Sherri Lipman McCauley on the The Quilt Show, Episode #3204

 I am excited to say the airing of my show #3204 on The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson is now live. To view it online for free, sign up for a free 7-day trial at: https://thequiltshow.com/membership/trial/sign-up

To check out the trailer for my episode, go to this link:  https://thequiltshow.com/blog/trailers/trailer-3204-extending-designs-and-large-scale-gestural-painting-with-sherri-lipman-mccauley-nancy-and-kareys-special-quilts

It was so much fun working on the set with Alex and her wonderful crew. Here are a few photos from the filming-

Camera setting up on set

 

Crew getting organized

Justin about to introduce show

Alex and Sherri at the show beginning

Sherri prepping for filming-note The Quilt Show logo in the background

Sherri sharing technique with Alex

Showcasing the work of Alex

And…………it is a wrap!

Gifts from the Boneyard Show by Barbara James

 Hunting Island is a 5000-acre semi-tropical barrier island off the southern tip of South Carolina. The unique beauty of the landscape has seen its share of violent weather and coastal erosion. High tides breach the dense shoreline. The result being that fifteen feet of forest is lost each year. 

This drama can be best seen on a small stretch of beach on the south side of the island called THE BONEYARD. I have witnessed the making of the boneyard since we moved to the area 15 years ago and in the last year and a half have been documenting its tragedy and beauty in my work. 

In March I will be the featured artist in a show highlighting the Boneyard. The exhibit will take place all of March at the Port Royal Sound Maritime Center, 310 Okatie Highway in Okatie, SC. If you are staying on Hilton Head during this time, seeing the show will give you your fiber fix. Here are some images of my fiber and mixed media work from the show.

For more images of my work please see my website at www.barbarajamesart.com

12 Cycles Has its First Show

12 Cycles shows the breadth and depth of a complex collaboration between 12 fine artists over the course of 18 months and thousands of miles. The process of organizing, responding, creating, mailing, receiving, stretching, and finally, assembling speaks to the cyclical nature of collaboration and artistic development over time. 

Westies is a subgroup of the Art Cloth Network and we predominantly live in the western part of the United States and Canada. We are a group of 12 female fiber artists that was formed during the pandemic with communication through Zoom.

To get to know one another better and have a greater creative outlet, we began the 12 Cycles challenge in January of 2021—a SUPER Round Robin.

The Westies version of this project:

• There are 12 fiber/fibre artists in the Cycles group.
• Each artist produced a 12” square piece with an extra inch around for the final assemblage. 
• Each piece used materials and techniques of her choice.
• Each piece also needed to be lightweight and travel well.
• Each artist had 6 weeks to conceptualize, create, and ship their piece to the next artist.
• Every 6 weeks each member received a box with a growing collection of squares to add their work to the Cycle. Pizza boxes were a popular choice for shipping because of their size.
• At the end of the project, each artist received the final 12 pieces—the first piece that was created by them in Round 1, plus 11 pieces inspired by their original.
  

After the completion of the project we chose a number of ways to promote the work. We've produced a print catalog, organized a show, and published a website. To read more about our project, see all 144 pieces of fiber art, and to order the catalog please go to our website at https://12-cycles.art/

Show information: 12 Cycles, a non-juried show by a subgroup of the Art Cloth Network, will be exhibited in the Eddie Rhodes Gallery at Contra Costa College, San Pablo, California, January 30–March 4, 2023. The opening celebration happens on Saturday, February 4, from 2-5pm at the gallery.  

Additional exhibition venues are being planned. Please contact us through the website if you are interested in showing the work.

 

 

Create Naturally:  Go Outside and Rediscover Nature with 15 Artists

This blog post will tell a bit about how an interview and my work became part of the recently published book Create Naturally: Go Outside and Rediscover Nature with 15 Artists. It includes interviews and work by a variety of artists including, Alice Fox,  Meredith Woolnough, Kaffe Fassett,  Judith Content and others. The book is available through Schiffer, on Amazon and in bookstores.

Three years ago I created a series Observations: Walking in Wonder that consisted of hand stitched interpretations of the 37 conservation areas in Mchenry County IL. It was exhibited as part of the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the conservation district. After the exhibit was over, I wrote to several galleries, organizations and magazines looking for opportunities to continue to show the series.  One of the people I wrote to was Marcia Young who at the time was the Editor in Chief of Fiber Art Now magazine. I heard back that she would like to include my work in a new book she was planning that would feature 12-15 artists in depth and explore their work based on nature. I, of course, said I would love to be included. 

A few months later during the height of Covid we did a lengthy phone interview in which she asked me many questions about the development of my work and what influenced me.  We did a subsequent interview a couple of months later.  Based on the interviews Marcia then asked for imagery and specifics about the artwork.

A few months after that she sent me a first draft of my interview to review as to specifics, tone and her interpretation of what I had told her. And a few months after that I got to review the second draft.

After that there was a long period in which the book was in production and then in the fall of 2022 I was contacted again about possible reviewers, possible organizations to send copies to, and specific people I would like to have get information about the book.

