Archive for the ‘Publications’ Category

Sure, it’s art, but is it a quilt?

Wednesday, December 19th, 2018

This week the Quilt Show’s blog gave my Cranky Claus a mention. I have the sense that they focus on traditional or decorative techniques, so I particularly appreciate their highlighting this piece. It was created with some techniques that aren’t traditional to quilters and its subject matter has a little bite, more than some of the blog’s commenters cared for.

I’ve never gotten the feeling that Alex Anderson or Ricky Tims, the “names” behind the show and the site, are prejudiced in that sense, though. Their offerings may be more traditional or feature approachable techniques, but that’s simply a matter of knowing their target audience and how they wish to serve it.

I have fond memories of watching Alex’s show, Simply Quilts, when my son was first born. A wide variety of intriguing techniques were showcased; focussing on them helped me keep my sanity while my son was yowling. There was definitely an air of “Why not? Let’s try it!” about that show, a philosophy which has always served me well. I later met Ricky Tims for about a nanosecond when he handed me an award at one of the Houston shows, one of many he’s presented over the years.

I’m fortunate to have been born to a rich tradition of needlework. My grandmothers were accomplished quilters, thrifty souls who saved every tidbit of fabric from sewing clothes and meticulously pieced them together to keep their families warm. My paternal grandmother went a step beyond that, tatting exquisite bits of lace to adorn her dressers and tabletops. I’ve deviated from that path by pursuing art quilting rather than tatting or traditional quilting, but I like to think that my current work continues the tradition of “Why not? Let’s try it!”. 

A few years before I came on the art quilting scene, people were grappling with the notion that one could paint an image on a piece of whole cloth, stitch it, and it would be legitimately a quilt. It strikes me as a logical step: whole cloth quilts with intricate stitching already existed, so why not paint your own image on the cloth first? However, the development wasn’t universally well received. While some embraced the idea, others muttered about it darkly, even going so far as to say that those weren’t “real” quilts and they shouldn’t be accepted in shows.

Since then, I’ve witnessed similar debating each time there’s a new development. I’ve heard grumbling about art quilts whose surface was made from photos printed on fabric. Ditto for art quilts whose surface is made from fabric collage, stitched leather, quilts made from non-fabric items such as plastic fencing, and sculptures constructed from quilted cloth. Now a few of us create cloth based on images we’ve made with the assistance of a computer.

Some are intrigued by these techniques. Some find them repellent and state that they aren’t “valid” compared to traditional techniques such as piecing, applique, or stitching over a whole piece of unornamented cloth. Still others have concerns about subject matter, protesting that certain topics shouldn’t be depicted in fiber.

I hope that aspiring artists, craftsmen, and art quilters won’t be put off by the naysayers and will celebrate their creativity in whatever ways they see fit. It’s a big planet. There’s room for people to work traditionally or to push the margins. I shall continue to do the latter. 

One of my current projects involves a baby dragon who’s gotten up to great mischief. To bring his story to life, I have to create or otherwise obtain models, pose them, texture them, and light them. Even after the scene has been rendered, there’ll be more work to do, hand editing the render. Then I’ll decide whether the image would benefit from being printed out on fabric and stitched. Not everything does. While some images become quilts, others become book covers or have other uses. In a previous life, these would have included advertising or product marketing art.

There’s no “make art” button on my computer, you see. Regardless of the medium or techniques one uses, whether it’s painting or piecing or collage, it takes time and care to create. It’s a laborious process but I love doing it. Creating my own worlds and bringing them to life is intoxicating.

I invite others to try it themselves. All of the resources below are powerful and free:

Current Publications

Friday, September 8th, 2017

Current Publications. I think that may be one of the most insanely dull titles for a post I’ve ever come up with, if not the dullest. That’s a shame, because I’m quite excited about the work and exhibits  documented.

Once or twice a year, I sit down to make sure the information on this site is current. While I have a goal of documenting works as I create them, that often doesn’t happen. Some projects have fairly stiff limitations on when work can be made public and, well, by the time that date rolls around, I’m on to the next thing.

