A Great Week in the Studio

I gave myself a gift for Mother's Day.  I haven't had a lot of time recently to create.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I've been creating, as in creating a new class, but not art work.  So for Mother's Day I gave myself a week to create.

I really wanted to get a piece ready for the Annual SAQA auction.  They are due June 1 so I decided it's now or never.  I still have some work to do on this, I am going to add some beads.  Don't usually do beads but decided this was a great candidate for some beads.


 12 X 12
A Study in Green

 Close-up of A Study in Green

 Another project I've been working on this week is a portrait created using thread painting.  I think I have a good start but it is so hard finding the right color of thread.  I have blended threads in order to get just the color I want but this is not an easy job.  I do love to do this through.  Can't wait to get the wild white hair in his eyebrows and hair line.

Okay, here is my dilemma.  I belong to a wonderful fiber arts group.  We have a challenge where we are to make a monochromatic quilt. I love this group and I want to be supportive and make a piece for this challenge.  I took a wonderful photo last Summer of a sunflower. with the sun shining from behind the flower.

I've wanted to make this into a quilt since I took the photo.  Easy, right?  Not quite.  I dyed fabric last week in graded colors using Tangerine. It turned out beautiful and with a little added brighter yellow the flower develop beautifully.

Now I need a background.  If you know my work you know that I favor bright fabrics.  However, I am trying to follow the guidelines and make this monochromatic.  The piece to the left would fit the bill.  Do I like it?  I'm not sure.

So I auditioned some different backgrounds.  If I used this one it doesn't fit the bill for monochromatic but if it's better then it doesn't matter. Right?

Then I tried this piece of hand dyed multi color.  Not quite as good, in my opinion.

I feel like this is me.  I need to add some leaves and a steam.  I plan to do some hand-quilting in the center maybe add some beads.  No way does it fit the bill for the monochromatic challenge.  I have to make a decision.













Tomorrow is back to work on prepping for my class.  Which by the way is June 2-8 at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.  There are still a few openings in case you would like to learn something new and exciting.

This post is long but I hope you will bear with me I want to add two more photos to give you an idea of what the students will be learning in this class. .

Spirit of the Kive

The technique I used to create the image for this piece will be part of my class presentation.  Included in this process is creating a four-value portrait.

A is for Aubrey


Typographic Portraits will also be taught in this class.  I will also be teaching other techniques as time allows.  Would love to see you there.  




I am linking this post to www.ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Sun, Fun and Dyeing

We have been planning a day of dyeing fabric for a month.  We have been having rain everyday for about a month.  However, yesterday we were blessed with a warm, sunny day, at least until we finished with the session.  About 3:30 the bottom fell out, again, and we had our daily rain.  Shouldn't complain too much, I'm sure we will be wishing for rain later this Summer.

The dyeing session was held at the picnic shelter at Keowee Key, on beautiful Lake Keowee.  Couldn't have been lovelier. 

Bonnie Ouellette, offers this class just about every year.  It's a win, win for the members who don't do a lot of dyeing.  Bonnie, makes up the dyes and furnishes all the supplies, except fabric, and we go and have a fun day dyeing fabric.

Bonnie's not terribly fond of having her photo made so I try to respect her wishes.  I'm showing her back here.  She has the table all set up with bottles of dye that are labeled and ready to use.

She also makes a huge bucket of soda ash water for soaking.

We also dyed some silk scarves by soaking in vinegar  adding the dye and microwaving.  I had time to rinse out the scarves but the cotton fabric needs to set over night.

A few of the scarves.

One of my favorites.

My apologies to the creator of this beautiful piece of fabric, I don't remember her name.

Most of what I created was gradations in color, as that is what I use the most.  They should be ready tomorrow.  Will post those later.  A great day with like minded friends.

This post is linked to www.ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

A if for Aubrey and the museum

A is for Aubrey

Saturday night was the opening reception at the  Pickens County Museum of Art. 

This was a juried exhibit of South Carolina artisans.  There were 394 works of art representing 214 artist. The competition included all mediums. 

The final selection of 112 works of art represented 100 individual currently creating visual art in South Carolina.
Karen Watts, Director of Collections & Exhibitions for  The Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC served as juror.  

My piece A is for Aubrey was one of those pieces. 

The museum has a small gallery on the first floor with a larger and smaller gallery on the second floor. 

The juried show always brings a big audience.  This is the thirty-fourth year for this show of South Carolina artist.

As a fiber artist it is always an honor to be accepted into a mixed media show.  We are still a new medium in the art world to a  lot of folks.

While in the past this juried show, has accepted several pieces of fiber art, this year mine was the only one accepted.  Perhaps it was the only one entered, I will never know.

As photograph has in the past we, as fiber artists,  continue to struggle to be accepted as fine artist.  This year the second place winner went to Sam Wang, a photographer from Clemson, SC.  Five honorable mentions went to photographs. The Director of of the museum, Allen Coleman chose many of these as purchase awards. 

So fellow fiber artist persevere, someday our time will come.

This exhibit is open until June 13, 2013.  If you're in the area it's worth a side trip.

