ARTQUILTSilluminations review

ARTQUILTSilluminations

The 8th Annual PAQA-South International Juried Quilt Exhibition

at the Durham Arts Council
Allenton & Semans Galleries

March 26 – June 7, 2010

Curated by

Jan Ru Wan

Works by:

Pamela Allen

Wen Redmond

Jenny Williams/Jennifer Fouke

Laura Gaskin

Lynne Harrill

Christine Predd

Marcia DeCamp

Barbara Watler

Eileen Williams

Lyric Kinard

Cathy Kleeman

Sherry Kleinman

Gerrie Congdon

Kathleen Loomis

Denny Webster

Diane Wright

Nancy Lassiter

Debbie Langsam

Beth Carney

Janet Windsor

Gloria Hansen

Paula Swett/Cathy Stechschulte

Ann Flaherty

Jana Lankford

Sally Wright

Jeanelle McCall

Jeanette Thompson

Hsin-Chen Lin

Diane English

My personal favorites include:

Best of Show

Red Bioluminescence

by Barbara Watler

An almost monochromatic color scheme yet the value contrast makes it luminous. Those hand worked zig-zag stitches are amazing in their frenetic motion - almost shivering in your field of vision.

Sunset Composition

Gerrie Congdon

Simplicity of composition. A complementary color scheme yet no screaming loud brightness. The contrast of hand stitches next to solid machine lines.

Sticks and Stones

by Diane Wright

The beauty of the work is the the details. I love the repetition of the the stone shapes in the cloth, in the machine stitched line, in the hand worked knots. All of them work together to lead the eye on a journey as the texture draws you in.

Blinded by the Light

by Beth Carney

Line, both broken and continuous holds all of my fascination here. The dense stitching flattens out the texture of the artwork but brings a continuous vertical feeling to a rhythmically irregular piece. That and I tend to love subdued color scheme.

For Your Inspiration: Jellyfish

I am fascinated by this life form.

Affordable Memories Photography on Flickr

wire sculpture

Johnn Bine Fauvel on Etsy

Kevin Eddy on Fllickr

papercut

Foldout Cards on Etsy

Coda's Photostream on Flickr

jellyfish bustle belt

Marian Alexander on Etsy

Nurpax on Flickr

Moonbeads Glass Art on Etsy

Glass Model, Leopola Blaschka (1822-1895) 

Museum Wale's Photostream on Flickr

Jellyfish Queen

Orange Willow on Etsy

I could keep going and going and going and going.

What enchanting creatures!

Artist Spotlight part 1: Jane LaFazio

Hello Friends. I'd like to introduce you to another artist whose work I admire and enjoy. I think you will come to love her artwork as well.

Jane LaFazio is a mixed-media artist working in San Diego California. She has degrees in Graphic Design and Asian Studies, worked for a bit as an international flight attendant, in marketing, and in graphic design. Her career as a full time artist began in watercolors and gradually morphed into collage, sewing, and cloth. I'm very glad it did. Her work with thread and fiber is fascinating, rich, and deep. I was so happy that she took the time out of her very busy schedule this month to answer some interview questions.

Lyric: You are a prolific artmaker - something I hope to become when my children are no longer consume most of my time. (years and years away!) Have you always been prolific?

Jane: I’ve been blessed with a lot of natural energy, and now I’m focusing it on making art. I LOVE making art. As I mentioned, I create a lot of artwork for my workshops and classes, and that act pushes me to finish a project, and work out the problems, rather than just walk away from it. If I’m scheduled to teach something the next day, I’d better figure it out!

L: Do you have to work to discipline yourself to create art?

J: No, I need the discipline for the household chores, not the art making! I have a wonderful, supportive husband who cooks, shops and even does the laundry. Yes, I appreciate him VERY much!

L: Do you have any great habits that help you produce?

J: I work small. I like to work small, but it also makes it easier to do many different projects or types of art. And I almost always have some project that I work on in the evenings, watching TV with my husband.

L: I love working small as well. You can always have something with you no matter where you are. You work in a broad range of media and a variety of styles. Do you think this is an advantage, a disadvantage?

J: Seen in the light of “professional artist” probably a disadvantage. What did Kelli Nina Perkins call herself, a “promiscuous art maker.” That would be me. I love all kinds of art, so I’m always switching media and beginning a new passion, for about a week, then I’m on to something else! My sketching and watercolor: journal style has stayed true and consistent for a number of years now. In the past year, I’ve begun creating heavily hand stitched needle-felted pieces that I intend to stay with—I love the work that’s coming out of me and want it to become some of my signature work. But I’ll still see something in a magazine or on line, and rush to my studio to create something I’ve never tried before. I do LOVE a new technique!

