Sorry for the long time between posts, I have been in the studio experimenting and playing.  As often happens with artists, and I am certainly no exception, is a periodic need to re-evaluate and re-examine what we do and how we do it.  I go through this every year, a need to update, revisit and think about what to focus on and what to let go of.  So here is where I am right now:

One of the things that has frustrated me for a long time is quilting.  I have been feeling like the functional quilting needed to secure certain areas of a piece that don’t need it aesthetically was a problem.  The arm in this detail from a piece that I can’t share yet (due to possible publication) is an example.  This area did not need stitching from a design perspective, but did need it in order to prevent puckering since it measures about eight inches across.

This was one of several reasons I began in the last several months to work smaller.  In a smaller piece, each individual element does not need to have functional stitching to protect it, allowing me to stitch only where I feel it suits the design and overall composition.  Another reason was that I wanted to move through my ideas more quickly, finding myself getting tired of a piece that takes weeks to complete.  And finally, smaller pieces carry with them smaller prices, which I hoped might increase sales of my work.

The other problem I am always trying to correct is the edge finish.  Lately I have been mounting my finished smaller pieces onto canvas and using canvas stretchers for a nice clean art-like edge.  I do like this better than bindings or pillowcase backs.

Finally, I am starting to experiment with less color, in part because of the trends I am currently seeing, but also because I feel like I sort of need a break from color for a bit.  This is the piece I finished last week.

I like the cutting off at the edges, it makes the movement feel more immediate.  I also like the colorlessness of this piece, especially the man in the white coat who I wouldn’t have placed on a background so close in value before.  But I like this piece.  This one is not stretched, I am experimenting with folding the edges back for a clean finish.  (The gray is not part of the piece, it was photographed on a gray background so the edges would show.)  The entire piece measures 12″ x 12″.

I have decided to donate this one to the SAQA auction.  If you are interested in purchasing this piece, or one of the many other beautiful pieces donated by SAQA member artists, check out the page on the SAQA site at SAQA auction where you will also find information about how the auction works and the dates.

This piece won’t be posted until it arrives, but keep watching the site to see it and more new pieces by other artists posted every day.

I have been thinking a lot lately about shoes and chairs.  Not shoes, and chairs.  Shoes and chairs, and how they present similar design problems and how they have common solutions.  What do shoes and chairs have in common?  They both need to be practical, ergonomic and must be able to perform an important and unique function while looking stylish and changing with the times.  And they both make use of new technology and new materials.

First, the chair.

Van Gogh painted this very humble, very common chair.  What do we notice about it–four legs to distribute the weight, a back to support the user, and wood–a material that is strong and easy to work with.  The rush seat allows for comfort and a bit of give under the sitter.  Form follows function.

Throughout history this basic functional piece of furniture saw lots of stylistic changes, but the basic design remained the same–four legs, made of wood, a back and some soft comfort.

And yet, this very common everyday useful piece of furniture is something we don’t make much note of in our daily lives.

Enter the Bauhaus designers and their new materials in the early 20th century.  We don’t think it is radical now, but they were the first designers to come up with a chair that did not rely on four legs for support.  Mies Van Der Rohe came up with this design for a tubular steel frame chair that did not have four legs, but still functioned as a chair.

Radically different in it’s time, we don’t even look twice at it now.  To us, it is still just a chair.

Move forward into the 20th century, and ever new materials allowed designers to introduce even more radical departures from the basic humble chair of Van Gogh’s painting…

Mid-century plastics allowed for the Panton chair with it’s single base of support and seemingly unbalanced silhouette.  It was followed by chairs balanced from a single point;

to chairs balanced on a single leg;

Asymmetrical chairs;

Unexpected designs and materials like this cardboard chair;

Some need to stack, some have more support, some more comfy, but the chair we take so for granted is not so easy to redesign and bring a new look and a new approach.  Not unlike, here it comes, the woman’s shoe.