Linked to www.ninamariesayre.blogspot.com  

Quilters, an incredible family

For the last four weeks my little nine year old granddaughter has been in the hospital in California.  She was admitted because she was having severe diarrhea/blood.  They ruled out bacterial and viral infections.  This took about two weeks.  She had to have a  (Pix IV, not sure of spelling) put in because they had to give her nourishment, liquids and meds.

When the infections were ruled out she had to have an endoscopy and a colonoscopy with a biopsy.  From this they found that she had Crohn's disease.  After starting medication they allowed her a liquid diet and then a soft solid diet.  After one day on the soft food she began having trouble again so off food and back on the IV diet.


This photo shows her in the courtyard with her dog Clyde.  He was able to visit.  She adores Clyde.

After her relapse I put out a request to our local guild, Lake and Mountain Quilt Guild. My friends on Face Book and the Quilting Arts Digest on line chat group.  Not only has she been receiving an outpouring of cards, someone sent her this little quilt.  My DIL said it only said from Susan, Clemson, SC.  I know Susan has to be associated with our guild and am trying to find out who this Susan is.  I want to send her a note of gratitude.

Sydney is quit the creative one.  Her room is filled with Origami cranes that were made by employees at the Museum of Natural History in San Diego, CA where my son works.  She decided that she wanted to make cranes for a little patient, down the hall from her, who has leukemia.  She made a string of them for the girl to hang in her room.

She's also been busy making sock critters.  These are made from hospital socks and some decorative thread I sent her.








 A few of Sydney's critters

I have always known how generous quilters are, I've seen them make comfort quilts, quilts for the military, homeless, chemo quilts, pillows, doll quilts for abused children, disaster and the list could go on and on.  However, when you are personally touched by the generosity of this giving community you really realize how special quilters are.

Sydney is on solids again and we are hoping that this time she will be able to tolerate the food so she can go home.

 This is a photo of Sydney going through fabric in my studio a couple of Summers ago.  When I told her she could go through my fabric and pick out what she wanted, her eyes got big and a smile crossed her face.  I think this little girl will grow into a quilter one day.  Whether or not she becomes a quilter I know that she will find a way to "Pay it Forward" because that is the kind of person she is.





This post is linked to www.ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

PS: Since I wrote this Sydney has received bunches of cards.  She also received a small pieced angel and a small wall hanging of two owls.  The owls came from Sylvia Weir from the Art Digest on-line group and the angel from Susan Wright of my local guild.

Sent from Sylvia Weir

by Susan Wright













I can't tell you how much receiving these have meant to this little girl.  I found out today that if things progress today as they have for the past two days that she will be able to go home tomorrow.  I also found out that her group Girls on the run have decided to honor her by making up bags of crafts, stuffed animals, etc  to take to the Children's Hospital.  What a wonderful thing that has come out of her ordeal. 

A Beautiful Fabricated Face

On May 3, I am teaching my Fabricating Faces class for the Foothills Piecemaker's Quilt Guild in Greenville, SC.  When I teach a class I always like to make a new sample.  It refreshes my memory on each step and I always like to have a new piece to show.

This beautiful girl to the left is one of my granddaughters.  I was lucky enough during the Easter holidays to be with her and get some much needed new photos.

In this post I am going to show the steps to this process and explain just a little how this is done.

This is not quite the finished product as it has not been pressed.  I also am going to add a few more things when I get time.  Looks like her doesn't it?

The first step is to do some computer manipulation in PSE to create a posterization.  This gives you the pattern you will follow.

















Here I have selected the four value shades of light gray/dark gray.  It looks like I have covered some of the fabric up, but you get the idea.

Cutting out layer one.  Isn't it amazing how much of this images comes up with just two values of fabric?

Cutting layer two.  Here I have added the third layer of value.  It's coming together isn't it?

Cutting layer four.  You may notice that I am only talking about cutting three layers.  The first layer acts as the base for the image and you actually begin cutting on layer two.  A bit complicated for this post, but not difficult to understand in class.

Just about finished.  I have a few things I need to do to this layer before I press all the layers together. 

This is such a fun technique to do, the students are always excited with the end results.  In a few weeks I will have some student images to share.

www.ninamariesayre.blogspot.com   This post is linked to Nina Marie's Off The Wall Fridays 

I really wanted to get this done before I posted so I spent more time in the studio tonight than normal.  Wanted to try the rose in red.  What do you think?  Shades of gray or red?

A busy week with nothing to Show

It;s been one of those weeks when you work all day and into the evening with nothing tangible to show.  I really have accomplished a lot and I suppose you could call it creative but it's not work done in my studio.  I haven't been able to really create art work for a few weeks and I miss it.  Actually I think it is affecting my attitude. This morning I decided that no matter how much I needed to work on other things tomorrow is a create day in my studio.

These are a few things that I did accomplish this week.  There are two exhibits calls that had to be in this week and I was able to get the paper work and labels for pieces that I had finished made.  I entered Ohn and A is for Aubrey in the Thirty-Fourth Annual South Carolina Juried Exhibit at the Pickens Museum of Art.

