| November 2005
I hate to admit it, but QBL 2005 seems like the distant past to
me about now. What a fabulous two weeks it was! But the days are
short, the weather cold so we must be on our way to QBL 2006; something
like 34 weeks? DISPATCHES this month will catch you up on what is
happening with some of the 2006 QBL Faculty. Please remember to
send me your quilt-related news, and look for features this winter
on the new Faculty for 2006.
In this Issue:
In the News: QBL Faculty
In the News: QBL Students
In the Quilting News
Books to Consider
Design Exercise
Judy Blayden
has been having fun working on three-dimensional quilted fabric
versions of her stitched paper “saint” icon prints.
“Saint Ann: Patron Saint of Seamstresses” will be in
the Quilts=Art=Quilts
show at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center this winter. Judy’s
“Saint Gertrude: Patron Saint of Gardeners” was accepted
in the final jurying in Artists as
Quiltmakers XII exhibit at Firelands
Association for the Visual Arts in Oberlin, Ohio. Visit their website
for details at http://www.favagallery.org/homepage.htm.
Elizabeth Busch
was awarded the Surface Design prize at the Quilts=Art=Quilts
show at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center (http://www.cayuganet.org/smac/quilts.htm).
Elizabeth says she feels “very honored for such recognition.”
She is also waiting for final contract details on a sculpture commission
in Boston; perhaps the details will be available by the next issue
of DISPATCHES! Last summer Elizabeth was busy and traveled widely
while teaching at Split Rock
in Minnesota, Arrowmont School of
Arts and Crafts in Tennessee, at the
Coupeville School of Crafts
in Washington State, and at the Columbia
Stitchery Guild in Portland, Oregon.
Nancy Crow
continues to offer a wide variety of workshops at her Ohio barn
as well as tours to Provence, France, Oaxaco & Chiapas, Mexico
and the highlands of Guatemala. For details, visit her web site
at http://www.nancycrow.com.
The 2005 Silver Star Award
was recently presented to Katie Pasquini
Masopust in Houston, Texas. This award
is presented each year to a living person who has done great things
for the quilting world. Congratulations Katie! Katie also has co-authored
a book with Brett Barker (a painter and studio artist at Sun Studios
Creativity Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico) called Color
and Composition for the Creative Quilter
with C & T Publishing. The book explains color and composition
in clear and understandable language, just for quilters. A “gallery”
of photographs of quilts illustrating how beginners and professionals
alike use color follows each exercise and composition to make beautiful
quilts.
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Randy Keenan
currently is exhibiting in a book show at the Montgomery Center
for the Arts in New Jersey. Randy also will have an article published
in the January 2006 issue of Legacy
Magazine. The article, entitled “My Russian Treasure”
is about Randy’s Russian Aunt Valerie who was born a White
Russian Countess. She escaped Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution
to Brazil, then found herself in Paris, and finally New York City.
She became a "Schubert Girl" on Broadway and then gave
up the "footlights" to marry Randy’s grand uncle.
Of the compositions in the article Randy writes, “I took the
scraps of ephemera and photo's I had inherited from her and taught
myself how to scan in the images and use Photoshop to make family
"photocompositions". It was great to have a "meaty"
story with snapshots to work with—it made learning Photoshop
really interesting!” If you are not familiar with Randy’s
quilts, they are wonderful compositions incorporating all kinds
of techniques and fabrics, including paper compositions that are
scanned and printed onto fabric.
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to top
If you live in the New York City area, you might
want to visit the Noho Gallery for EXPOSED!
Contemporary Art Quilts curated by Dorothy Twining Globus
of the Museum of Arts & Design. The exhibit is open January
17th through February 4th, 2006. Noho is located at 530 W. 25th
Street, 4th Floor.
There is an interesting article on Dorothy Caldwell’s art
quilts in the December ’05-January ’06 American
Craft Magazine. Written following an exhibit in Massachusetts
last fall, the article offers an overview of the exhibit, Ms. Caldwell’s
influences as well as photographs of her quilts.
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Some of you may know that there are a group of
us who come up with a book list every summer at QBL. Our first list
included about 15 books, the 2005 version about 50! The lively discussions
about what constitutes “a good read” are one of my favorite
parts of QBL. I will share some of those book suggestions here,
as well as including some that cross my path in other ways. If you
are wondering why a book list is in a newsletter about Quilting
by the Lake, perhaps one kind of creativity just appreciates another!
| When the Elephants Dance |
Tess Uriza Holthe |
| Buffalo Woman Comes Singing |
Brooke Medicine Eagle |
| The Dream Palace of the Arabs |
Fouad Adjami |
| There is Room for You |
Charlotte Bacon |
| The Nazi Officer’s Wife |
Edith Hahn Beer |
| Desert Queen |
Gertrude Bell |
| The Grave of God’s Daughter |
Brett Ellen Block |
| She’s Not There |
Jennifer Finney Boylan |
| Year of Wonders |
Geraldine Brooks |
| A Short History of Nearly Everything |
Bill Bryson |
| A Salty Piece of Land |
Jimmy Buffet |
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Creative people use art to represent feelings,
occasions, images, moods etc.; quiltmakers are no exception. Whether
you are creating a traditional block quilt or a whole cloth abstraction,
what you create is influenced by the images around you and your
reaction to them. Nicholas Roukes* talks about artists going through
a kind of mental activity where they transform their subjective
and emotional experiences into images. These graphic images become
symbols of what we were thinking or feeling. Symbols are everywhere;
those we create and those others create for us. Think of this exercise
as “mixing bowl symbols”; by mixing up what you find,
you can create entirely new symbols, which suggest something entirely
new. Don’t think about it too much, just play!
- Cut out between 5 and 10 images from magazines
with their captions! The captions are an important part of the
exercise.
- Cut out additional captions from other photos
or articles that are unrelated to the images you already selected.
- Mix and match your images. Be silly, put together
the most unlikely combinations. Take about 30 seconds to make
your decisions and glue them down before you can change your mind.
The goal is to be spontaneous!
- Look at what you have created. What do they
make you think of? What emotions do they elicit? What else do
they make you think of?
A wonderful teacher once told me that if you are
frustrated by a lack of creative time, try to do just one creative
activity a day. This should only take a few minutes; try it!
• Art Synectics
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top
Until next time, Happy New Year and Happy
Quilting!
~Kathy
qblnews@aol.com
Past Dispatches
November 2005
June 2005
April 2005
February
2005
October
2004
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