Here I could show thousands of pictures and not even scratch the surface, but here is the basic plot:

In early Roman times (and probably even before that) a shoe was a simple functional sandal like this one

Made of leather, easy to work with and durable, the shoe has to perform certain tasks–like protecting the wearer from stepping on sharp objects.  Like the chair, the shoe quickly became a functional product that attracted design derivations and lead to a broad and interesting assortment of different styles and materials.

These colonial era shoes are clearly meant as much for beauty as they are to protect the feet of the person who wears them;

The boot, meant to provide not just protection for the bottom of the feet, runs the gamut from purely functional to purely fashionable and enjoys it’s own history and evolution;

Unlike the chair, the shoe must fit different users who are not all the same size.    We take this for granted, that any shoe will fit a foot, (although any woman who has ever gone shoe shopping knows some fit better than others) and that the shoe will always serve a function and look updated whenever we go in search of them.

Some shoes are highly engineered to fit the foot for particular functions, like the wide array of sports shoes available to us today

Modern sports shoes require modern materials and modern technology to do their jobs.

So like the humble chair, the humble (and not so humble) shoe must span the same design dilemma–perform a function, be practical and durable, and please the ever changing appetite of the consuming public for newer and more interesting design solutions.

Whether flat or high, the shoe is so like the chair.  Just try to reinvent either one, come up with a new and groundbreaking design, and you will start to appreciate those who do.

So before you plop down into that chair to rest the feet that are so tired from wearing those shoes all day, think about the designs of both and how they must merge form, function and style all at the same time.

I was reading something interesting by an artist who lives in the southwest and who said she is highly influenced by the colors around her.  She went on to say that she suspected she would not make the art she does if she lived somewhere else.  Her artwork is not what one would think of as “southwestern”, but makes use of a strong saturated color palette.

It is not at all surprising that where one lives could influence color choices.  The most notable color in the southwest is the sky–a rich saturated blue that I never see here in NY.  I can imagine if an artist were to see that blue every day it would have to creep into their artwork.  If you live in an area where the sky is gray most of the time, maybe that influences your color choices as well.

The themes we depict must also be subconsciously influenced by where we live–are those who live in an area that is urban are more likely to be making art with buildings and people?  If you live in a sparsely populated area of the country, do you tend more towards nature scenes and landscapes?  How much of our art is determined by our location on the planet–or for that matter, in this day and age when people often move away from the place they grew up, perhaps where we are located is influenced by our own needs and desires, which in turn influences our art.

I can remember way back when I was younger (a long time ago) there was some test floating around that people were taking to determine what personality type you are.  I don’t know why, but there was one question that has stayed with me for (I won’t tell you how many) years.  The question was this (and I am paraphrasing since it has been a long time):  would you rather live in a crowded tenement or a deserted island?   I can remember being troubled by the question, by the black and white of the choices.  I would prefer the beauty of nature to the rats and dirty conditions of a tenement (I seem to remember the question being a rat-infested tenement and a tropical island but that could be my interpretation of the question I am remembering), but I could not live without other people.  Not that I don’t like being alone–doing what I do–my art and my writing–I am alone most of the time.  But cut off from other people is a whole other thing.

So this question really upset me as a teen, and still hangs with me.  In the end I decided I would reluctantly have to choose the tenement only because an isolated life for me would not work.  Is it a coincidence that all my artwork is focused on people?  Maybe not.

I could have lived anywhere, in fact I have lived in several different countries since coming of age.  It is not an accident that I live just outside a major city (and would live in the city if prices weren’t so darn high).  It is not a coincidence that my husband and I take vacations to cities, not to beaches or golf courses.

So do I live where I do because of this need for other people, or do I have this need for other people (and use them as the theme of my artwork) because of where I live?  Who we are cannot be separated from all the decisions we make in our lives, or the artwork we create.

Food for thought.