Thus, it’s nice to see a cross-section of the work I’ve been doing over the past couple of years committed to print. It’s also nice to be reminded that I’m a part of a global team effort with other artists, creating work that celebrates, cautions, and entertains.

 

Machine Quilting Unlimited

The September/October edition of Machine Quilting Unlimited has a nice six-page spread on the development of my artwork, Do Dragons Like Cookies?

I created the quilt’s surface design using 3D/CGI, a technique that lets one create and move digital objects to create a scene. It’s been one of my loves for about 25 years, and makes a nice change of pace from painting or other digital techniques. It isn’t at all common in the quilting world, so I hope readers will enjoy the article.

The article came about in a very serendipitous fashion. Publishing a piece on my 3D work had been on my to-do list for the year, and I was delighted when the opportunity to work with MQU appeared. They were lovely people to work with, and I’m very excited to see the article in print.

MQU can be found at bookstores, fabric stores, and online at  https://machinequilting.mqumag.com.

The quilt itself will be at IQF Houston this fall, for those who are in the area and wish to see it in person.

 

Fly Me to the Moon

This book documents a traveling exhibit of quilts commemorating humans’ voyage to the moon. It’s one of Susanne Miller Jones’ efforts; during the past few years, she’s spearheaded several exhibits covering nice, meaty topics.

I have one piece in this exhibit, celebrating the moment when Apollo 8 broke free of the Earth and took three men, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, into orbit around the moon. This marked the first time humans had made that voyage; it also demonstrated the viability of traveling to the moon.

The book is due to be released September 28. It can be purchased from Amazon and various other book retailers.

A current exhibition schedule and photos of the exhibit quilts can be seen at https://www.flymetothemoon.gallery.

One recent display venue was Webster Presbyterian in Houston, which some informally refer to as the “NASA Church”. Various members of the congregation were and are involved with the space program, and shared memories sparked by the artwork: http://www.websterpresby.org/VisualArts

I was touched to see my piece augmented by remembrances by Jerry Carr who, among many other things, was Commander of Skylab 4.

 

Quilting Arts Magazine

The October/November edition of Quilting Arts Magazine contains a selection of quilts from the HerStory exhibit, another of Susanne Miller Jones’ efforts. One of mine, celebrating the life and work of physicist and laureate Maria Goeppert-Mayer, is in the magazine.

Quilting Arts can be purchased at bookstores, fabric stores, or online: https://www.interweave.com/store/quilting-arts-october-november-2017-print-edition

The HerStory exhibit is just beginning its travels. A portion of it will be debuting at IQF Houston this fall. That will have another of my quilts, an homage to the artist Mary Blair. Susanne keeps an updated tour schedule on her website: http://www.susannemjones.com/herstory-exhibit-schedule/

 

Threads of Resistance

It’s funny how one’s attitudes can change over time. I grew up in a household in which the only news consumed was that broadcast in the evening on the television, lines read by a serious-faced white male broadcaster. Beyond mocking the county commissioner for re-graveling the roads only during election years, politics weren’t discussed much at home. My father sometimes declared that he was politically independent, neither a Democrat nor a Republican, yet if pressed, I doubt he could list many instances when he voted as a Democrat, if there were any at all.

I was unclear on what any of it meant, other than picking up on an “us versus them” mentality more suitable for sports teams. The first time I went to vote as an adult, it was a horrible shock. I was ill-prepared and I didn’t recognize most of the names or issues on the sample ballot. That spurred an endless cycle of having to research every blasted issue every blasted election year.

One thing I learned along the way is that politics matters. It can be annoying, confusing, tedious, and inspire one to new heights of cynicism, but it really matters. Politics affects issues both minor and major.

Among other things, it affects whether citizens have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, and whether people of different colors are allowed to drink that water from the same fountain. It affects how well the firefighters and police are paid in one’s town and whether they have adequate equipment. It determines how we treat people who don’t look like us or speak our language, but have resources we want. When there’s a tragedy or a disaster, such as a hurricane hitting a city, it affects whether there’s a government-based aid organization ready to help.

