Honoring the Traditional in Contemporary Quilt Pieces

The background of these poppies is pieced with a traditional feel
Artist unknown

I love how some quilters mix the old with the new.  I think this is a wonderful way to honor the traditional roots of quilting.  I'm always amazed at how some quilters can make such beautiful pieced backgrounds that totally enhance their subject using traditional piecing.

This group quilt shown at the Pacific West Quilt show in 2011 uses a blend of traditional-feeling piecing
and shadow imagery very effectively

One quilter who mixes traditional log cabin blocks with contemporary portraits was featured at the Bellevue Art Museum's "High Fiber Diet" show.  Luke Haynes repurposes old, discarded clothing into the block backgrounds of his quilts.  The pictorial foregrounds are unique... he asked friends to come and pose for a photo session.  Not only did he use the portraits to make the content of the picture, he had his models leave behind the clothes they wore in the photo shoot... and then he used their clothing for their portraits!

Clothes Portrait #1 - Cupcake by Luke Haynes	Clothes Portrait # 2 - Helmet by Luke Haynes	Camera by Luke Haynes

Tree quilt displayed at Block Party Quilters show
in 2009- Artist unknown

While this tree may seem simplistic in style, the background brings thoughts of upcoming winter with the blues and purples and neutrals in combination with the yellowing autumn leaves.  Also, the complementary colors of the yellow with purple help make the quilt more interesting.

I'd like to apologize to any artists whom I do not have their names... I have taken many pictures over my many years of quilting of quilts I'd admired to look at for inspiration.  Unfortunately, I wasn't always as careful to note the artist's name or name of the piece in the past. I hope that my sharing of your quilt for other's inspiration will be seen as praise for your skills.  If you know the name of any artist or piece that I do not have attributed, please let me know and I'll correct it.

Do you have any quilts that combine the traditional with the contemporary?

You might also be interested in:

BAM High Fiber Diet

A Sprig Away

Developing the 
Creative Habit

See some fabulous quilts on Connie Kresin's Freemotion by the River

Check out all the linked up blogs of quilts and projects on Quilt Story

Meeting your artistic potential

Do you feel like you are meeting your potential?  Or do you feel like you haven't quite made it or like you aren't really even sure how to get to what you think your potential might be?  

This question is on my mind after celebrating my son's Eagle Scout Court of Honor yesterday.  I made a slideshow for the program, with pictures of my son's scouting activities- from first grade through his Sr. year of high school.  It hasn't always been an easy road... he was even asked to take some time off from scouting at one point.  However, I can now see how all the effort (on both his and my parts) has paid off.  He's made a great step towards meeting his potential.

"By a Nose" by Christina Fairley Erickson
My quilt won a 1st place at an Equine Art Show... however
it's done with a technique I learned from Noriko Endo...
does that then truly represent my artistic voice?

One of my quests this year in my 5 x 7 Challenge, beyond the concept of how making art each and every week will help the quality of my work, is to find my authentic voice as an artist.  Finding your voice as an artist seems to be a tricky thing for many of us.  I've tried many styles of quilts and am still working out how to have my work represent who I am, and not be something you look at and say... "Oh that looks like ____________(put well-know quilt artist's name here) work."  My work should look like Christina Fairley Erickson's work.

I'm clear that I like pictorial or representational work.  I also like stitch, both machine and hand.  So those are the areas I'm exploring.  But the ways in which I put them together need to be my own.  

I thought I'd share another of the artist's work from the Bellevue Art Museum's "High Fiber Diet" exhibit.  Maria Shell, of Anchorage AK, spent a year exploring the potential of variations of pattern over the course of many grid pieces.  Each of the nine pieces is made from vintage and contemporary commercial cotton textiles, hand-dyed fabric, batting and thread. So, your basic quilting components.  

Maria felt that by limiting the structure of her work to the grid, she was able to fully explore color... how to make color vibrate on the wall.  She discovered that the proportion of line and shape in the relation to color evokes different experiences in each piece.  The shot below is looking at a towering 20 foot wall of her quilts.  Each piece is approximately 5 -6 feet square.

