Please join me at my newly re-designed website and blog, now integrated into one.
I'm SO excited to release a new class schedule for spring! I have new classes, including one with my friend Susan Murray of Finished with Style, who has a studio across the hall from me at the NEST Arts Factory. She does some wicked cool decorative finishing techniques that look spectacular on fabric (or paper!) with materials that fabric surface designers don't usually use. New toys and new tools to play with!
Today was a rare free day in the studio with nothing more pressing to work on than some 4" squares for a swap for my art group on Thursday evening.
First though, I played with printing on big sheets of white paper. Anyone who knows me knows how "all out" I go when wrapping presents. I love to use beautiful paper, make unique gift tags and add sumptious, funky or unusual ribbons. A special someone has a birthday coming up this week and I couldn't resist making my own wrapping paper this time. I used stamps that I had made and acrylic paint to print designs all over the paper. Delicious! Wouldn't this make a pretty fabric?
That done and drying, I started on the 4" squares. I can't show you how far I've gotten but I can say that I'm using some of the same layering techniques that I used on my bricolages, on fabric this time. Here's my assembly line all set up and ready for the first painting step.
I realized AFTER I had cut all of the fast2fuse squares and ironed on all the little pieces of fabric that I could have ironed a big piece of fabric to a big piece of fast2fuse, painted it and then cut it into 4" squares. Oy.
An intrepid group of about 35 art quilters and fiber artists meets each month and we discuss all sorts of topics of professional interest to artists, we have challenges and creativity prompts, we mount a group exhibit, and we learn from each other and laugh a lot. Over the summer 29 of us have been working on 4" squares to trade with each other. We agreed to keep our work secret until the due date and after everything's swapped on Thursday night we can all reveal the art on our blogs, Facebook and websites. I'm so looking forward to seeing what everyone else has made!
Based on a few of my fellow swappers' blogs (Melanie has help with hers, scroll down to the bottom here) and Facebook status updates (I'm looking at you, Natalya and Vivien, lol!), I'm not the only one working on these today...
So I'm going to be a proud mama for a minute and tell you about my daughter, Samantha. She just posted photos to her etsy store and has been working her tail off on adorable products for your furry friends. She makes gorgeous pet collars, toys and bedding for dogs, cats and ferrets. She's started stocking her store and has much more to come. She makes the cutest things -- fun, colorful and happy!
I love that she loves to sew and make and create. It's fun hanging out in the studio with her, each working on our own things with a convivial, creative hum and banter. Sometimes while we're making stuff we watch dvds and try to get caught up with "our" shows (Lost marathon, anyone?), other times we watch chick flicks, but mostly we tease and talk and chat and giggle and laugh. The best of times!
She's been sewing on a machine since she was five, knew how to use Wonder Under at four, and designed her own stuffed critters from age six on. She jumps in to everything with enthusiasm and verve, confident that she can realize her vision.
We applied for a really cool indie craft show in June and just found out that we didn't get in (boo), so now we'll look around for somewhere else to hawk our wares this summer. Can't pass up the idea of showing and selling together.
When I was teaching in Asilomar at the Empty Spools seminar a couple of weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting Annie Smith, podcaster extraordinaire. She interviewed me one evening and we really hit it off. You can head to her website to listen to the podcast and hear us chatting about art and quilting and life and everything. Please leave a comment for me here - I'll be giving away a copy of my new book, Art Quilts at Play, on Wednesday, April 1st (no fooling!)
So you can follow along, in the podcast I talk about the books I've written with Elin Waterston, the shop that my mom and I opened in 1990 (that will continue as an internet store) and my husband's artwork.
UPDATE: The winner of the free book is "sewjoe"! Please contact me with your mailing address and I'll get an autographed copy of Art Quilts at Play right out to you. Thank you everyone for your very kind comments! And thank you Annie for the opportunity to talk to your listeners!
Last week I taught at the Empty Spools Seminar in Asilomar, California. Despite the chilly, rainy weather, it's a magical place. The ocean is a very short walk from the conference center, is visible from many vantage points and the sound of the surf is omnipresent. It was a very inspiring setting for a very creative week. 
The dining hall where everyone on campus gathered for meals. The speed with which they feed hundreds and hundreds of people is astounding.