Politics is a reflection of a society’s values and priorities. It isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a matter of people dividing themselves up into different groups so they can hoot and jeer with a sports team mentality.

As we grow older and have kids and grandkids, our thoughts may turn to the situation we’re leaving behind for them. That, too, is impacted by politics. Will there be unspoiled national parks? Will issues such as global climate change be faced and addressed in a responsible manner, or will elected officials continue to avoid the issue or outright deny that it exists? Will citizens continue to have some degree of free speech? Will journalists be harassed or tossed in jail when they attempt to report truths to the populace? Will we treat refugees from other countries with compassion or with contempt?

After witnessing the behavior of the Trump administration for seven months, I have very grave concerns. So do many other artists. That is, in a nutshell, is the drive behind the Threads of Resistance exhibit.

More than 550 pieces were submitted to this exhibit, expressing concerns about the actions and policies of the Trump administration. Sixty-three were accepted into the traveling exhibit; I’m proud to have two of mine included.

The catalog shows the works which were accepted into the traveling exhibit. It can be purchased at Amazon and various other book retailers.

All of the submitted pieces, plus an exhibit schedule, can be seen here: http://threadsofresistance.org/schedule.html

I encourage people to go have a look at the exhibit and consider the issues. They have broad, long-lasting, very serious consequences that transcend political affiliation.

This and That

Thursday, March 2nd, 2017

GirlDragon1000

Tentative title: Do Dragons Like Cookies? (click image to embiggen)

This is the surface design for the newest quilt-in-progress, AKA the latest thing I’m griping about. And gripe I shall. When I stitch, those snowflake wings and the lace dress on the girl are going to give me fits unless I use what I call The Devil’s Thread: clear polyester monofilament.

 

GusherDetail

Yeah, I finally tried that stuff. I used some on Gusher, in the area with balls and cups and such. I feel like it was a devil’s bargain. Yes, I preserved the fine shading of the cups and styrofoam containers and I didn’t have to do fifty thousand thread changes. On the other hand, the texture of the thread itself is yuck, like something I’d cut out of a vacuum cleaner roller with a utility knife. It glistens. It doesn’t have the same soul as the thread I normally use. I know it’s irrational, but I’m terrified that it’s going to spring loose from the quilt and attack someone.

If I’m going to spend weeks or months hunched over a sewing machine, I want the end result to have some poetry to it, even if the quilt depicts a drowning polar bear or an automaton crapping out plastic cups. There needs to be a good reason I chose to make a quilt rather than printing the same design out on flags to sell at a roadside stand. The stitch needs to contribute to the design. Ideally it would be essential. I’m not so sure I’m accomplishing that with The Devil’s Thread.

 

GirlDragon10Wireframe

Anyhow … on to the surface design of the fabric. This is a 3D rendering. If you’ve followed my work in the past, you may be familiar with the process. Create geometry on a computer, barf some textures on it, set up fake light sources, and let the computer figure out what that might look like in real life. If you look at the wireframe, you can see that the scene is extremely simple.

This time I used some purchased assets (3D models) and posed them rather than making everything myself. The little girl is the Skyler model from Daz and the dragon is the Millennium SubDragon LE. I posed them in the Iray Worlds SkyDome.

Much like using The Devil’s Thread, using purchased models is something I wouldn’t have done once upon a time. Instead I would have laboriously spent days creating every blasted model myself, and I would have made sure that everyone around me was miserable while I did it. I also would have bragged about it afterward, and when the thing hung in a gallery, no one would have understood or cared.

Using the Daz assets was nice. I hate to admit that, because I think some of their marketing verges on pedophilia, and there are a couple of things on their site that I find obscenely racist. (Note the afro-wearing gorilla shown in one of the shots for this product. Seriously. Do we really need to go there?)

That said, sometimes it’s nice to grab a pre-made model and get on with it. Daz has a lot of models. Often they’re pretty darned cheap, especially if you consider the labor that goes into them. (Afro-wearing gorillas notwithstanding.)