From left to right, starting upper left:  Picnic, Holey Rollers, 36 Ninjas, Speedy Higgins Play the Drums, Solstice, Get On Up, Deep Blue Sea, Funky Monkey, Habanero by Maria Shell

How do we find our authentic voice?  Creative choice is at the heart of authenticity.  So when making our choices, we are exploring our own voice.  However, if your choices are limited or you feel constrained by things you've learned from other "experts", it's good to also question when to break free of doing things in someone else's style.  

 How are you living up to your potential this year?  Are you striving to find your authentic voice or do you feel confident in your artistic direction?  I believe that through exploring these themes and types of questions, we become closer to finding our real selves.  Through that, our artistic voice will come through.

You can see the vibrancy in Maria's work
with this sample from "Deep Blue Sea"

While "Solstice" doesn't play with color, Maria's
use of pattern and repetition make for a striking piece

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BAM High Fiber Diet

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& Call for Entry

Fitting My Challenge
with Showing

Trees as Fiber Art

"Forest" by Leslie Richmond
Mixed fiber fabric, heat reactive base, metal patinas, acrylic paint, dyes

"Forest" detail by Leslie Richmond

Lesley Richmond of Vancouver B.C. created this fantastic piece of mixed fiber fabric, a heat reactive base, metal patinas, acrylic paint, and dyes.  She starts with taking photos of trees, focusing on the branch structure.  From there, she uses the images to make a silk screen and prints the trees on a silk-cotton fabric with a heat-reactive base.  When heated, the heat-reactive base both expands and becomes dimensional.  

"Forest" detail by Leslie Richmond

She then removes the remaining cellulose/cotton fibers with a mild acid.  What remains is the image and the silk-threads in the background.  The final processes are stiffening the structures of the trees and painting them with acrylic paints and metallic patinas.  

I think this piece may have been my favorite in the whole exhibition.  I really recommend looking at Lesley's website. Her work is exceptional!

"Forest" detail by Leslie Richmonds

"Untitled" by Scott Fife
Archival cardboard, drywall screws, and glue

I had the pleasure of sitting next to one of the artists during the BAM High Fiber Diet Symposium, Scott Fife.    Scott's sculpture is large... life sized.  Loving our Northwest beaches, it's amazing to encounter a humongous piece of driftwood leaning up against the wall of a formal art museum.

Actually, this sculpture is probably 12-15 feet in height.  It's made from archival cardboard, drywall screws and glue.  He chose to use cardboard as a way to honor and reclaim the product that originally came from a tree.  Scott's recent work is particularly interested in the mortality of trees.


For the last year, I've been learning to make driftwood sculpture.  The type of sculpture I'm making is based of the Luron method... a way to take an interesting piece of driftwood (you need to choose a piece with interesting lines, curves, and grain) and the remove the outer dead layers of wood to find the inner heartwood.

Below the detailed images of Scott's driftwood log are a few of the beautiful pieces made by members of the the Northwest Driftwood Artists (and two of my teachers).

"Untitled" detail by Scott Fife
Tree knot

"Untitled" detail by Scott Fife
Tree knot 

"Tumbleweed" by Dave Sao

"Wildfire" by Dave Sao

"Emerging Swan" by Tuttie Peet

"Safe Haven" by Jo Marsh

You Might Also Be Interested In:

BAM High Fiber Diet

Beachpiration

Driftwood Art

For great ideas on freemotion quilting, check out Leah Day's FreeMotion Quilting Project

Recognizing our limits and not giving up

There are times for each of us when we need to just need to assess what's realistic.  It's been that kind of week.  As I mentioned a few days ago, I have a Valentines special trip to visit my girlfriend and her husband for their twenty-fifth anniversary.  It turns out that Valentine's and President's day coincide with my sons' mid-winter break, so my family and mother and I are taking a long weekend trip down to the San Francisco Bay area.  But, as most of us know, things start to get complex as soon as you plan to get out of town.

My cilantro machine embroidery on the background fabric
I've chosen (still to be completed.)

