For Your Inspiration: Chairs

I have a thing for beautifully designed chairs.

Last month I had the great pleasure of visiting the Milwaukee Art Museum.

A whole building full of amazing artwork and I am completely absorbed by chairs.

chairs by Prouve, Maher, Eames, Summers, and Gehry

Paul T. Frankl

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Michele de Lucci

Eero Saarinen

Mario Botta

Robert Venturi

Chairs by Harry Bertoia, Verner Panton, and Eero Saarinen

Some day - my home will be full of beautifully designed chairs.

Art + Quilt: Quilt Indy Group

One of the things I love about textiles as a medium is that for some reason (perhaps our quilting heritage) textile artists are social beings. The Quilt Indy Group gets together on a regular basis and works through design exercises. I was honored that they chose Art + Quilt as their textbook of choice for this year and simply thrilled that they invited me to be a fly on the wall of their cyber-meeting space.

In this exercise patterned fabrics are photocopied and used to create compositions that focus entirely on the visual texture of the surface. Remember that actual texture is the way something feels. Visual texture is the pattern on the surface.

Here are two exercises by Carol. I love how she uses similar shapes but plays with the scale of the texture. I'm thinking she might have used the copier to reduce or enlarge the scale of the pattern and perhaps to even reverse it. Can you see how the scale of the visual patterns are set each other off?

The next two pieces by Lorie show how adding texture and pattern to the background can help to ground the piece.

Mezzie shows an even more dramatic example of how adding texture to the background can make the composition much more interesting. She's used the exact same composition for each piece but one is much more dramatic than the other.

Notice here how Von has not only changed the scale of the background in his two pieces but has overlapped the shapes. What happens to the textures and the composition in general when the elements touch each other? I think it gives the eye a path to follow.

Thanks to the Quilt Indy Group for sharing their work! Leave a comment and tell us what you have learned from seeing their exercises. If you are doing the exercises and wish to be featured by all means let me know!

Artist Spotlight part 1: Melanie Testa

I would like to introduce you to an artist whose work I greatly admire. 

Still Life

I have had the pleasure of spending time with Melanie Testa on two separate occasions; as we taught at the International Quilt Festival in Houston last year, and when we filmed our Quilting Arts DVD Workshops. She is simply delightful as a person and I find her artwork to be beautiful, layered with meaning and texture, and intriguing. She is one who thinks and cares deeply both about her art, about other people, and about the world around her. Her laughter lights up a room and lifts your spirit. Her artwork draws you in and takes you on a journey. 

I hope you will enjoy getting to know her as much as I have.

Lyric: What is your story, how did you become an artist?

Melanie: I have wanted to be an artist since I was a child. I remember watching TV and being riveted when I saw imagery of Andy Warhol walking the streets of New York. My mom used to sew her own clothing and I remember watching her pin a wool plaid skirt pattern out and knew the side seams would not match if she were to proceed, so I stopped her. Then a friend of hers asked if I would like to make a vest, it was a cute little vest and it had hand sewn ribbons bordering the inside front edge. It won a blue ribbon at the fair. I also won a blue ribbon for my Sugar Collection, but that is another story.

So when I was 19, I took a traditional quilt making course at the local Handcraft Center. I fell head over heels for fabric, really I fell in love with conversational prints and vowed to go to art school to become a Textile Designer. It took about 8 years for me to settle down and focus enough to make that a reality. I was accepted into the Fashion Institute of Technology as a 27 year old adult student. I was married and lived two hours outside the city, but we worked together and made it work. My husband has always been quite supportive of me and my creative efforts.

Once I was out of college and had some creative tools under my belt, I took some workshops by well known surface design artists like Jane Dunnewold and Ann Johnston. Making what I had learned into an expression all my own is, of course the adventure of a lifetime.

L:  Was it something you wanted to do from a young age or did you take a more circuitous path? Do you have any training in basic design?

M: I was able to afford two years of schooling at F.I.T and do have an associates degree in Textile/Surface Design. The education I got from F.I.T was more of a technical schooling. I was taught to put things in repeat, to paint flower and to weave. My real education came as a result of being a Vintage Poster Restoration Artist. I restore posters by Talouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, and interestingly enough, Andy Warhol. I took this as an opportunity to evaluate drawing and painting styles and I learned to mix paint to exact specification. 

Still Life In Time

L:  Do you consciously think about the elements of art as you create?

M:  No, I do not. I work intuitively. I think the basic tenets of art making are well and deeply ingrained at this point that I am not really aware of what I am doing at all. I can slow myself down to describe it when asked.

L:  What are your fears as an artist and how do you face/overcome/talk yourself out of them?

M:  My fears. 

That my art isn't good enough. Isn't this everyone's fear? And I don't think this is a bad thing. If my art isn't good enough, if I didn't hit the 'right' note, then I still have room to grow, to dig deeply into what I am trying to get at. It is sort of zen, when you think of it this way, as though the very thing you strive to do sits, as if a seed, within what you are doing right now. Being an artist is really about fostering that seed, prompting new growth.

Next week I'll introduce you to the lovely book that Melanie has written. It has been an inspiration to me over the past several months. And here is something special. During the month of March Melanie and I will collaborate on a small work of art - a textile postcard. At the end of the moth it will be given away to a lucky reader, chosen from the comments on each of the four posts that feature Melanie and her work. You may post each week  and have an even better chance of winning this postcard. Perhaps next week I'll give you a little peek at what we are starting.

Great Design

I love it when I come across something that is not only great to look at but ingeniously engineered. At first there was nothing too exciting about my most recent studio addition from IKEA other than it's color. Oh, and the fact that if a sneaky little four year old managed to get into my paints and spill them inside the drawer I could wash it out. Can't do that with wooden drawers full of thread. Ask me how I know.

 

As I assembled the cabinet I fell in love with its' elegant design. I love putting things together! A very creative soul figured out a way to put a full sized Taboret....

.... into this skinny little 3" box. Anyone else out there concerned about the way we ship most everything we buy back and forth around the world? Fossil fuels, pollution, human rights, all that. Think of how many skinny little boxes will fit into the same space as one fully assembled cabinet. Maybe sometime I'll riff on my hopes for the future of clean energy sources. Another day.

Back to the cabinet. This clever designer made it simple enough for any novice to assemble with nothing more than a screwdriver. This is a drawer. Really. Fold on the dotted line, slide this piece in here,  fold the little hook there, and viola! You have a drawer! Elegant design in a simple object.

The gorgeous vase by the way, was a gift from my mom. Every time my parents come to visit they take a little trip to Seagrove, NC - home of too many talented potters to count.