 

LaceDress

Look at the lace on that dress. I thought I was being real clever when I created that texture. “Oh, it’ll match the snowflakes her wings are made out of,” I told myself, “It’ll be pretty! Visual poetry!” Yeah, it matches. It’s pretty. It’s also going to be horrible to stitch. Either I use The Devil’s Thread on it to hide mistakes or I spend the next two months hunched over it while I stitch with a magnifying glass.

Stay tuned.

 

blueHair

In other non-news, I dyed my hair blue.

Sometimes I hear people complain, and justifiably so, about becoming “invisible” after one turns a certain age. Let me tell you, when you go around with a head full of long blue (or purple or hot pink) hair, you are no longer invisible. People smile and chat with me when my hair’s blue. I get great customer service. My kid likes it. Sure, I get the occasional stinkeye and backing away reaction too, but that’s also fine. It lets me cull out the people who are superficial.

The main reason to do something like hair dying, though, is because you enjoy it. I do. I could care less about growing fingernails and half the time I don’t remember to put on makeup, but seeing blue hair when I look in the mirror cheers me up.

 

HerStory

Here are a couple of new works, celebrating the lives and hard work of Maria Goeppert-Mayer and Mary Blair. They’re slated for Susanne Miller Jones’ HerStory traveling exhibit, along with scads of works from other artists. It should be a good exhibit; the subject matter is juicy, and the other works I’ve seen have been creative and heartfelt.

I admire people who, to use a hackneyed phrase, “do things to make the world better”. It’s easy to plotz on one’s La-Z-Boy and complain, but quite another thing to conceive an idea and bring it to fruition.

Susanne’s doing just that. She’s conceived and spearheaded several exhibits on thought-provoking topics. That gives artists like me a venue to speak our minds, and it makes for provocative, interesting viewing. One of those exhibits, Fly Me to the Moon, is currently traveling the country.

 

MQU

MQU_2

The latest Machine Quilting Unlimited has a few of the works from Fly Me to the Moon. Yep, that’s my rocket in the second shot. Also, check out the articles about Betty Hahn’s work and on pictographic quilting, which are pretty darned cool.

 

OurStory

Susanne is currently accepting entries for a new exhibit, OURstory: Civil Rights Stories in Fabric. Its goal is to “tell the stories of disenfranchised people and their fights for equal rights”. This is another great topic, and very timely.

The deadline is March 8, so it’s coming up pretty quickly. Fortunately, all one has to do by that date is submit an idea, not the actual quilt, so there’s plenty of time to register.

http://www.susannemjones.com/ourstory-call-for-entries/

 

TORlogowhite500

On a related note, The Artist Circle, a group of well-known quilt artists, is accepting entries for an exhibit to “protest the Trump administration’s actions and policies”.

One only has to skim over the news to see matters of concern – climate change, fake news, education, racism, and on and on. This exhibit is an opportunity to speak out about those issues. The deadline for that is May 1.

http://threadsofresistance.blogspot.com

 

GusherTrim

This thing, Gusher, is finally stitched and faced. I need to do a little inkwork on it, but I think I can call it all but done. Not a moment too soon, either. I don’t know how many years I’ve been working on it. I could look it up, but hey, why don’t I not do that? The number is probably depressing.

The fact is, I’m not one of those gracious people who writes only sweet things or gushes about how many spools of thread they’ve used or how they were inspired by a butterfly tenderly sucking the nectar from a flower. I start projects because I believe in them. Sometimes I get tired of working on them and I finish only because of sheer cussedness. This is one of those projects.

I’ll leave you with a few gratuitous shots.

desk

My desk, or a portion of it. I also call this Still Life with Key Pad, Dust Mask, and Brain Pin.

Sometimes it’s fun to see others’ work spaces. I hadn’t realized how cluttered mine had gotten. It’s taking on a “Where’s Waldo” appearance.

 

Shoes

My twelve year old’s shoe on the left. My shoe on the right. Having your kid outgrow you is one of those rites of passage, I guess. Bittersweet. We want our kids to grow and thrive, and it’s horrid when they don’t, but it would be nice to hold the baby he once was just a few more times.

 

Endcap

Alright. This. (Another “click to embiggen” picture.)

