What a Year!

Two quilts accepted to World of Beauty, a new hip, Katie Pasquini-Masopust's Juror's Award for "Escape II", Pokey Bolton buying it, Vicki Anderson buying the canvas version of it as it opened in Chandler at Art Quilts XVII, a new knee, a blue ribbon in the state quilt show in Art Abstract, a commissioned painting completed that was 4' x 5' and 5 quilts ready for entering in the Houston specialty shows! Escape II and Words can be seen in my last post.

And I just finished and mailed my auction piece for the SAQA auction, which is where I left you last year. The title is "The Secret". It is painted on canvas and quilted. It's 12" x 12" and will be auctioned in the annual SAQA auction this fall.

"Ancient Fisherman" won me a blue ribbon in the Arizona State Guild annual show in the art abstract category. It was a canvas that I had painted years ago. I had Studio West  print it on cotton sateen. I then over painted the whole piece to make it different colors. I used acrylic paint and fabric medium. It was then quilted on my Bernina 820. It's 30" H x 74" W.

I made two new pieces for a SAQA show in New Mexico: "All Bluster I and II". They were inspired by seeing a weather alert. One of them is painted on canvas with organza appliques and the other is fabric with organza and scrim appliques. Both are painted with acrylic paint and fabric medium.

They were joined in New Mexico by my painted diptych, "Pair o'  Pair o' Docks":

                                        

These are painted canvases (3 coats with no ruler) that were quilted. They are a visual paradox (pair o' docks). They are painted with only 3 colors, orange, pink and ONE green!     

I painted a huge still life for a client of my designer friend. She wanted a large painting for a very large space and a tall wall. Here is "Artichoke and Friends": The painting is 48" x 60". I had never done anything like this before, but really enjoyed it. The third picture is a detail. There were at least a jillion grapes, 6 layers each! It will become a digital quilt sometime this year!

I can't show you all of the five pieces I made for Houston, but here is the one I entered in "In Bloom", with a detail. I had painted this painting years ago  and thought it would be fun for a quilt so had Studio West print it on silk. I then over-painted the whole piece. The original was very pastel (client's wish). I don't do pastel for me! After I painted it, I quilted it with my "Bernard". It was rejected....sigh. But I've already entered it in another show. Maybe....

                                                                       

  

I can show you my other pieces in a couple of weeks if I get more rejections....If I get accepted into Festival Gallery "Home", "Ruby Jubilee", "Raining Cats and Dogs", "life begins at 40", I'll show you little bitty snippets.

I did one other quilt, for Tactile Architecture, but didn't get it finished so it will go somewhere else and don't want to show it yet. I haven't decided where to send it, and some shows have restrictions.

I plan to enter Art Quilts XVIII, Quilts=Art=Quilts and Road so I have lots of fun ahead of me. There are 3 pieces ready to quilt! And of course they will get some paint and maybe some appliques. I'll post again....maybe before another year has gone by ....

SAQA Auction Quilt for 2013 Auction

I forgot to talk about the SAQA auction. Studio Art Quilt Associates has about 3000 members and supports art quilting and the education of the public about art quilting. About 400 of us each created a 12" square quilt to be auctioned in September/Oct/Nov.


Here is my contribution: It is called Yummy Leftovers. I used scraps of Dupioni silk and threads to make my small quilt.

 

If you go to saqa.com and select the auction on the left side bar, you can scroll through the 400 plus quilts and look at websites or blogs of the artists and see info about each of the small quilts. Be prepared to spend some time looking. What eye candy! Beautiful Art!

 

 

Oops it's summer already!

I'm just not good at writing on my blog...

I've discovered this week tho that people have looked at it, and in fact someone has stolen an image, cropped it and used it in corporate art. Using an image from the internet that is not yours is copyright infringement and is serious. All artist's images are copyrighted automatically and can not be used without permission from the artist. I will be pursuing this with a lawyer. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I received acceptance notices from Houston this week for two of my quilts:

Escape II

Words in the Forest

 

They are both painted quilts with appliques. Escape II is silk and Words is painted canvas with quilted "words"

in the background between the "trees". Lace, cord, bold, red and white, hand-dyed, hand-painted, words, texture, mulberry paper etc. are quilted into the background.

I will be going to Houston and look forward to seeing many art quilting friends there.


I have a quilt hanging in a show called "Four Corners Quilt Show" in Flagstaff Az until the end of this week. It is called " The Old Oak Tree" and is a painted canvas heavily appliqued with lots of "stuff"..... painted fusible batting, mulberry and other papers, silk ribbons, organza and other fabrics and fibers:

                          detail

 

The strips across the middle are painted fusible batting , too heavy to quilt through easily, but what's more fun than a challenge?

And my Lizards are going to the Pacific West Quilt Show for the August show:

Detail

 

There are three dimensional lizards playing among the three dimensional organza leaves.
It's made out of 9 identical blocks that were fused not pieced. The ninth one was used to make the lizards which sit above the exact fabrics underneath.

Comment if you wish but please don't copy and use my images...
Betty

 

Happy Fall Quilting!

 

 

This is the piece just accepted into Art Quilts XVII in Chandler, Az. It will open on November 2. The call was for a piece that addressed the concept of integrating a paradox.... a truth not self-evident, a conundrum or opposites.

This piece is called Pair o' Docks and is a visual paradox... I painted on canvas with only 3 colors of paint and then machine quilted it with only 3 colors of thread. Even up close the green thread and paint appear to be two different colors, one minty and the other blue green. It is half of a diptych. I painted this (second one) thinking it would validate the green color difference of the first one. To my surprise, it created a second set of different greens... so four different greens. Only this one was accepted into the show (which was fine, it's a LOT of bright color).
Here is the first piece I did:

 

Both pieces are free hand painted with acrylic on canvas with 3 coats, no tape or stencils. It would have been easier if I had appliqued, fused or pieced it!  Maybe I will play with that for the next ones. I'm fascinated with the juxtaposition of color creating such interesting results. Because the orange bars are wider on the striped piece than the wavy piece, the green gets limey and more blue between the pink bars. Here is a detail shot showing the painting and quilting....

