressure off for getting enough work done.

Panic sets in

I'm almost scared to publish it, but it looks like I'm lined up for a show for the entire month of February at ARTichoke. (http://artichokecottage.blogspot.com/) Of course, I don't have nearly enough finished work for the space they have so graciously allowed me to use, but that will be remedied in the next few weeks. Things just popped over a 24-hour period and I don't even know where to start. HUGE thanks to Gerard for taking me by the hand and making me follow though on pitching to them. Huge thanks to Anne and Carmen for not making me "pitch" a damn thing, since they pretty much started nodding shortly after I walked in the door. If things work as planned, they'll be borrowing the "Bird" Parker piece that Isaac Byrd bought at the Tougaloo auction too. That dovetails nicely since he also owns the 930 Blues Club and it will make a nice tie-in with the musical theme.

I've had more support and encouragement this year than I can even give credit for, starting with Dorinda and the local quilt guilds, the new shop and the owners of it, Gwen Magee, Sonji Hunt, my sweet hub who never complains about living in a 4 br/2 bath storage closet, and everyone else who has looked at (and bought) my work.

I'm also very excited to have met and gotten a chance to spend some time visiting with Dr. Marvin Haire, Assoc. Dir of the Delta Research and Cultural Institute and Chairman of the Mississippi Blues Commission. I was SO intimidated to find out who he was and that he's an absolute expert on Robert Johnson, and there I stood with 2 of my RJ quilts hanging. Maybe I'm doing something right though, since he liked them. He liked my other stuff too, but it really meant something to me to know I had "captured" RJ well enough to pass muster with Dr. Haire. It was also a treat to be able to discuss music, pretty much uninterrupted, with Gerard Howard, the other artist who was there. The seminar participants sort of came and went, so we had a lot of down time to just visit. He has a vast knowledge of music and it was great to be able to pick his brain. He's also an incredible photographer, and I want to buy one copy of everything he had on display!

Christmas is looking very good this year!