I try to be a decent person. Hopefully I’m a better person than I was ten or twenty years ago, and that usually includes just walking by and not commenting if I see something that I think is nonsense.

I’m going to make an exception this time, though. This was an end cap at one of the local Michaels. It’s for “customizing” slime. Not making slime – there’s school glue, which is an ingredient for making slime, but no borax and no instructions, so I guess we aren’t actually MAKING anything, are we? We’re just taking glitter and plastic crap and mooching it inside a viscous polymer blob so we can, I don’t know, have it fall on the floor, get dirty, and throw it away?

I have clearly outlived my usefulness on this Earth.

SDA Journal

Tuesday, February 7th, 2017

Let’s see, what are the standard things I write when my work is published?

“This came in the mail today …”

“Oh, what a nice surprise! I totally forgot that I spent a week writing this article/sucked up to the editor and got my thing in the reader gallery/etc.!”

“Tee hee. Look at the little thing I whipped up. And now it’s on a pulverized slice of dead tree!”

Lord, I’m even boring myself. It’s time to revamp my schtick.

 

SDAcover

Anyway … the Winter 2016/2017 Surface Design Journal arrived. It’s very cool. This edition is their “Inaugural International Exhibition in Print”. It celebrates the SDA’s 40th anniversary with a selection of work from forty artists. I’m one of them.

It looks like the competition to be included was pretty stiff, so I’m quite gratified. The magazine’s intro article mentions that “40 artists were chosen from over 400” and that jurors had to sift through more than 1200 images.

Based on looking through the published works, I think they tried to select the most diverse range of work they could in terms of media, technique, and theme.

SDAJournal

My piece, Game Over, is in there representing the art quilt end of things. Hopefully it will depress thousands of people. Edit: Here’s a PDF, courtesy of the kind folks at the SDA Journal.

What else is in there? A reliquary containing samples taken from a two mile deep ice core in Antarctica. A pair of needlefelted hairless cats who are hugging each other. Sculptural baskets woven from watercolor paper. A truly disturbing set of beaded hoods. Enough other artwork to make an MFA advisor gleefully rub his hands and start muttering phrases like “vegetarian fetishism” and “synthesis of zeitgeist”.

It’s art, baby!

Go here to see about getting your own copy: http://www.surfacedesign.org/journal/about-the-journal/

Nida’s Nightmare

Wednesday, December 28th, 2016

Let’s do this.

It’s chilly here in Silicon Valley, where I make my home. I’m in the mood to gorge on the fruitcake I have hidden in the laundry room, fiddle around in the studio, and have a nice soak in the hot tub I don’t own.

However, before I sink into a total state of sloth and dissipation, I have a couple of announcements.

tff124

Issue 124 of Textile Fibre Forum is out. It’s been out for awhile, actually, but you can get a copy on iTunes or via PocketMags if you don’t live in Australia or didn’t see it on the newsstand.

This issue was Neroli Henderson’s last as editor, a fact I mourn and that will probably make her waggle her shoulders to get some stress kinks out. I’ll miss that relationship; she did a bang-up job as editor and was great to write for.

nidasnightmare

On that note, I have an article in this issue, “Nida’s Nightmare”. The story is a followup on the sorry mess that was Kathy Nida’s censorship debacle, with a new twist involving nonexistent penises.

Note the pullquote you can see above, Censorship thrives in secrecy and darkness. If we want to fight it, we need to keep shining a light on it. That’s the best way to keep nightmares at bay. Let’s all keep that in mind, both in terms of our artwork and our lives. I believe we’re on the edge of some extremely challenging times. We’re going to have to work hard to promote a sense of decency – and by decency, I mean things like combatting bigotry and having compassion for others. We’re going to need to shine that light and work hard to keep the nightmares at bay.

The issue also has an interview with Annemieke Mein and showcases a variety of wonderful artwork. Go check it out.

odalisque490

One of my works, Odalisque with Squeak Toy, never made it back from Houston this year because it found a new home. I hope it’s bringing its purchaser and her loved ones great joy!

Yep, I made some more stuff.

