Tips and tricks for finishing art quilts with a faced edge

I've just posted a new how-to video on faced edge finishing for art quilts in the resources section on my website. Check it out.

https://russlittlefiberartist.com/how-to/2022/7/28/how-to-finish-an-art-quilt-with-a-facing

Fond Memories of Good Company by Merill Comeau

A combination of recovering from an overwhelming schedule and living in the isolation of the pandemic has caused a shift in my impulse to make -- my conceptual underpinnings and the imagery I employ reflect my current sense of absence and presence.  Missing from my days is a consistent active engagement with others; present in my days is an increased awareness of my immediate environment.  The continuity in my practice is my love of working with repurposed fabrics, needles, and thread.  My interest in using traditional techniques in a new ways also endures.

In my ongoing project Fond Memories of Good Company textiles once used in my dining room and kitchen bearing the marks of food preparation and consumption are deconstructed then reconstructed into a patchwork ‘tablecloth’ which is then embroidered with outlines of tableware.  Infill stitches surround forks, spoons, and plates in a variety of styles evoke a possible record documenting the countless numbers of meals prepared and served.  

Hopefully, as we manage CoVid infections, we will return to shared meals with good company!                                                             Merill Comeau

In process: Fond Memories of Good Company by Merill Comeau

 Nick Cave Exhibit by Barbara Schneider

I recently had the opportunity to see the Nick Cave installations at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Nick cave exhibit MCA.

From the website: Chicagoan Nick Cave (American, b. 1959), an artist celebrated for projects that blend community building with vibrant works of art across disciplines, including immersive installations, textural sculptures, impeccably crafted fashion, and dynamic videos and performances. Highlights of the exhibition include never-before-seen works, including a continuation of the artist’s popular Soundsuits series with the premiere of Soundsuits 9:29 and a mesmerizing, site-specific installation, Spinner Forest, comprised of thousands of kinetic spinners that will hang in the museum’s two-story atrium and fourth-floor lobby.

Cave came to prominence as a visual artist almost twenty years ago with his dazzling, sculptural Soundsuits, and works in Chicago as an activist, educator, designer, and performer. Nick Cave: Forothermore gathers all of these aspects of Cave’s work into the artist’s largest museum survey to date. This immersive journey through Cave’s distinct bodies of work is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue designed with Cave’s partner, Bob Faust.

Nick Cave: Forothermore is an ode to those who, whether due to racism, homophobia, or other forms of bigotry, live their lives as the “other”—and a celebration of the way art, music, fashion, and performance can help us envision a more just future.

It was a fascinating look at many aspects of his textile/installation work. More is definitely more in his work. Several of the sound suits were on display and you can find a million interesting details in each one.

The entire surface of this piece is made of silvery buttons.

I was not as familiar with his work with found objects but they are quite lyrical and beautiful and then the more you look the more the underlying message comes through. (Sorry the photo is not as good as it could be)

 

This photo is taken looking out over the lobby where a million twisting, turning metal pieces are all moving at once.  When you look closely you see that the design is of guns. 

There are several video segments about Nick Cave on Art 21. (link here). They give you a sense of the artist and how he creates his work and what influences him. 

The exhibit at the MCA is there until October 20, 2022 just in case you get to Chicago and want to see it.  It was wonderful to get to an exhibit and be inspired anew.

Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Art by Lorraine Ross

 Summer Exhibition

The Royal Academy of Art, located in Piccadilly, in the heart of London, has championed art and artists for the past 250 years. It has been and remains to be a home of world class exhibits from around the world.

Since 1767, the Academy has hosted an annual summer exhibition, the world's largest open submission exhibitions. The Summer Exhibition represents what is happening in the art world right now. It features work created by well known artists to emerging artists, including "wannabe" artists like myself.

This year the theme was Climate. I began to think of all the devestating climate effects and changes that are being reported around the world. In Western Canada we have been plagued by forest fires which have been exceptionally destructive. Towns have been razed and mountain sides have been stripped of vegetation. The secondary effects are that areas directly hit by the fires have then been subjected to flooding and mudslides. The winds have carried smoke and toxic pollutants from constructions in an easterly direction, resulting in air pollution and health concerns.

When the call was posted, I had a canvas dropcloth on my table that showed me a smokey sky with clear patches. Perfect start! I bumped up the blues and added a base colour of orange and red at the bottom for the fires. The fire was completed with stacked sorbello stitch.

I received notification that my piece Forest Fire was accepted into the short round ( 4000 pieces) and I hand delivered it in May. In June I was notified that it was selected as a final piece for hanging (1500 pieces). 

I am still in shock and disbelief that I have a piece hanging in this exhibition and that it will be viewed by thousands of people.  It is such an honour and I am truly humbled by this opportunity. 

The Summer Exhibition can be viewed online.   se.royalacademy.org.uk.

Please check it out, there is much to see.