I am loving all the wonderful and insightful comments that have resulted from the last two blog posts, and I encourage you, if you are a reader of this blog, to go through them all.  These, and a current thread on the SAQA group in the past few days that started with a review of Martha Sielman’s new book “The Natural World” but turned into a what seemed like a slam on the artists in the book, coupled with something I saw on TV the other day have got me thinking–again.  One thing at a time:

The TV show, which I discovered by accident and am sorry to have missed some of the series is called Genius of Design on the Smithsonian channel.  The particular episode that relates to all this was called Ghost in the Machine and talked about design in the industrial age.  The most interesting thing in the episode was the simple recognition that during the industrial revolution there was a parting of the ways between design and the making of something.  A critical point in the development of art today, especially for us whose traditions are not only that ugly “Q” word but who battle with the today’s argument about the divide between art and craft.  So that got me thinking back to my Art History days (I have my BA in Art History).

When we look at the history of art we see something interesting–that prior to the industrial revolution artists and artisans (or craftspeople) were pretty much all the same thing.  Even art that we revere today as being some of the great art in the history of mankind was commissioned by the church when most artists were considered skilled artisans.  A cooking pot, a woven textile, an embroidered coat, a sculpture or a painting all regarded in the same light, all creative but functional craft albeit done with care and attention to detail and design.

Isn’t it interesting, too that something like pottery, especially as seen in the history of Asian art–China and Japan most notably, was regarded as high art but now suffers much the same fate as art quilts–seen as craft trying to make it in the art world.

Enter the industrial revolution where objects that had once been made by hand for a discerning market were available to everyone because the prices now reflected their mass production.  Design became a separate function from the making of these objects, and since sculpture and painting had no utilitarian function anymore, their status and the status of those who made them changed forever.

So what does this have to do with the talk about cutting edge fiber work and the “Q” word?  Like those who produce baskets, rugs, pottery and woodwork, we who work with the vestiges of the quilt tradition are using a material and techniques that were once relegated to functional utilitarian purposes, regardless of how beautifully they were crafted.  And so we carry with us the old notions that what we do isn’t really art but craft, really doesn’t measure up to the “high art” of painting and sculpture.  If only we were cutting edge and used more modern technology maybe we might elevate ourselves and our art somehow.

And as artists, most of us sensitive and vulnerable and always seeking approval, we buy into this distorted notion that unless our art becomes more “art like” we are only producing lowly craft.  Poppycock.  What we do has as much value as anything made by touching paint to canvas, as anything cut from stone.  In every medium there is great and there is crap–with a whole big world in between.

The SAQA discussion, not to go into all the details, touched on the old question about what is art.  Really, a professional group of artists still arguing amongst themselves about whether what some of them do is art?  Aren’t we past that?  Couple that with the comment still ringing in my ears about cutting edge and technology and we (or I should say I) get that old feeling “why do I bother to do what I do?”

But I do it, in the end, NOT for the recognition (which as validation is very nice), not for approval (again, not knocking it) and not to please a juror or the art trend du jour.  I do it because I am driven to do it.  Ultimately I do it for myself, because I want to, because I need to.  Days that I do not get into the studio are days when I feel anxious and upended.  Days that I go in there for the whole day and work and listen to music and shut out the world and everything waiting for my attention are glorious.

Please continue to post your comments.  I have set up my system to wait for moderation, to avoid the hundreds of spam comments I get every week, so your post may not appear for a day.  But I will get to it, and I will post it (as long as it has nothing to do with monogrammed golf balls or school girls and animals…..!)

Thank you all for your comments.  The one I particularly want to address is this comment about one of the AQE jurors and his statement about more cutting edge work that makes use of new technology.

I wasn’t surprised by the juror’s comment about wishing he saw more “new technology” in the submissions to AQE. You’ll remember a very similar comment from a juror in the last QN. I was surprised that many SAQA members seemed to take his comment as an insistence that they should incorporate technology in their work. I think he was just encouraging us to consider it — or encouraging artists who do work with techy stuff to enter more “art quilt” shows.