And then, at last, I received a copy of the book in the mail! I am happy with the results; with the way the process went and about being included with a number of artists whose work I greatly admire.

One of the learnings from this experience was how far afield your original proposal and exhibit can take you.  When I sent out the information about Observations: Walking in Wonder I did not know how far afield and in how many ways it would lead to other opportunities.  This book, a solo exhibit opportunity this coming year, a catalog, a commission and contacts with galleries for potential exhibits like our upcoming Unfolding show at Bloomingdale Art Museum!

A few images from Emergence

 This is Deborah Weir's solo show up through January 2023 at the JCC Long Beach, CA atrium gallery.  Open 7 days/week from 6 am to 6 pm.   Swing by if you are in the neighborhood!

End of year catch up by Deborah Weir

  

Just posting some various artwork done in the last 2 months.   I'm prepping for my solo show at the Alpert JCC in Long Beach, CA, but I've completed the following pieces as well.

BOUND GEOMETRY - SQUARE

DUNNEWOLD SPACKLE WORKSHOP:

HELD HARMLESS #16 AND #17

12-CYCLES (MY COLLECTION):

Meditation on Friendship by Barbara James

A close friend of 60+ years recently commissioned me to make a piece of art for her contemporary home. Her home’s bright primary colors, accented with lots of black, is not a palate I work in, so I was challenged. I made the work pictured here as a meditation on our friendship. I wove 82 hand-dyed and printed silk and cotton strips and added yellow “diamonds” to the piece to express our treasured relationship. Finally, I overlaid the piece with a black and metallic silver netting, an expression of the difficult and happy times we shared. The finished work measures 26” X 56” and is pictured here with a detail. 

Click here for Barbara's website

Evolution of a Sculpture by Joan Diamond

 Working with a photographer can be a frustrating experience for me.  I've put all the effort and momentum into the actual making, and more thinking is required when dealing with a photographer, at least, when it comes to photographing a sculpture.  The photographer understands better than I what the camera sees, or can translate.  This is the surprising story of a piece I had photographed ... (gulp) ... three times.

I had worked for months on the dyeing techniques of this piece, called "Before".  Sidestepping logistics with mounting shaped this piece. An innocent comment early on began a cascade of rethinking.  "No gallery will put 12 holes in their walls to mount a piece from one artist" I was told.  I already had a carpenter cut wooden blocks, each with carved out spots for powerful magnets.  I had completed 3 of the "pods" with appropriately sewn in magnets to mount as initially conceived when the comment came.  Ouch.  So, no more individual wall mounted pods. Well the benefit of being liberated from the wall-as-anchor was that now the "pods" inherited a "back". They were re-designed to be in space.  "Not all galleries can offer a ceiling mount."  Oh dear.  I worked on different solutions, finally arriving at using an oval panel bolted to 2 wall mounted brackets (and from which the pods hang). 

 Oh no!  Wind chimes.  My pods look like wind chimes.  You would never know each of these are about 4 foot in length.  Worse, in a photo taken with the "visual anchor" of a "rug", the pods hung equidistant from rug and from oval, exaggerating a wind-chime effect.  Ugh.  Another photoshoot (gulp-another photo payment equal to the first) was needed.

So here is the visual anchor, the "rug".  The gray background seems so much nicer than the white:  makes the gold rims glow.  And pods are hanging lower to the "rug", relating to it better.  However, something feels wrong though.  It's all so ... constrained.  

I dragged my poor art critique group through weeks (and weeks) of torture contemplating the making of the oval, done by weaving strips of rust and tea stained fabric through perforations, and the "rug"  with hours and hours of work in its construction and thoughts about its color.  Now, both these supposed assets were not helping.  The pods seemed desperate for air.  

It took me several months to get comfortable with again spending another big chunk of change to photograph the same piece.  A third time?  Is this rational? (gulp) I tried someone new.  This time ahead of the shoot I sent him the artist statement and a couple of photos from Pinterest of other installation work so he could understand more the kind of space I was looking for.  Happy to say: the saga is over.  I think I can put this one to rest now.  Done.  Sigh of relief!!

Mindful Mapping by Mary Ann Nailos

 

Mindful Mapping was my submission to the ACN exhibition Unfolding. It was inspired by two workshops presented by Textileartist.org by Gwenn Hedley and Ali Ferguson. 

The process begins by making marks on a number of fabrics using a limited palette of black and one other color. I chose chartreuse because it is one of my favorite colors. I used all sorts of things to make the marks: foam brushes, the edges of a credit card, plastic straws, as well as paint drips and splatters.

Then I ripped the fabric up into smaller pieces and pinned them together, adding a few solid fabrics that I dyed. When I got the composition, I wanted I began to stitch everything together using a running stitch.

I added some trim and pops of color to represent different ideas that might pop into one’s head. Then I tied the pieces to each other using lots of different hand-stitching. The stitches repeat, define, interweave like thoughts in a mind map.

 The final cloth was fused to felt and some stitch in the ditch machine quilting was added mainly to hold everything to the felt.