Friday, October 21st, 2016

Whee! Look what the letter carrier angrily hurled on my doorstep! It’s the 2016 edition of IQF Quilt Scene! That means one of my quilts must be inside. That means I must rapidly thumb through looking for it – with great care, though, so as to not wrinkle the magazine. I want the magazine to look nice and crisp so that I can leave it out on the table and nonchalantly lure people over to look at it.

showscene1_490

Here we go – page 75, deep in the bowels of the Special Exhibits section. The title of this piece is Leaving Home: Launch of the Apollo 8. It’s one of a collection of art quilts in the Fly Me to the Moon exhibit, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 spaceflight and humans’ first steps on the moon. That exhibit will be debuting at IQF Houston soon.

showscene2_490

My particular piece commemorates the moment when Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders first blasted away from the Earth and headed toward the moon. They orbited the moon ten times, then returned to the Earth. Although they didn’t get to land on the moon, they were the first to make this particular trip; their mission was important in terms of demonstrating its viability.

The piece was executed in watercolor on soy-sized cotton, then stitched. I wanted to evoke something of the spirit of the works of Ando Hiroshige.

This is only one of the pieces in the exhibit, of course. There are, I think, 176 pieces total in the collection, a portion of which will be at IQF. They have a diverse range of treatments ranging from the literal, to pop culture, to folk art.

One can see a few more in the friends@Festival eZine, a publication of Quilts, Inc. The article is also well worth reading for its interview with Susanne Miller Jones, the person who thought of the exhibit and has driven it.

Also debuting at IQF Houston: Odalisque with Squeak Toy, seen below. It’s supposed to be in the digital art category, so do say hello to it if you’re in the area.

odalisque490

Alas, I suspect it’s another of my pieces that no one will really “get”, at least in terms of understanding how the surface design was executed. On some level, that’s okay. People don’t necessarily have to understand how something was created in order to interact with it, like it, or dislike it. On the other hand, people often are curious about that sort of thing.

As a reminder, Odalisque involved things such as creating a computer-based 3D scene:Odalisque6

 

It also involved simulating the fall of the cloth throw that’s at the end of the chaise, “dropping” it and having my computer figure out what that would look like.

Odalisque15 Odalisque16 Odalisque17

Game Over involved similar activities, such as modeling the polar bear and the water it’s floating in:

box9

 

water

GameOverComp

When I recently received a judging sheet for Game Over, there were comments about thread tension and binding. This is standard for work I create, unless it wins an award, so I am sure that the sheet for Odalisque will have similar comments.

Here is how I feel after I’ve spent countless hours on a piece and I get back comments which totally disregard the surface design and whether the stitching compliments it, in favor of issues which are difficult to see except from the back:

Moving on … just finished this piece, Chaos Contained. It won’t be going to any shows, so get your fill of it here.

chaos1

I made it from a variety of bits and scraps, such as fabric and yarn tidbits. The stitching is eccentric and messy, and would utterly horrify the people who congregate at quilt shows and run their ungloved hands over the backs of display pieces.

chaos2

(Click image to embiggen.)

I like it, though. Good enough.

Pulling Out Too Soon

Saturday, August 13th, 2016

One thing I’ve learned: if you create innovative, thought-provoking work, at some point somebody’s going to crap all over it. They’ll say things like “This is ugly; I want to see pretty” or “Somebody sure had a lot of time on their hands” or “You couldn’t pay me enough money to have that in my house.” It doesn’t matter how objectively good the work is. You can make a piece showing how people were transported on slave ships during the rum trade era, and somebody will whine about it because it made them think for a split second and their brains couldn’t handle it. I’ve seen it happen.

Works with nudity really get this treatment. If a piece includes nudity, real or imagined, somebody will have an apoplectic fit while they’re crapping on it. Sometimes, if the work is exhibited in a show, they’ll have their little fit all the way to the show’s organizers, then maybe hang out and wait for a TV news crew so they can be offended on camera. If they’re really good at being manipulative, they can scare the show’s organizers into taking the work down.

 

TFF

A few months back, I wrote an article on this type of thing. I interviewed Annabel Rainbow, Randall Cook, Kathy Nida, and a couple of other people who didn’t wish to be identified. Their stories of censorship are truly chilling.