Well, yes and no.  It is one thing to suggest or encourage, but the resistance from the audience came from a stronger statement that this was necessary and that work that “could have been produced 20 years ago” doesn’t cut it anymore.  (Does a simple pencil sketch by Picasso or a pen and ink drawing by Rembrandt no longer deserve to be exhibited because it is so low tech?  Really?)  What is wrong with using fabric and thread?  Why do we live in a world where we feel everything has to be so techy?  Actually, I was proud of the negative response in the room, it means we have developed more of a backbone and aren’t so willing to bow to pressure to change who we are and what we do.

I am not using this juror’s name, who needs a highly placed enemy in the art world?!  And I understand he comes from a different point of view, chosen most likely because of his non-quilt perspective and his aesthetic which, in his day job, involves lots of art that truly is out of the box.

What I find so interesting about the cutting edge comment is that there were several pieces in the AQE show (quite nice pieces) that could easily have been made “20 years ago” (which was repeated several times as if work from 20 years ago was a disgrace).  Perhaps that was the influence of the other two jurors who do come from the “Q” world and do understand the construction and the fabric aesthetic.  Overall, I did not find the show to be all that cutting edge–especially when compared to the work at fiberPhiladelphia.  That was cutting edge.  For better or worse (some pieces in that show were [in my opinion--and let's keep in mind blog posts are always someone's opinion] just plain stupid.  (I say stupid because the word I really want to use isn’t a nice word and I am probably being offensive enough!)

The fact is that many of us do work with new technology, whether it is immediately apparent or not.  Many art quilters (fiber artists, textile artists, whatever we call ourselves) make use of digital imagery in their work.  Others, like me, use the computer to create their working plan.  The “Q” world has become very multi-media over the past few years and makes use of lots of other materials and techniques that may not have even existed 20 years ago.  Ok, maybe we hold too tight to some of the bastions of quilt construction but I don’t remember anyone talking lately about how watercolor painters need to be more cutting edge.

As much as we strive to be accepted into the art world in general it is important not to be swallowed up by it.  I am reminded in this whole discussion of cultures that are conquered by others and assimilated to the point of non-existence.  Seems like a stretch, but stay with me for a minute.  When one culture conquers another, the weaker conquered culture starts to assimilate, to intermarry and to adopt the traditions and rituals of the conquering people.  Eventually, the conquered cease to exist at all, being absorbed by the culture of the stronger and more powerful group of people.

So we stand at the precipice in the art quilt movement.  Are we happy assimilating to the point where we become painters who work on fabric instead of canvas? (many are there already)  And what happens to our wonderful rich tradition of hand work, what was always called woman’s work (and which I embrace with both arms) that comes from the generations of quilters before us?  Is it our hope to become so assimilated that in a decade there is no longer a need for the term “art quilt” or for an organization like SAQA, who may have done it’s job so well that the population they serve no longer exists?  I hope not.

That comes under the category of “be careful what you wish for…….”

The art quilt movement is constantly changing, and art quilters have been trying for a long time to be taken seriously in the larger art world.  SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) says in its mission statement that they want to promote art quilts to the world.  But for a long time the “Q word” has been holding us back.

We have all shared the experience, on meeting someone and telling them “I am an art quilter” only to hear them ask “oh, I have an unfinished quilt my grandmother made, can you finish it for me?”  And there is no telling them “that isn’t really what I do…” because the impression has been made and you are a quilter pure and simple.

It was interesting to see that so many of the artists (and they are artists) at the conference over the weekend have long since lost the “Q” word from what they call themselves.  Most no longer consider themselves art quilters, some still say fiber artist or textile artist, but most (and I am one) have dropped all that and simply describe themselves as artists.  Good start.

It is also interesting that recently SAQA changed its own definition of an art quilt from two or three layers held together with stitches to any art that references the quilt (I am paraphrasing both).  Reference is a wide berth and with that in mind, let me tell you about the art we saw at the many “fiber friendly” exhibits we visited around Philadelphia over the weekend as part of the conference.

Unfortunately, I can’t share images from any of these shows, lots of exhibitions are getting uncomfortable with photos posted on blogs these days, but I can tell you about the trends.  We started out at Art Quilt Elements at the Wayne Art Center.  Before seeing the show, we had a panel discussion with the three jurors and at least one of them made it clear he was looking for “cutting edge’ (I grew to hate that phrase during the weekend as it is so overused these days) and art that made use of new technology (whatever that means).  AQE is still, after all a quilt exhibit and most of the pieces still reflect that designation.  But new materials are creeping in and new ways of making art with fabric are leaving the batting and bindings behind.

I am proud to say that two of the three awards given at the opening are people I consider friends, and both are working outside the box.  (For the record, I also hate that expression as most people use it but don’t really understand what it means).  One is Susan Else whose gorgeous piece is on the opening page of her website.  Susan does amazing fabric sculptures with wonderful color and a sense of whimsy.  That is outside the box.  Also outside the box, and another prize-winning friend, Mary Pal does the most magnificent faces using cheesecloth.  Yes, cheese cloth.

So where is all this going?  We saw several other shows in town, including FiberPhiladelphia, Inside/Outside the Box (but it all seemed outside the box).  Here the trend is so far from the original definition of a quilt that it is a completely different animal.  Leaves woven from human hair, three dimensional pieces, stitching on fabrics with no batting underneath, free standing pieces, other materials like folded paper, metal, wire and glass.  The Q word is long gone.

For some of us, the art quilt dinosaurs, this means some self reflection but also some new freedom.  Moving away from a strict definition and construction requirements does not necessarily mean I will change the way I work, but it gives me license.  Well, let’s be honest, if I stopped caring about getting into all the art quilt venues I had all the license I needed to do whatever I wanted anyway.

Other trends as seen at the Snyderman-Works Gallery and their biennial fiber show reveals some interesting trends even in these out of the box fiber pieces.  Color is one–lots of relatively colorless pieces in neutral earth tones seem to predominate.  Hand-stitching is another.  It was amazing how many pieces still (or again) make use of hand stitches.  Some were lovely hand stitched sketches on sheer fabric, some just lines of hand-stitching running through the piece.  Is colorless and a return to hand work a sign of the economy?  Maybe, or maybe trends just develop and I don’t need to draw reasons from the current political situation.

It is important for artists to remember two things while looking at, and being influenced by other trends in the art world.  First and foremost, it is crucial that we not allow ourselves to become derivative and start to employ a new method or material simply because others are doing it.  In the art world, imitation is NOT the purest form of flattery, it is copying and it doesn’t fly.  The other is that we must tread carefully over the minefield of what is trend and what is trendy gimmickry.  Good art is good art forever, whatever the trends may be at any given time.  Trendy fades, and as time passes many art pieces that were made to be trendy do not hold up over the long haul and do not stand the test of time.  I call it Shock Schlock.  Works done to shock, to be different and trendy that really aren’t art, and will be left by the roadside when the next new wave of trends emerges.

This past weekend I attended the joint SAQA/SDA conference in Wayne, Pa, just outside Philadelphia.  These conferences are always good for the soul, and good for art and I highly recommend if you are not already a member of SAQA or something like it to think about joining and attending the conferences.  I met lots of wonderful art quilters from all over the country (and some from outside the country) and we got to share both professional stories and advice, but some wine and some giggles as well.  If for no other reason, the networking is worth going.  Meeting like-minded professionals, not once talking about our kids (although somehow our dogs do come up) and not worrying about all the stuff waiting at home was terrific.

Oh, and we also got to see some pretty terrific art!  More on that tomorrow.  I am still in catch-up mode.

I am thrilled to announce that two of my newest pieces, Icy Perch and Shifting Tide have both been accepted into the TIQE–Taiwan International Quilt Exhibition 2012 and will be leaving soon for Taiwan.  I can’t show them now on the blog, they wouldn’t be new and exciting for the show if I did!  But I will post pictures of them once the show opens.

