All is Revealed!

It's that time again: the 15 x 15 International Art Quilt Group Reveal is UP!

This year we are each working in a series based on a theme of our choosing -- a theme used in a prior year.

My chosen theme is "Time/Seasons" and I've been working my pieces out in abstract, mod/improv techniques.  Here's my latest offering:

Agnes Meets Judy in the Spring
(C) 2017

Here's a detail shot:

Agnes Meets Judy - Detail

Materials: self-dyed cotton fabric, commercial cotton and poly-cotton fabric, hand-dyed silk floss, cotton thread, 80-20 cotton/polyester batting.

Techniques: flip-and-stitch quilt-as-you-go by machine, big-stitch hand quilting.

For the story behind the title of the piece, I invite you to visit the post HERE.  Enjoy!

Linking this to WIP Wednesday on the Needle and Thread Network, because it's been a very long time since I've done that!  :-)

Have a great rest of the week...

First *REAL* Snow

Sure, we've had a couple of skiffs...but starting yesterday afternoon, it came down.  And down.  And down.  The world outside my wee home is all white.  The sun is just starting to nudge through the cloud cover, and the wind remains high and brisk.

Underneath the snow pack -- at least, on the roads -- is a layer of ice, so...I'm home, effectively snowed in.  I don't make any $$ when I'm not at work, but I figure it's worth my life to stay home and stitch.

Yesterday I worked on two projects.

First I finished the "bird-house mini" I started some time ago, before I was overtaken with the urge to make "Snowy Evening".  :-)  I've made several of these bird-house pieces in several seasons...but the winter one(s) seem to be favourites.  To satisfy Gracie's request for two winter scenes, I decided I'd better get this one done!

As I stitched, I listened/watched several videos on YouTube, mostly about making art. I particularly enjoyed revisiting episodes of "Craft in America" and the "Art City: Simplicity" film featuring Agnes Martin, Amy Adler, Joan Snyder, Richard Tuttle and others.  It dawned on me that I'd begun this piece with a certain level of "same old, same old"...but somewhere through the afternoon that feeling dropped away and I became simply, quietly, gently, a maker*.

"No One Home" - under construction 

Thus the change in my blog title, at least for a little while.

No One Home (C) 2015

No One Home - Detail

I took my EBMC piece with me into the evening.  I'd spent part of Sunday on it too -- daring to quilt the panels...then slash them part-way:

Next, I trimmed back the excess batting along the edges of the slit:

Inserting a bias strip of gold lame into the opening, I pinned it heavily and sewed down one side and then the other -- et voila!  When I held it up to the light...

It comes shining through!

To finish the piece, I bound the sides:

And added "stone" to the top and bottom...for the window was inspired (as you may recall) by those in buildings in that photo from York, UK provided by EB for this assignment.

I haven't put a sleeve on it yet, so to send photos of it to EB, I had to lay it on my design wall, first one side...

And then the other...

Light Prevails.

10" W x 37" L

When ready, I will hang it in a window.

*Why can't someone just simply...make something?  I mean, it doesn't matter if it's on paper or out of concrete, or what-have-you...it's the fact that something is made where there had been nothing before.                                                                                                                                                   -- Richard Tuttle

Linking up with WIP Wednesday on The Needle and Thread Network.  Before I go a-shovelling, I'm going to knit, just a bit...

Up and Down

For the past couple of weeks the temps around here have surpassed their usual, pleasant early July pattern (mid-twenties Celsius) and soared up to 30 C or more (with humidex).  When there's been a breeze, it's been fine for being outdoors.  Work on my kitchen cabinet painting project has progressed.  All nine doors up above the counter have been finished -- and of course, what was taken down had to be put up again:

First Doors Up

Now I am working lower down, below the counter.  You can get a glimpse of before and after all at once:

What a difference between old (L) and new (R)!

*********

Most of Wednesday was too hot for this project, so I spent hours researching abstract painters for my online class, "Abstract Art for Quilters" with the wonderful Elizabeth Barton through the Academy of Quilting.   I found a gem guaranteed to inspire and buoy me up when I'm down in the doldrums, as I have been much of this summer.  Her name was Agnes Martin (1912 - 2004), born and raised in Saskatchewan, who studied and lived most of her life in the art mecca that is New Mexico.  Some of her wisdom re: art and life:

Do what you were born to do.  That is the way to be happy.

Art is the concrete representation  of our most subtle feelings.

 Music is the highest form of art.  It's completely abstract.

Although I don't believe there's any relation, her paintings remind me of the work of one of my textile art heroes, Judith (Judy) Martin of Ontario. to wit:

The Islands - Agnes Martin
72" b 72" - acrylic and graphite on canvas

paradise is what lies beyond the horizon (one)
 Judith e Martin - 2012
19" x 19" - domestic linen, acrylic paint, thread, paper

You can follow Judy Martin on her blog HERE, and from there follow links to her work.  Agnes Martin's work is still being exhibited by the Pace Gallery.  You can listen to wonderful discussions of her work as related to that of other abstract artists, and to an interview with Agnes herself on You Tube - "Agnes Martin on Not Thinking".

(NOTE: the clip is preceded by an advertisement.)

***********

Art making -- doing anything with my hands, really -- anything rhythmic and colourful -- is soothing.  It lifts me up out of the world, up out of the griefs and sorrows -- the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' (Shakespeare - Hamlet) -- that conspire to keep our spirits down.  Like Agnes Martin, I'd like to train myself to stop thinking...to have "...a clear mind, so that when something comes into it, you can see it" and take it from there.

(For SAQA members, there are a couple of recent conversations underway on the  SAQA Yahoo Group about art making while living as we do in the midst of personal and global tragedy, violence and unrest...)

And that's whats off my wall today, so I might as well link this up to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday...and see what the others think (and what they're up to)!