Dang!!!!! Quilt National anyway!!!

Live Water

Live Water-- detail

Well Gosh Darn!!!! If you know me well you know this is NOT what I have just spit from my mouth. I truly thought this piece had what it took to get selected for Quilt National. The upside is that I can now market the heck out of this piece. Had it been selected it would have been traveling for the next 2 years. Part of the highly restrictive rules of QN is that you can't post the work to anything but your own website. Fear of someone else copying and reposting my work kept me from posting when I completed it. So NOW you can see it in all its glory. This piece finished out at 70" x 105" in three panels. It is a happy piece that takes you to another world. The price is $9750. If you'd like to receive a higer resolution image of this, please email me and I'll get it right off to you. The back side has a similar imagery done in dyes and pigments-- so it could hang against a curtain wall (an interior glass wall) and both sides could work for you.

One of the trickier aspects of making pieces this large is that there are so few venues that will allow pieces of this scale. So my new marketing plan is to send out portfolios to art consultants and architectural firms that have the audience I am seeking.

In the meantime I'll work out my frustration discovering some new avenues with the potato dextrin and see what my next major thing will be. The upside is that my studio is getting a cleaning it hasn't had in over a year.

Good news has also come this week. Barnes Jewish Hospital has selected Burning Leaves to hang in its lobby area. This is a major piece that was most recently shown at William Woods University-- Celebrating Creativity. Thanks to my agent Sandra Kolde. I really appreciate her keeping my work in mind when talking with major accounts. Although I would much rather sell my work outright, leasing provides a foundation that pays my studio rent and frees up my attention for creating.

Now that I am no longer wondering about QN I can get back to wondering if the sky is falling in the stock market. Oh joy!

Recent experiments

I've been spending the month of September playing around. Most of my experimenting has to do with playing around with thickened dyes and silk screen variations. The flashes above were done with freezer paper adhered temporarily to my blank silkscreen. The gingko, yoga gal, and weave were done with my thermofax silkscreens, again using thickened dyes. The pale reddish part was done with the technique of painting thickened dyes onto a silkscreen, letting it dry and then using dye thickener goop to release the color onto the piece.--deconstuctive silkscreening.
This one, as with the previous one, has been built up over several months. This is on a 100% linen that I found for $1/yd on the stack at Walmart. ( I bought the bolt) All except the gloppy streaks were done with thickened dyes and silkscreen. The gloppy was done by simply dripping thickened dyes off the end of a brush.
This is another idea I've been playing with. I had bought a bag similar to this at the Dairy Barn a few years ago. At the time I thought it was a small bag for evening use. As it turned out, it was more of a pocket to wear around your neck. Lately I have been wearing lots of clothes that don't seem to have pockets. That means nowhere to put my phone. So I decided to resurrect this concept using recent colorations. I found a small shop in Hardy, Arkansas that is carrying ( AND SELLING!!!!!) some of my smaller works. I brought them my little pockets-- we're calling them Posh Pockets. At a mere $18 I am hoping they fly off the rack.

I also bought a needle felting machine recently and have been playing around with it. I'm still breaking needles- argh. But it is a fun toy.

My immediate experiments are with Potato Dextrin. I've got several pieces batching right now and expect to receive some more potato dextrim powder in the mail today.

This is the longest I have allowed myself for pure experimenting in ages. While on this jag I am also playing with some disperse dyes, and am delving into the methods Jane Dunnewold and friends have used to laminate imagery and metal leaf to fabrics.

My next major actual project is to do three vertical panels that will have the silhouettes of 3 musicians who were sidemen to my husband's recording sessions. Since he normally plays alone on stage, these will hang as backdrops behind him-- giving the illusion that he is not alone on stage. There will be a stand-up bass, a clarinet or saxaphone, and a lead guitar. Perhaps even a drummer. I am hoping to incorporate some of these new methodoligies into that project. The plan is to use them on the CD cover. It is due out just before Christmas. Time to get cracking!

Stolen work

This was truly a roller coaster day. First the good news-- 2 of my works that I have been trying to get into shows for a while finally made it. My Bass Ackwards Series: Sunflower and Bee Balm were both accepted into the 4 state regional show at the Springfield Art Museum. They'll hang from mid October through mid January.

Now the disappointing news-- my quilt Full Moon/ Low Ceiling has been stolen from the wall of my exhibition at the Gillioz Theater. As it is an ongoing investigation there isn't much I can or should say about it except that it appears to have been stolen by a patron of the restaurant Tonic which is next to the theater and shares a lobby/ bathrooms. I am quite encouraged by the response from both the theater and the police. They are surprisingly optimistic about recovery. When I know more and am allowed to share I'll do so. In the mean time I am posting here so there is a place that can be easily referenced. The size is 49" H x 35" W.