Therefore, I haven't finished my 5 x 7 art piece for the last week.  I'm not sure whether I'll get one done in the coming week, since I'm out of town.  However, I did bring my sketchbook along, so perhaps I can finish something that way.  My current 5 x 7, my cilantro piece, is well on it's way.  So, I might get it finished when I get back next Tuesday.

Regardless, I want to be honest with you... I think it's important to recognize that we can't always reach our goals.  I've had a few people feel like they couldn't continue with the 5 x 7 challenge, because things came up and they weren't able to do their artwork a week or two.  Sometimes the most important thing is to accept our failures and then get back to work.  Perseverance pays.  So even though I know last week and this coming one might not be as productive as I had hoped, I will not give up.

Here are a few more wonderful pieces from the Bellevue Art Museum "High Fiber Diet" exhibit:

"The Contact: Climax Forest"
by Ann Johnston

These three pieces by Ann Johnston were hung together and all feature Ann's hand-dyed fabrics.  Climax Forest is hand dyed cotton that has been hand & machine stitched.  I love the complementary color scheme with the golden yellow-orange and blue.

"The Contact: Nevadan Orogeny"
by Ann Johnston

Her piece Nevadan Orogeny is also hand dyed cotton with machine stitching.  It represents the era where massive plumes of molten magma intruded into the earth's crust, lifting and creating the western part of the North American continent.

The final piece,Vigil is also hand dyed cotton with hand & machine stitching.  I love the cracked look of the mountain peaks.  I've climbed glaciers in Alaska and while the beauty of the great blue ice is incredible, something that many people don't know is that the ices has cracks and lines of dirt, from the rocks that have been crushed through the force and power of the glacier.

"The Contact: Vigil"
by Ann Johnston

The next piece, "Studio" was constructed with Felt, Polyfiber, wire, and PVC.  Tamara Wilson of Fairbanks AK recreates her surroundings with felt and thread.  She feel that comfort and warmth, safety and security are conveyed both through the topic of her familiar surroundings as well as the usage of felt.

Each part of the scene below is made out of the felt and supporting pieces... and I mean every part of the scene... the bike on the wall, the light bulb and wire it hangs from, the table & chair, the sewing machine, reading glasses, cup of noodles, trashcan, etc.  All of it!

"Studio" by Tamara Wilson

"Studio" detail view

I hope this gives you a little inspiration and helps you remember that it's ok when you don't always meet your goals.  Goals are there to help you... to light your way.  When you have other things in your life, it's o.k.  Learning balance is such a critical part of all of our lives.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

BAM High Fiber Diet

A Sprig Away

Developing the 
Creative Habit

For great ideas on freemotion quilting, check out Leah Day's FreeMotion Quilting Project

A Sprig Away

Today's project has been working on a sprig of Cilantro for my Salsa quilt.  This has been a little more challenging, as the uneven ruffled edges of the cilantro and the thin, fine stalks are going to make it pretty impossible to turn under the edges to applique.  Unless you know a technique that I don't!

"Cilantro" freehand machine embroidery by Christina Fairley Erickson

"Cilantro" back

So, I did this one a little differently, in that I decided to put a green, leafy background on the back, below the layers of stabilizer.  This way, I can carefully cut around my machine embroidery and fasten it to the background, but allow some of the leaves to not be completely secured, and the backing fabric will show.  I expect I'll have to color along the edges where I cut, however.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with the background this time around, though I'm considering putting it on either a red or yellow-orange piece.  While I'm working on this little sprig, here's something to think about on a much grander scale!

Sea Nettle" by Dina Barzel in foreground
"Bridging Shine" by Jo Hamilton in background

Yesterday, I started talking about the Bellevue Art Museum's (BAM) current exhibit "High Fiber Diet."  One of the artists and a friend of mine, Dina Barzel, is an incredible woman in the fiber arts.  Dina has been working as a full-time artist since 1970 and makes fiber sculptures.  I met Dina through the Surface Design Association and am happy to have her join our monthly meetings here in Bellevue.  Dina was born and grew up in the Western Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania.  The traditional uses of fibers were an essential part of everyday life, and made quite an impression on her.

