My week in review!

                                                                                             

Photos taken by me at the Newport Aquarium above. (click on image to enlarge)

Taking a break at the 2nd Annual African American Quilt/Fiber Art Design Symposium.

We, (family) also went to Athens to see the Quilt National Exhibit on Friday.  It was wonderful seeing June's Consider the Horse Chesnut quilt and Pam's PamDora's Box quilt in person! Congratulations to you both.

I spent all day Saturday and Sunday recuperating but the past week was well worth the exhaustion!

Here is my piece Cilium 1 being displayed at the symposium.

A Beautiful postcard from Gerrie!

Art Heads

                                                

Cilium 2 beginnings

Mo's Sunflower

 

Time for a change

Diane and Gerri and Deborah and Junott have new looks to their blogs.  Gerri and Deborah have customized banners which I would love to do for mine, but decided its not worth the additional 50 dollars a year for it.  But I just signed in to Typepad and see that they have made upgrades to their menu selection and so I now have a "bold palette".  I'll live with this for a few days to see if it suits me...at the moment I'm loving it!

Juanita, a saviour!

Okay, would you believe there is not one retail establishment in this city where I can buy foil for ironing onto fabric!?! 

This is my testimony:  I was working late into the night, early morning on the 2nd in the Liberation Series...you all know about Series, right? and you all know about Liberation, right? Well let me hear ya, if you know what I'm talking about...said I was working late into the night, early morning before dawn begin to break, feeling that push and pull of making decisions about what I want, intend for this quilt to be...I'm stitching, I'm stamping with paint, I'm stamping with foil...stitching, painting, foiling...well it was the foiling that posed the problem...yes, foiling....ever run out of something at a time when its the least convenient?  I said, have you ever run out of a material that you needed when it was the least convenient???  Well let me hear ya, if you know what I'm talking about....I searched high and I searched low...the craft stores, the art supply stores, the fabric stores all turned their backs on my need for foil.  I couldn't move on to the next step until I got the foil...oh, sistahs, what to do, what to do?  I go online to the supplier I purchased from 2-3 years ago... www.lauramurraydesigns.com  There at the site, I hung my head low...no online ordering, only mail or fax...oh, what to do?  This will be 2 weeks at least before I could move on further with this quilt. 

But sometimes when you are at your lowest, a thought comes to you, a life line, an email to a friend...for a second I doubted because I've never seen foil in any of her work...but don't doubt, just act on the inspiration...email sent, email answered...yes, this friend has some foil sheets...but oh! could they be the colour I need?  No, don't doubt, just act...driving and praying, praying and driving...arrive to friend's house...her foil is laid out on the table and YES! YES! YES! a miracle has happened!!!!!!!!!!!!  Juanita, a saviour.

I finished the foiling as soon as I returned home and today will be on to the next step toward greatness!

The beginning of Shining Cilium

Yesterday I was jazzed about entering Harmonic Cilium into the Indelible Spirit Challenge.  At 3:30 this morning (insominia) I was reading over the requirements and discovered the piece is not large enough for the juried show.  Brief disappointment was followed by a jubilant thought of "great, then this piece is free for other things, and I wanted to do a series anyways, so this is the opportunity to get busy on the next one".  I tried to lay back down to sleep but then my mind was turning over how the next one would be different but embody the same theme...then I thought to heck with all this cognitive imaging and jibber jabber...so at 5:00 I was pulling fabric choices to the living room floor (didn't want to wake Peter who has been working 12 hour shifts).  Made a choice and started sewing.  This one will be more gold or bronze, (Shining Cilium is the working title and the series will be called Liberation) will be couched, painted, and foiled just like the other one but larger and the layout will vary.   What I accomplished this morning is laying on the kitchen table waiting for paint to dry. 

I have a tendency to over think and never start the ideas in my head because I think I can't work at the pace my ideas come and don't want to fall short on the delivery, but in spite of not being able to sleep, it felt really great to get up and act on the idea at the time the idea struck.  I'm finding that the movement of my hands seems to bring about visual clarity and generates more ideas to the piece in my hands.  I compared this to multi-tasking, but I've never liked that phrase...its more like all the senses being open to receive, energy flows, but it is focused to the activity that the hands are manipulating...have you ever seen a glassmaker in action?   Well if you watch her long enough you realize she is thinking in motion and all those steps involved become so focused and centered that the work becomes a dance in and of itself.  It was a great experience for me to realize that I was in that same space this morning.  I'm going to catch a few hours of sleep, get up and make coffee, some breakfast for the family, and get back to the dance ;).