This piece depicts the sky on one of those nights when the moon is very full and the clouds are quite low-- creating an eery mauvy glow.

While I am sad at the piece being out there without a legitimate owner I am hoping that it is an opportunity for it to bring joy to someone along its path. And yes-- I WILL prosecute!!!

But the thief cannot take away the joy I felt while creating this piece. I'll have that forever. This is one of my personal favorites.

In the mean time I am spending September experimenting with various resists. Potato dextrin is my current playmate. I'll post some images in a few days.

recent commission

This commission is one I sent off yesterday to its new home in Chicago. It was commissioned as a reward to herself by a lady who had finally completed her training toward her PhD. It is a prime example of combining my talents with the individual desires of my client. She was in love with my quilt (seen below) Ridgeline:Afterglow. She had seen the work while it hung as the focal point in the restaurant Cafe 37 in West Plains, MO. The size and cost of the bigger piece was overwhelming so we collaborated to come up with a more appropriate work for her circumstances. I had a lot of fun revisiting the sunset as a color element and I have refined my trees. Her love of cypress trees plus my previous use of the looking-up-through-the-trees imagery (in Listening for the Silence) steered us toward this combination. http://www.rebelquilter.com/recent_works.htm to see this work.
I had created Ridgeline: Afterglow in 2003 or 4. Since then I have created over 75 works over 27" in width.

Thanks to my longtime friend Suzanne Fuqua from Dallas I have a new gallery I'll be working with. The Cerulean Gallery in Snyder Plaza has one of the toniest addresses and is adjacent to SMU. I had a nicely successful exhibition last year in Dallas at the MADI Museum and I believe that helped to open the door to my work being embraced by the gallery owner. I look forward to this new relationship. Check out their website www.theceruleangallery.com and Suzanne's at www.suzannespaintings.com.

I am back hard at work on my "Live Water" piece. I have begun the quilting on the center panel. It must be finished by the end of the month. Zoom zoom zoom. My local library hasn't added any new books on Cd recently so I have been listening to my sirius radio. It is a recent addition to my studio and a blessing. My studio is in a hollow so I can only get the strongest local stations-- country. UGH. I love listening to NPR Now as well as the coffee house stations.

Hasta la vista.

Live Water Progress

This is the current state of the three panels -- front side.
I decided I would, using surface design techniques, somewhat duplicate the front on the back
Here is a detail of the back panel. You can see I have used the fish again- painted this time. I first dyed the panel using thickened dyes. Hollis Chatelain you have nothing to worry about from me!!! Then to blend the colors more I went back and stamped more color with my 2 favorite stamps. One uses those floor tile spacers- the tiny ones. The other is just pieces of foam stuck onto a piece of plexiglas. I used acrylics and textile medium when needed to thin.
Another of the panels.
This shows all three back panels. Hopefully you can see that they are somewhat a duplicate of the front. I am not trying for an exact match- just a disorientation.

Scalped!!!

This was not at all the haircut I had planned. In fact I just wanted the usual 1/2" off my normal do. But this is what happened when I requested my hairdresser get off the phone while cutting my hair. She had been speaking to her mother-in-law for several minutes with no indication she planned to get off. After fuming, myself, for several minutes I finally said, "I'll be happy to wait until you are off the phone for you to finish my haircut". She actually said "Why? Am I messing up the cut?" I said, "No. But I am not paying you to talk on the phone. I am paying for you to cut my hair." Several near silent minutes later I commented that it sure was short. She said," Well I had to even things up!" Then she blasted me for treating her so badly and fired me as a client. The conversation went downhill from there and I realised there was no point in trying for rationality any longer.

So, Katie Grimes, I hope everyone in Thayer, MO sees your scalping and doesn't give you the chance to mess with them. I considered having business cards made of this photo and giving Ms. Grimes the credit she deserves while posting them on bulletin boards all over town.... But a week later, I am nearly over this by now. Grrr. and yes, I even paid her but NO TIP!!!!

live water

Swarms= schools of fish
To create the fish I first made a stamp using a glue gun to outline the fish shape onto silk organza. Then I came back and painted in the shading. I added fusible web to the back side of the organza. Then stitched around the fish shapes to create appliques. Then I cut away the extra organza and then heat fused the fish down.

This larger view shows how the fish flow onto the first and third panels.

My next step is to dye the backs. I plan to use thickened dyes to paint on the dyes in such a way that it looks like you are seeing the front from the back.