Lorraine Ross

Held Harmless

Held Harmless is a series of smallish pieces (18"-28") I developed during the Pandemic. Each started as a paper collage I photographed, tweaked in Photoshop, and had printed onto cotton.  Once I received them, I spent weeks hand stitching each one. The stitches are used to draw the eye towards certain areas, emphasize portions, connect, play with color and create continuity between elements.

These have been terrifying, infuriating and deeply saddening times.  The tiny movement of my fingers with the floss was a meditation which grounded me and fed me.   The pieces capture all of these emotions and more.

Here are #2, 6 and 7  (See more at https://www.DeborahWeir.net)

 

"Abstract 2022"

 

1)      Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sebastopol, CA, Abstract 2022, June 18-July 24, 2022

“Abstract 2022” is an international call from the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in Sebastopol, CA.  The juror chose 66 pieces from a 310 entries. 

 

My piece, “Rebirth”, was inspired by a 2019 trip to a Roman ruin outside of Seville, Spain called Italica.  I was fascinated to see reconstruction work alongside the centuries-old broken tile shards.  In 2022, this piece makes me think of images we are seeing of war destruction in Ukraine.  The footprint of buildings is laid bare, with their shattered floors and walls beside them, shattered lives.  Concurrent reconstruction is happening in the face of war.  This is the first of many stages of ending and rebirth.

I Take A Fractal Journey by Mary Tyler

A fascination with color and pattern has always been at the center of my work as a fiber artist.Through the stages of growth from weaver, to hot wax batik methods, constructing Artist’s books, making kaleidoscope patterned quilts to my current focus on altered fractal images, the continuous theme has been color and pattern.

Fractals are found everywhere in nature, fern fronds, lightning strikes, the coastline of England. Fractals are geometric formulae that are used to define and measure repeating but irregular shapes. In other words, fractured geometry. I select fractal images from a computer program, render them into a useable form, then alter them using an imaging program. Then the finished image is sent to a digital printing company that returns it to me as printed cloth. I topstitch it and finish the piece. Even though each image starts off as a mathematical formula, it ends up as a personal statement about the world. Color and pattern are still the center of my work.

Fractal 1:

Bird 1:

Fractal 2:

Untitled:

Fractal 3:

Growth:

Mary Tyler

June, 2022

Click here to see finished work

"Fiber Arts, Expressive and Innovative" by Ileana Soto

The O'Hanlon Art Center is a little-known but special art center nestled in the hills of Mill Valley, California.  Monthly exhibits are juried by Bay Area art professionals.  "Fiber Arts, Expressive and Innovative," was juried by Carole Beadle, textile artist and professor, known for encouraging three-dimensional works by her students.  I studied with her for two semesters at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of Art) in 1985.  She currently teaches at the College of Marin.  

I was honored to be juried into this exhibit, showing March 24-April 21, 2022.  I include a photo of my piece, "Chancay II", plus two details, based on my Peruvian heritage and the textiles of the Pre-Incan Chancay Culture, 1000-1470 AD.  This culture specialized in knowing the "essence" of a thing through sophisticated threadwork patterns called "gauzes."  When pulled taut, their patterns can be seen; when released, the patterns are hidden to the ordinary person. On the wall perpendicular to Chancay II are two felted pieces by Martha Wold Cornwall, "Elsa's Journey" and 'Fire Season".  

Ileana Soto 

Click here for a link to Ileana's website

 

Away from Clay - When One Door Closes by Mary Ann Nailos

     In addition to ACN, I am part of another art group called Stretching Art. The group puts out a call for entry once a year. Last year’s theme was “When One Door Closes”. I was a potter for about 20 years and most of my pots were hand built, mostly constructed from slabs. I rented studio space in my friend Richard Hess’ studio. In 2013 he informed me that he was moving to Illinois, so I either had to find another place to do clay, or find a new artistic practice.

     Doing clay at my house was not an option. I decided to go back to my first love – textiles. I started taking classes in traditional quilt making, then surface design, that then lead me to Jane Dunnewold’s Art Cloth Mastery class. 

    There are similarities between slab built pots and quilt making. These pots were made with a template on a flat piece of clay. Quilters cut shapes out of fabric and make quilt blocks. Different firing techniques and glazes differentiate the pots. Quilters use different fabrics and Art Quilters use different surface designs to create their quilts.

I printed textures onto black and colored fabric using Thermofax screens that I designed. Then I cut the pieces from the colored fabrics using the Notan method, fusing them to black fabric. After that I added stamping from various stamps that I made.

This is the finished piece below that I named Away from Clay. As the door to pottery making closed, the door to Art Quilting opened.

 

Excellence in Quilts

 MURANO was just juried into Fiber Art Now's biannual exhibit: Excellence in Quilts.  I'm so pleased!!  I was inspired by a photo I took while in Murano, Venice, Italy, of a gorgeously rusted metal fence.  Irresistible!  The piece has a 3D surface to indicate the rusty, peeling paint.

The image will appear in the Fall edition of the journal and, I hope, tour a bit into 2023.