L: What inspires your work? Do you work from realistic sketches and try to reproduce them? Are you inspired by your materials?

J: I get inspiration from everywhere. Online, magazines, walks, museum visits, art fairs, shopping… I don’t plan any of my work. No sketches to work out the kinks for me! I just dive in. that’s where working small works for me. I’ll often create a number of small pieces, then assemble them into something larger. But always, with no real plan. I work intuitively, by starting with a material or a color usually. 

Ralph’s Letters, my ‘breakthrough’ piece was created using love letters from an old boyfriend, and I just began a page at a time. (Breakthrough because it was my largest piece to date, and got in many juried show AND was my first piece published in Cloth Paper Scissors, thanks to Lesley Riley.)

Ralph's Letters

L: What are your favorite materials?

J: Needle and thread. I started as a watercolor artist, and as I moved into collaging my watercolor paintings, I started sewing on the paper. Now I also sew on fabric.

I hope you have enjoyed getting to know Jane and her work a little better. She is a prolific blogger and I encourage you to head over and browse through her work. It's complex and rich and beautiful. Next week I'll tell you about some of the amazing work she does in teaching and sharing her creativity. At the end of the month I'll be giving away a copy of her DVD workshop "Small Art Quilts" to a lucky reader. The winner will be chosen from among the comments left on any one of the artist spotlight posts about Jane - including this one. How about telling me your favorite "creative habit." Tell me something that helps you get the work done. (Yes, I am struggling with that particular issue right now. Can you tell?)

Inspired by Alisa Burke

The door perked right up and said, "Really? Truly? For me!??"

Inspired by Alisa Burke's Butterfly Wreath Tutorial.

And SUE said, "Really? Truly? I won!?!"

And I said, "Yes you lucky girl you!

I have a copy of Alisa Burke's "Canvas Remix"ready to go.

I added up all the comments on both Artist Spotlight posts about Alisa
and plugged them in at Random.org. Sue who posted May 4, 2010 at 10:55 PM wins!

Art + Quilt: Quilter Beth - Color as Emotion

I had the great pleasure of meeting Beth in Paducah several weeks ago and now it is even more of a pleasure to follow her progress as she works through the exercises in my book, "Art + Quilt: design principles and creativity exercises."

In her own words, "In the Color as Emotion exercise, the instructions said to “Create a simple composition that evokes a feeling, using color as the dominant element. Choose any emotion as your inspiration.” This was a hard exercise for me. Trying to think of an original composition pushes my limits. The requirement to use color as the dominant element also added to the difficulty. This is what I came up with. My first picture represents sadness."

"We were asked if we could repeat the composition in a different color combination and change the mood. I thought I’d give it a try. My second picture represents excitement. The compositions are the same; the only change is color."

Pop on over to her blog and tell her that she's done an amazingly great job for being uncomfortable with original design. 

I hope this inspires you to take a few chances, to try a few things that you might not have tried before. Start out with a few small pieces of batting or muslin and simply layer other fabrics on them. Don't worry about perfection. Don't worry about wasting material. The point is to LEARN something - and that is always of great value.

Thanks Beth!!!

Color Relationships

I believe that color is the favorite element of most visual artists.

It seems to directly bypass our thought process and drill right into our emotions. 

It's interesting to me that I am intensely drawn to color

but especially so in their very subtle moods.

Three

I started out in textiles as a traditional quilter 

and used mostly saturated primaries and jewel tones.

I actually had adverse physical reactions to grayed down blues or all pastel quilts. 

Encompassed

1998

Borders created from center to outer edge by: Lyric Kinard, Karen Zeher, Barbara Molnar, Jan Beasley, Amy Winsor, Mary Stone.  Quilted and embellished by Lyric Kinard

A few years into my learning process as a fine artist I went through a "brown" phase. Everything I made seemed to come out in earth tones with metallics thrown in. I haven't figured out why yet.

Three Rings

2003

Perhaps it was a factor of living in Chicago at that time

or perhaps that year's dye run just had some really great browns.

Out of the Box

2003

As I've grown as an artist I better understand my fascination with color interactions.

Masterful use of value, in any hue, attracts me as much as color by itself.

I'm still learning. Still working on stepping out of my box.

Perhaps I'm even still learning and exploring what the box is.

It is such a fascinating world, so full of wonder. 

Trying to capture those feelings, those visions, those emotions.

What an amazing life-long venture.

For Your Inspiration: Crows

Studio Ariegaw

Moonflight by Linda Kemshall

lines - letters - layers

ingrid art studio

Middleburg Folk Art Studio

Blue Fingers Studios