Just beyond the dining hall is the boardwalk to the dunes and trails. Beautiful even in the grey drizzle.
There are warning signs along the trail to watch out for mountain lions and advice about what to do if confronted with one. I memorized the sign but didn't need to use the advice, phew. There were a lot of crows and racoons, and many almost tame deer wandering about.
My classroom was a cosy building standing by itself, filled with courageous, talented women. We had a wonderful week filled with art and laughter.
It didn't rain the entire week, one morning there was a gorgeous rainbow above the dunes.
The first day I was there my friend, Franki Kohler, and I went to Pacific Grove for lunch and shopping. This is the town where the monarch butterflies gathered by the tens of thousands every year during their migration. A sculpture in front of the post office:
Walking back from an exhibit at the art center I spied these gulls hanging out on top of a car and it struck me as funny.
Wednesday night a bunch of the teachers went to dinner on Cannery Row - Tracey Brookshier, Lura Schwarz Smith and Kerby Smith, Reynola Pakusich, Marcia Stein, Annie Smith and I feasted on seafood and cheesecake.
I'll be back next year during the July session and I'm really looking forward to it!
Lots of stuff going on, lots of changes happening and lots of time being eaten by said stuff and changes, which leaves little time for art. So, I'm going to distract you from the fact that I haven't posted a new Loteria collage in a while with some art I haven't shown yet.
las peras verdes
This is a mixed-media collage mounted on bristol board, using more of the mini-pear prints from last summer.
And this is a quick peek at one of the distractions in my life right now - another reno project, this time in Carlos' studio.
We decided that the shed attached to his studio would benefit from the addition of a window, among other things. Of course, there's always more to a project than that.
First I needed to clean everything out of the room and paint. I like to visualize things in advance (and I'm impatient), hence the blue tape to see where the window will go.
A quick trip to Ikea with a very focused list netted us some extra-tall shelves to create an impressive amount of storage along one wall of the room. I love Ikea.
Today we put in the new window and tomorrow, after the foamy, squirty insulation is dry and shaved down and the moulding is added, I'll take photos from inside. This is a picture from outside and in looking at it closely, I'd better add "paint the barn" to my To Do list for the Spring. Ignore the air conditioner lounging on the shed roof. It's a long story involving two ladders, a long rope, colorful words in several languages, rodent offspring and a slight miscommunication...
Have you noticed that when life-changing events are taking place that you have difficulty producing art? I certainly do. It isn't even a matter of having the time or desire, but rather the mental, emotional and creative energy necessary. So, a fallow and frustrating time.
Here's the big, exciting news! I've been living this project for the last 18 months and I can finally share. Elin Waterston and I have written a new book, Art Quilts at Play, for C&T Publishing, to be released in January 2009.
This new book is a perfect complement to our first book, Art Quilt Workbook, and covers a plethora of surface design techniques and special effects on fabric. The book is full of illustrated how-tos, many, many samples from the different processes and oodles of finished art. Once we've shown you how to create and alter some beautiful fabric, we give you scads of ideas of what to do with it, from challenges and trades to collaborations and more. Our first book was based on an in-depth, comprehensive class that we'd been teaching. This new one also draws on workshops plus the techniques we each use in our own art.
Over a year ago we asked a small number of very talented women in the art quilt and mixed-media world to contribute some pieces to our book and they very generously agreed. Their work enriches the material and shows you how different artists with different voices and different techniques approach the same themes or materials with exciting, original and unique results. We're so grateful to each of them for their contributions.
Natalya Aikens
Woodie Anderson
Liz Berg
Gail Ellspermann
Janet Ghio
Rayna Gillman
Terry Grant
Kathryn Hunter
Andrea Jenkins
Jane LaFazio
Mati McDonough
Tricia McKellar
Kim Rae Nugent
Karen Stiehl Osborn
Virginia Spiegel
Beryl Taylor
A few of our students were also asked and graciously agreed to share their work with us. We are so thankful to them for their generosity (and in a couple of cases, their bravery as well!)
There will be a big release party, book signing and art quilt exhibition at the Country Quilter in Somers NY on Saturday, February 21st and we hope you can join us!
You can pre-order an autographed copy of the book now by contacting me. We're so pleased with the response to our first book and hope that you'll like this one just as much.