Dina's sculpture for this show, "Sea Nettle" is made of silk fibers, shaped around molds.  Some of the molds are large and light enough to even hold the artist!  The silken globe rise up to the twenty foot ceiling, some partially open, as though they are allowing others to escape from within.

In the background, you'll see an oversized male portrait called "Bridging Shine" by Jo Hamilton. This piece is made completely of mixed crocheted yarn and is about twice the size of life.

"Sea Nettle" by Dina Brazel (detail)

"Sea Nettle" by Dina Brazel (detail)

You might also be interested in:

BAM High Fiber Diet

La Cebolla (Onion)

Developing the 
Creative Habit

For wonderful Tutorials on FreeMotion Quilting and more, go to Leah Day's FreeMotion Quilting Project

BAM - High Fiber Diet

Today was all about the High Fiber Diet... and I'm not talking about food!  Our local Bellevue Arts Museum or 'BAM' is currently hosting a Biennial exhibition which is featuring Fiber this year!  BAM has considered one of its roles to include recognizing "the enduring and uninterrupted role of craft in shaping the aesthetic landscape of the region" (from the High Fiber Diet exhibit pamphlet.)  Today they hosted an all day Symposium with incredible speakers and moderators which left me itching to come home and create!  Since today was our normal day for our Contemporary QuiltArt Association meeting, we choose to meet at the symposium instead... which gave BAM a sold-out crowd!

"Oyster Light" by Barbara Lee Smith

"Oyster Light" detail by Barbara Lee Smith

One of the well-known moderators was Barbara Lee Smith, a resident of a small island in the Puget Sound. Barbara's piece, "Oyster Light" is made from painted, collaged, and stitched synthetic fabric- a translucent, non-woven industrial fabric that looks like Japanese paper.  Her sewing lines "echo the currents of sea and air, the topography of the earth, mapping the work with stitches that literally and figuratively finish it."

Lorraine Barlow, Howard Barlow, Nate Steigenga,
Jiseon Lee Isbara and Barbara Lee Smith
(from left to right) at BAM Symposium 2/09/2013

Barbara moderated a talk called "Reinventing Tradition" with four of the other artists in the show.  It was fascinating to hear the viewpoints and how tradition has influenced some very cutting-edge fiber artists.

"The Infallible Accounts of the Tilapia People and the Dead Which
Soon Outnumbered Them: a Toile De Jouy" by Nate Steigenga

One of the artists on the panel, Nate Steigenga, won the John and Joyce Price Award for Excellence for the BAM show, earning him his own solo show in the future.  The fascinating thing about his piece is that it is reminiscent of a traditional quilt... sort of a tree of life feel, but when you get up close it's much closer to something you'd see Hieronymus Bosch create with fabric!  It's actually a twist on Toile de Jouy, a type of fabric with an intricate scene printed on it.  This artwork is made from bedsheets and pillow shams are backed with ironed-on drawer liners, which gives shade and depth to semi-transparent fabrics.  Nate uses an exceptionally fine collage technique (many of his pieces are tooth-pick wide slivers.)

While I appreciate the process that went into the piece, as well as the black humor, I find it somewhat disturbing... I could stare at Barbara Lee Smith's piece all day, but this left me somewhat disquieted.  But perhaps that is the point.

Detail from Nate Steigenga's artwork

Detail from Nate Steigenga's artwork

 There really is so much to say about all the pieces at this exhibition that it will probably take me many, many posts to share them all with you.

In a way, it was somewhat daunting. Here are "real" fiber artists... at least to this museum's tastes.  Art should be an expression of oneself and each piece in this exhibit is so different that it's can be overwhelming.  A few of the people discussed the sense of the the exhibit being "loud" since there is so much (44 artists... many with huge sculptural pieces) and that it isn't a body of work that all goes together.


I found some of the work inspirational, some of it to be admired for technique, and some awe-inspiring for the scale or complexity which the artist achieved.   But, most importantly, it was wonderful to be immersed in a community of artists with a "common thread" running through us all.  Seeing all my CQA friends, meeting many of the artists with pieces in the show, it reminded me of how important it is to get out of the studio from time-to-time and see others who are involved in your genre of art.

I'll post more photos from the exhibit soon.




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