The piece appears in Issue 122 of Textile Fibre Forum. I recommend checking it out, not only for their stories, but because TFF is a nice, crisp, high-quality publication. That issue also includes articles on the work of Grayson Perry, Charlotte Kruk, and others. Electronic back copies can be purchased on iTunes or via PocketMags.

 

kathy-nida-72

I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket, © Kathy Nida

Alas, censorship has reared its hysterical, pearl-clutching head again. One of my friends, Kathy Nida, just had work pulled from AQS Grand Rapids because a viewer THOUGHT she saw a penis in it. Here’s her blog entry. ***

I happen to know that the visitor didn’t see a penis. She didn’t see a penis, because there isn’t one. I’m posting a photo of the work for yourself, so you can verify that there is, in fact, no penis in it. That’s right. We’ve reached a new level of censorship – having work censored for something that isn’t there!

Based on this event, I think there’s some confusion about what a penis looks like. This worries me a little, because about half of all mammals have them. Chances are, no matter how sheltered you are, you’ve seen a penis. Dogs and horses don’t exactly walk around in tighty-whities, and most women have had husbands, boyfriends, or at least changed the occasional diaper.

However, I will concede that it’s possible this woman had never seen one, given the state of sex ed in Michigan’s school systems. Apparently it’s optional, and is given to things like pro-abstinence speakers.  Therefore, let’s have a little chat about what a penis looks like.

MrHappy

Mr. Happy

Here is a representative penis. I call it “Mr. Happy”. It’s a nice, non-threatening toilet paper holder and Kleenex dispenser that I made it for an art show a few years ago. I thought it was apt because it’s rendered in fiber. Maybe the AQS visitor was confused about what a penis looked like because she was looking at fiber-based artwork.

Mr. Happy depicts some of the standard characteristics of a real penis, such as being longer than it is wide and getting shorter and longer. (One adds and removes rolls of toilet paper to achieve that effect.) It even has furry testicles. I will admit, though, that the eyes are not true to life. If I saw eyes on a real penis, I’d probably flee as fast as my legs would carry me.

I hope that helps clarify things a little.

 

Show organizers, your censoring of works has gotten old. Real old. Even if the woman had seen a penis in Kathy’s artwork, so what? There’s been nudity in artwork for the past 50,000 years or so.

You know what I do when I see a piece I don’t like? I move those funny pink blobs at the bottoms of my legs and I walk past it. Personally, I found the picaninny quilt that was exhibited at PIQF a few years ago deeply offensive. And it won a prize. (Evidently it was a kit quilt, too – what a marvelous world we live in, when you can buy your very own kit for making racist quilts!)

Show organizers, you need to get clear on a few things.

What type of show are you running? 

Are you holding what’s essentially a bigger version of a county fair exhibit, where people gather and look at patchwork and say things like “Look, Paw! That shore is some plum purty stitchin’!”? Or are you going to support the growth of the medium into an art form? *

What type of work do you allow in your show?

Do you allow in artwork? Can the artwork include nudity, or just stuff like kitty-cats popping their heads out of pumpkins? How about you get real clear on your policy, and be up front with exhibitors like SAQA and the rest? **

What is your policy on pulling work out of the show? 

If it’s met your openly stated standards for being exhibited, are you going to do that? Are you going to pull work if someone complains about something imaginary? Are you going to deprive the rest of the paying visitors the right to see a piece of artwork simply because somebody else didn’t like it and didn’t have the self-control to walk by?

Allowing in artwork, then getting scared and pulling it when someone blanches and clutches at her pearls, isn’t working out. It’s bad for all of us.

Also, the next time someone threatens not to come back to your shows because of some damned thing she imagined, maybe just say “I’m sorry to hear that,” politely wish her well, and consider yourself lucky to not see her again.

 

* Edit: I now see that this paragraph implies that patchwork can’t be art, which isn’t true. However, I’ll let it stand, since that’s the way the majority of people have seen the post.

One of commenters also made a good point about my using “country speak” in a ridiculing manner. She’s right. