Sunday, November 22, 2009

Primary Chairs

Here is my second chair for Adaptations.

It will be part of a series of 3 chairs called, Primary Chairs

becasue they will be yellow, red and blue, the primary colors.

I wanted the chair to have a white box on it.

To figure out the 2 point prersective for the box

I used tape to create the lines to the 2 vanishing points.

Using the angles of the seat on the chair I was able to figure out the vanishing points.


I used tracing paper to sketch out the cube.

Shiva paint sticks were used to create the shadows.

Black tulle was used to create shading on the cube.

Here are the two chairs together.

The white box represents faith.
The rocks on the yellow chair represents the differnt things or people who help keep you balanced when life is not.

This is a weird shot of the box from a severe right close up angle.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

AQS, Des Moines, Iowa 2009

Here I am proudly standing next to my piece, Patience.

AQS from above.

Yes, those are bras in the above picture.

We got a kick out of this.

SOme of my favorite pieces:



This was a really cool three dimenional piece.

Side view


Sunday, October 25, 2009

Margaret’s Hope Chest: Quilts for Homeless Children

These are two traditional quilts I made for Margaret’s Hope Chest,

http://www.margaretshopechest.com

a quilting non-profit organization that serves other people in seemingly hopeless situations. They strive to share with people around the world the HOPE that we have been given. They have partnered with Craft Hope

http://crafthope.com

and made it their goal to provide a quilt for each child in the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Public School system who is homeless during the Holiday season.

They estimate they will need 400 quilts.

This project touched me deeply, and knew I needed to make a quilt.

I pictured these children and thought about how much a homemade quilt would mean to them. The project was easy, make a quilt out of squares.

Any size, any number, any color.

I spent almost an hour trying to pick out the right fabrics to communicate “you are loved” to the child who would receive my quilt.

The fabric I found, and had to have in the quilt had, “bloom, imagine, love, sing, dance, believe, create, wish and play” written on it.
Since traditional quilts are not my thing, I over estimated how much fabric I would need. So I ended up with enough squares to make 2 quilts.

Though this meant extra work, I thought about a pair of sisters receiving them.

I am fortunate enough to have a sister, and growing up we often had matching things. I hope that if there are a pair of sisters, they will be thrilled to have matching quilts.

Here is a picture of me and my sister as kids

All grown up now, here we are with her daughter
I finished one quilt so far, and the top for the second.
They are slightly different in pattern.
I quilted hearts and XO's
The second top, I hope to quilt it during the week.
I had this adorable flannel fabric for the backing
They are due November 16th.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Innovations St. Louis Con't

One of my favorite stops on our tour was,
The Craft Alliance, Elements: The Art of Textile Collage exhibit
It was a beautiful display featuring artists,
Bob Adams, Luanne Rimel, Joan Schulze, Fran Skiles, and Barbara Lee Smith
We absolutely loved Barbara Lee Smith's work, including these cool boats.
We asked what she used to make her pieces, it looked like an interfacing or something.
We found out that is is called Lutrador, a fabric made in North Carolina generally used for the upholstery business, she paints the white surface with watered down acrylic paints
Some of her other piecesThey captured a feeling that we just connected with
The Arch, of course
I love this
I love the way the sunlight is creating lights and shadows on these leaves.
I love the composition of this picture, could be a future quilt
For lunch we went to Schlafly Tap, http://www.schlafly.com/brewpubs.shtml
It was a great recommendation from Robin at Art Saint Louis
It was a yummy meal, and they had this cool shirt signed by Obama
I couldn’t resist getting a picture with this Buddha Bunny
High School kids helped make it
Some other cool stuff we saw

St. Louis is a great city for the arts,
there is a real sense of appreciation and energy for the arts everywhere we went

Our second to last stop was at the Morton J. May Foundation Gallery at Maryville University
for the ArtFiber exhibit
Our last stop before leaving was Quilt National 2009 at the Foundry Art Centre
I loved having the opportunity to see them again with my husband, to have someone to discuss each piece with, and to examine how they were made.
I am always pleased when we like and dislike the same art.
There is no photography allowed at Quilt National.
We truly enjoyed our trip to St. Louis and hope to make it back in 2 years for the next Innovations event

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Innovations in Textiles 8, St. Louis

Last weekend we went to St. Louis for the Innovations textile event.
http://www.craftalliance.org/exhibitions/it/2009/it8.htm
Our first stop was to the Fiber Focus exhibit at Art St. Louis
www.artstlouis.org
We had the privilege of meeting artist Linda J. Metrick who made this beautiful woven piece.
She lives near my school and was excited that I have looms and might come in and teach my Art Club kids how to weave.

These pictures do not do the piece justice, it is pure white and woven so that it is 3 dimensional and create amazing shadows in the piece.