TIQE will be shown in two venues:

National Tainan Living Art Center, Tainan City, Taiwan      August 11-September 7, 2012

Taichung Municipal City Huludun Cultural Center, Taichung City, Taiwan      September 22- October 28, 2012

I used to always joke that my quilts got to travel to more exciting places than I do, in fact that was what I said when my piece was chosen for the first TIQE a few years ago.  To my surprise, I was subsequently asked to come teach in Taiwan during the exhibition, which was one of the most exciting weeks of my career.

Ultimately, I got to see the first TIQE at the beautiful venue in Tainan City and Lin Hsin Chen (who I now consider a good friend) put together a truly magnificent show with work from all over the world.  I am sure this show will be even more exciting, as it travels to a second venue this time around.

So if you are planning on being in the Taiwan area…..

I don’t think I have ever written a blog post about the value of a label, but I often make a point of stressing it in my classes.  Most people think of the label as an afterthought, that annoying thing you have to do at the end when you just want to hurry up and finish and move onto something else.

So what is so important about a label?  Whether you are making traditional quilts or art quilts, your creation needs provenance.  Provenance is the historical background that comes with a work of art.  It proves the date, the subject of the artwork, the prior owners, and even can help establish the validity of a work whose origins might be in question.  When buying and selling major works of art, provenance is crucial.

Your art quilt or bed quilt may not qualify as a major work of art (or maybe it does!) but its provenance is still important.  People who collect historical quilts will tell you they want to know more than what pattern this is and when was it made.  A label can provide so much information about a quilt–who made it, where did they live, what year was it made, was it made for a special purpose–a wedding, a birth, the commemoration of an important event.  All this information helps the new owner appreciate their acquisition more fully.  It can also help those who study quilts and quilt history better understand what they are looking at.

Art quilts, like any other kind of art, need a label to provide at least the most basic of information–the title of the work, artist’s name, date and possibly home town.  In addition, these days, many labels contain contact information including web and email addresses–especially important if your work travels to exhibitions and becomes separated from its routing papers.  Others contain information about techniques and materials–information that may be historically important in future years by those who collect, study, or may have to restore the fabric art we are creating today.

What are the best methods for creating labels?  There are just about as many as there are artists.  I once knew a woman who hand embroidered her labels–they were more beautiful than the quilts they were on!  Some people paint them, stamp them, or write them in their own handwriting, others prefer to use the computer and print them onto computer printable fabric.  (If you do choose to write on fabric, be sure to use a pen marked “permanent” or “waterproof.”  There is nothing worse than a label that runs and the ink ruins your wonderful work.  [Yes, I have been there and done that.])

Some labels from my past….

In my beginning career days, I was also making art quilt clothing and thought this “logo” was a good idea.  See how even the permanent marker has lightened in not so many years…..

Also art quilt clothing, this was the first label I made on the computer–printed onto computer printable fabric.  Not much information here.

One of my first art quilts, pretty tacky label, right?  I hope you don’t mind that I blotted out most of the phone number–I get enough calls all day!

Now we are getting somewhere.  These labels are printed onto computer printable fabric–often several at a time, using the same format and font every time to create a sense of continuity.  If you look closely, you can see a faint gray box on the label, that allows me to sew the label on using the machine and this fine guideline and keep everything nice and straight.  Pinking sheers along the edges provide a non-fray edge without turning under and all that mess.  I also make a companion label with my contact info, address and phone number but that one you can imagine.

Lately I am making smaller pieces mounted onto canvas and stretched.  For these I include my signature and write in my own handwriting directly onto the back.  I think this has a more “art” finish than the label, but the information is there.

Think about the kind of label you want to use and how to make it.  It isn’t just the end of your project, it might be the beginning of your “immortality!”

Today on the stitch-craft-create blog, you can see an interview with none other than ME!  Just a little more information about me and what makes me “tick” as a fabric artist.  Check it out.

And remember that March is National Craft Month–so be crafty!  Do yourself a favor and set aside some time to do what you love!