Ohm

 A is for Aubrey

Just found out that A is for Aubrey was juried into the Pickens Museum of Art.  More later.















As I began downloading these images I realized that my granddaughter Aubrey was the inspiration for both of these piece.  The jurier will make selections this weekend and we will know if our work has been chosen by next week. 

I also entered three pieces in the upcoming exhibit Wings at The Arts Center in Clemson, SC.

 
Watching for Worms

Wax Wing

Sanctuary















When I delivered my work I got a little sneak preview of some of the entries.  This is going to be a great show.

Other things on my list this week have been computer generated work.  I am going to be teaching at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium 2014, held in Wilmington, NC.  I had to spend time this week getting information together to send for their brochure.  The other biggie and there is still lots of work to do on this one, is my week long class in June at J. C. Campbell Folk School.  This is my first time for teaching this class so I have lots of instructions and information to compile.

Looking forward to tomorrow and a little play time in the studio.

Linked tohttp://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

A Wedding and Art Therapy

Just a little personal note here, my son was married this past weekend in Richmond, VA.  Can you see how happy he is?
The wedding was in his back garden, a beautiful place, the weather cooperated and we had a wonderful time.  Now on to art work.

This is my DH and my wonderful MIL.  For 90 yrs. this lady took care of herself, family, friends and her church.  Last year, she began forgetting things and it progressed very fast.  Within the year she had to go to a Memory Unit at a nursing home.

We live in SC and she lives in NC.  We visit as often as we can and stopped by on our way back to SC from the wedding.  We brought her some wedding cake and showed her photos of the wedding.

When we arrived she was in the activity room painting.  Visitors are always welcome to come in and visit when the patient works. 

The activity director, Nita is so outgoing, she always has something funny to say to the patients and she finds ways to keep each one interested in what is going on.

I was so impressed with how she encouraged the patients.  She gave them each a photograph printed on regular paper.  The subject that day was a bird in a tree.  Each one is given paint and brushes and encouraged to paint over the photograph.  It is somewhat like coloring but the colors are already there.  However, that didn't mean everyone used those colors.  I didn't think until after we left the craft room to take photos so I don't have the ones of the birds.

 These two paintings show how differently each person sees the flower.

Look how impressionistic the bottom piece looks. I wanted to share the wonderful work that these people do.  Nita said that she wants to encourage, not intimidate the patient.  What a wonderful way to achieve her goal.  The white spots are where I removed names to insure privacy. 

This post is connected to Off the Wall Friday  www.ninamariesayer.blogspot.com

People & Portraits

Recently on a dreary, rainy day while my husband watch basketball games all day, I had the time to spend looking at my newly acquired book People & Portraits by Martha Sielman.

Normally I would have been working in my studio but I was away visiting my daughter.  I spent most of the day lying on the couch, covered in a quilt, drinking coffee and reading from front to back this beautiful new book.

It is rare that I read what I might call a book for the eyes, but I read every word written by Martha and the featured artist of this interesting and informative book.

Martha says in introduction that when she began considering the images for this book that she thought she might use age or gender to organize the book. However, she soon realized that those categories missed the feeling of the art.  She ended up using the emotional truth of the portraits: happiness, contemplation, Icons, family and friends, work and play.


A little self promotion here, on page 34 in the section on Happiness, you will find Connor by yours truly.  Martha couldn't have chosen a better section for this piece.  My husband and I decided that we would celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary by taking our whole family on a trip to Costa Rica.  It was the best time, best money we ever spent.  One of true happiness.

Recently I put together a power point presentation titled The Many Ways to Fabricate Faces.  During the compiling of information and photos for this presentation I emailed artist who's work I knew or had seen somewhere on the internet.  Everyone of these talented artist agreed for me to post photos and some even send more information and photos for me to use.  Almost all of them are in this book.

 
Kati by Aniko Feher

When I saw this piece on the internet I did not know who Aniko was nor had I seen any of her work.  The graphics of this piece is what caught my eye.  I loved the fact that she used stripes and polka dots as her border. When I saw this piece in Martha's book I was so excited.  It is the lead in for the section Contemplation.

Homeless Love by Mary Pal
Mary is one of the twenty-one featured artist. While I have many portrait artist who's work I love, Mary is at the top of my list.

It is amazing to me that she can accomplish a piece of art that looks like this using white cheese cloth, glue and a piece of black fabric as the background.

I met Mary in Houston two years ago at the awards ceremony for IQA Festival.  I had just barely made it to the auditorium before the ceremony began.  After I sat down she introduced herself and I did the same.  I have quite a hearing problem and all I got was Mary.  When they called her name for her award and I saw her piece come up on stage I almost fell out of my chair.  I couldn't believe I was sitting next to her. Do I sound a little star struck?

What never ceases to amaze me when I meet these fabulously talented artist is, they are so normal.  So sharing and modest. I could go on with other stories about the artist in the book and share more photos but,
I'm going to stop and suggest that you find your way to a book store or order off the interne, this beautiful book.

This post is linked to http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/  
Off the Wall Friday