Peace,

okay, drats, we are under ozone layer alert...just heard that on the radio.  i'm noticing that these days when i'm out and about increase fatigue.  it pisses me off because i understand that the problems with the ozone is manmade.  there are just days i want to break out of the matrix and create my own subversive and beautiful reality.

Naming your quilts

I think I may have asked this before, but since Mary noticed I don't always name my pieces, I thought I'd bring it up again for more input since the ring has expanded. 

The piece below I named from the way it made me feel while working on it.  From looking at the piece as a stranger would, the name isn't apparent.  What ways do you name your pieces?  When I attempted to meditate on the visual of the Inner Liberation, I thought of 'Harmonic Texture'.  Then I looked up the word 'texture' in the thesarus and came across 'cilia' which I then looked up in the dictionary and it short it is a microscopic hair like structure that activates cells for motion.  From here, I thought that is what I felt when I worked on this piece and thought Harmonic Cilium would be a more appropriate name. What do you think? 

What does liberation and joy look like to me?

Ever have a piece that makes you feel totally free and empowered while working on it? This is that piece for me. I was excited every step of the way!  I need to finish it so that it can be hung for display week after next at the 2nd Annual African American Quilt Design Symposium.  The title is Inner Liberation named after the sense of freedom and joy I felt when working on it.  This piece reflects where I want to grow as a quilt artist and I was on a natural high while working on it.

It is a commercial discharge fabric heavily quilted and couched with silk threads, a pieces of painted tulle,foil, glitter paint wash, and a little bit of shiva paint stick in white.  I am trying to figure out how to attach the copper wire with the dangling metal circles from the bottom of this piece.  After that I will attach a sleeve. I considered attaching some of the metal circles in clusters on the surface but they wasn't as appealing as I hoped so nixed that idea.  I thought about having it framed in a shadow box later without the glass so that it can still be touched.  I made 2 postcards just like this after I started this piece and plan to do another one similiar but in a rectangle about 12"x32" or so.  This piece measures 16.25"x16.25" with uneven edges.  I just attached the backing after not touching it for about a month. I had to decide if it was completely finished with layers and it is, because it didn't ask me for more. 

I've got to go pick up my petites from the library.  Peace.

4 Days of Bliss

Loftus House

This is the house where artists stay and the home of the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts office.  Our gracious host was Dave Malone, poet and scriptwriter who is doing an extended fellowship and who we hope to see at our return in the fall. 

My dye set-up in Studio One that I shared with Kel, Goddess of Fire and Raku. She gifted me with one of her pots which can be seen sitting in the window ledge.

Kel at work on one of her female figures.  Kel's female forms can be seen here on the far right.

Pam at work on an altered book in Studio Two that she shared with Lauren and Bev.

Lauren crocheting with speaker wire.  She just graduated with a BFA in sculpting and is looking fora studio assistant position.

Bev and Pam at play.

I worked from Design by Accident by Ann Johnston mostly, and Complex Cloth by Jane Dunnewold a little.  Here are some of my dyed fabrics:

sunbathing cottons.

habotai silk

Friday meal prepared by Pam.

MACA holds a very special place in my heart.  Between the mid-80s and early 90s I spent a total of 6 weeks there on grants from this organization to write.  I'm thrilled that the other members of Mag8, short for The Magnificient 8, relate to the quiet, meditative, calm of the grounds and the environment.  MACA shares the 400 acres with an order of St. Franciscan Friars who are the caretakers of the grounds.  They are some pretty cool guys whose mission is devoted to nature, arts, and social justice.  The MACA is searching for a part-time director and for a hot sec I thought about throwing my hat in the ring, but I know I'm romanticizing what the position would involve based on the mood and surroundings.  I love it there!

More photos of the weekend can be seen here.