This year my whole family took the Buy Handmade Pledge. We put our own spin on it by adding some guidelines for each other:
1. Give something that you made.
2. Give something that someone else made. This lets us support other artists, irl and online.
3. Give something that helps you make things. We're all creative and artistic and a good tool or supply is always much appreciated.
4. Give something that goes with something handmade that you're giving. This one's a loophole, really, but you have to be creative to make it work. So, as an example, if you make an amazing case to put it in, you could give someone a hot new cd.
5. Books and games. Because it isn't Christmas without books and games. This is a total exemption. We're making up our rules, we can do that.
The decks are cleared in my schedule and I've started gathering supplies and tools to work on my projects (including a soldering iron, how intriguing) - plus cool stuff to sell as well, because I want to support other people's handmade pledge. Altruistic, aren't I?
And it's not even Thanksgiving yet... Whoa.
Artist Trading Card with a background of newspaper from India and a Chinese fortune cookie fortune
I love the use of text as a design element. I know that a lot of other artists are also inspired by and incorporate text into their work. I adore the way Karen Stiehl Osborn uses text, Rayna Gillman does beautiful things with letters, and Virginia Spiegel has a way with words, just to name a few. I don't know whether my affinity for the use of all things alphabetical is linked to my colored-grapheme synesthesia or not but I do know that I find it a very satisfying inspiration.
Sometimes the forms of the letters are pure design elements for their shapes, used as background noise, as in this piece from my Climate series.
Sometimes the letters or numbers are large and central to the piece but don't "say" anything.
Sometimes the letters spell something relevant.
I can't get enough letters and numbers. I have over 600 fonts installed on my computer and subscribe to a bunch of font newsletters. You might say that I'm a font junkie. I'm such a letter nerd in fact that I print out and collect the Type Trading Cards from ITC (International Typeface Corporation) each month. They're like ATCs, but with font history and fun facts.
I also collect lots of things that have text on them to use in my work. I have scores of fortune cookie fortunes -
Maps - 
Old music scores - 
Pages from falling-apart books - 
Reproductions of old money or letters - 
Postage stamps - 
And of course, paper and stamps with other languages.
Handmade paper with Korean characters - 
A newspaper from India - 
And more alphabet stamp sets than you can shake a stick at - in every size from 1/4" to 3" high, and several character sets.
I've been playing with layering text of different scales, different languages, different colors, to say something and just for the forms. I can think of so many more directions to explore.
I found some really neat letters made of recycled tin cans in a catalog recently. The letters are about 8" high and 1.5" deep. Because they were on sale, the company was out of a lot of letters and only had two vowels left (u and o). It made spelling something out a little challenging, but I did think of a great word for my studio, as you can see!
My husband walked in right after I hung them up (probably attracted by the hammering) and wanted to know why the wall said "spout". Silly boy...
As promised, here is the rest of the village of fabric houses.
Julie's is a treehouse with a cup of tea in every room.
2 Petit Treeanon, Julie Saviano
Mary Gay's house celebrates her family and pets.
99 Keeler Lane, Mary Gay Leahy
Nancy's depicts her second home on the coast of Maine.
545 Blueberry Hill, Nancy Mirman
My sister, Linda, was inspired by the words of her favorite authors.
1821 Textual Way, Linda Oehler-Marx
I love this interior wall in Linda's house. There are pictures of our mom and grandma and an appropriate sentiment about knitting (both Linda and our mom are knit-fiends and our grandma used to be) plus a warning that I'm next to learn to knit. I told her that when I'm 82 and we're in adjoining rooms in an old folks' home then, and only then, can she teach me to knit.
If you'd like to try a fiber house of your own here are some things to think about:
The opportunity exists for a very allegorical approach to a theme of home. While you can create a literal interpretation of “home” and your memories of it, you can also use the inside/outside aspect of the construcion as a chance to explore:
a vision of what home can be
an interpretation of self
a memory, fantasy, dream or imaginary home
hidden/revealed thoughts using symbolism and personal imagery
a specific room: a studio, a kitchen, a garden room, a library
a journal or story house
a tribute to an artist or writer
a chronology of family
a house as a character in a story
Again, the inspiration for our challenge was the book, In This House by Angela Cartwright & Sarah Fishburn, Quarry Books, July 2007
A cool preview of the houses in the book can be found on Angela's website.