This week I found out my piece, "Aspens" was selected for the SAQA New Mexico regional show, "Enchanted Threads". It is all fused applique and free motion embroidered and quilted..

 

Sandra Branjord and Francie Murphy were accepted as well and we are considering going over for the opening Nov. 10.

In my last post I said I would upload photos of the pieces that are displayed at Vision Gallery in Chandler (AZ).  I have a felted vase, a couple of organza bowls and some felted bags on display:

                                      

 The beige bag was made from a cashmere jacket, fulled in the washing machine and then converted into a bag complete with its original slot pockets on the front (for cell phone and keys):

Hope you've had fun looking... I've certainly  had fun "working"!

More soon!

Betty

Well, another 7 months of ignoring my blog. I'll try to make up for it now...

Sandy Branjord and I just got back from the IQA show in Long Beach. Our quilts are still touring with the "Sense of Adventure" exhibit. It was fun to revisit them. The woman who bought mine came from Santa Clara to see it and to introduce me to her daughter.

Here is Sandy's quilt: "La Fete"











And mine: "Escape"

We enjoyed sitting at the SAQA booth selling and autographing the books that accompanied the show. (We felt like big stars)  :)   Working in the booth was so much fun. We met other art quilters and fiber artists who are passionate as we are about what we do.

If you haven't been to a big quilt show that exhibits many art quilts, you need to put it on your bucket list. There were over 1000 quilts that had been curated or juried in. So all the quilts were spectacular.
There were hundreds of vendors selling all manner of "stuff". Sandy and I were pretty resistant but did find a few treasures to take home.

SAQA is having an online auction in September of 12" quilts donated by almost 400 artists. You can visit them on the SAQA.com website. Click on the news/events tab and then auction 2012 to see them. Sandy and I each contributed. Our little quilts are on pages a ( me) and b (Sandy) of the quilts going to Houston for a live auction. We, of course will be going!  If you click on the red name below each quilt you can go to the artist's website or blog. If you click on the picture you get a full size version to drool over. There is also a place to see what the artist comments are.  It can be an afternoon adventure just going from quilt to quilt.

Here is mine, "Games":

 It's a painting on canvas, painted with acrylics and then heavily quilted by machine.

I am busy getting 10 pieces ready to take to Chandler to the Vision Gallery. Frances Murphy, Sandy Branjord and I were recently juried into the gallery. This is the gallery that hosted Art Quilts XVI and we will be entering that show again. All 3 of us have had quilts in their fall show. This is the quilt I had in the show last year :

I also entered it in the spring AQG show along with this one:

 

This is one of my bar code series originally titled "prompts for bare canvas syndrome". I am fascinated with bar codes as they relate to objects and have wondered about their use to connote feelings or concepts. I started this a a bare canvas on which I threw "prompts" as bars..



I quilted it after appliqueing, quilting prompt words into the spaces between the bars. I was disappointed with it so I started painting...between and under the bars and layering color over the "words".

The prompts include scrim, mulberry paper, cord, lace, hand-painted and dyed fabric, batik, ombre, and more. Paint has always been my best friend. It's showing up more and more in my quilts. I'm really enjoying using canvas paintings as a basis for my pieces.

Our little art quilt studio group, NGG recently made pieces as a thankyou to Betty Busby for her December workshop. Actually the others in the group made their pieces before March; I made mine recently.  :)  Here are our pieces:

Mine: Barcode/Flounder



Margaret Gorski's











Sandy Branjord's

My Mom, Anna Marie Peterson's

Frances Murphy's

Elizabeth Pfeiffer's

and Diane Kucera's

They were each (except mine) about 8" square. They were all made out of the painted silk we made in Betty Busby's workshop. We had a lot of fun playing with Betty and making these pieces.

Betty Busby had these pieces in the Long Beach show:

(the one with the ribbon!)



Seems like there was one more, but I can't find it right now. We are so proud of our Albuquerque friend!

That's all for now. Back to work in the studio. Comment or ask questions...

Art Quilts XVI

Friday, Betty Busby and her friend Holly Altman came to the studio to play and teach our art quilt group a new method of painting on silk. What fun we had! We spread out all over my great room which doubles as studio when there are more than 6 of us. From the left: Diane, Margaret, Sandy, Elizabeth, Holly, Betty Busby and Francie. Not pictured is my Mom who left before I took pictures!  You'll see her when I get pictures from Holly. She was official photographer.

After playing with silk paint and eating a gourmet lunch, we changed into our "artist" clothes and went to Chandler for dinner and the artists' reception of Art Quilts XVI. Betty's piece was the one honored to be on the invitation so we were proud to be attending with her...Here she is with her piece "Mourning Doves" a piece inspired by a foreign exchange student.



And Sandy in front of her piece, " Left Behind"

And of course "moi" in front of "Memory, Threads and Bursts":

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Francie and her piece, but I think Holly did, so I'll share it when I get her photos.

Today we got busy at 9:00 again playing and chatting with Betty and Holly. We added pearlescent ink to our silk paint and ate another gourmet meal. The highlight was sitting going through Betty's book of quilts and having her tell us about her different series and all the experimenting she does on the way to a successful quilt. What an exciting two days we had!  New friends, new techniques and new enthusiasm for finding fun ways to spend our time!  We look forward to playing again with our New Mexico "compadres".

comments would be welcome if you care to speak up!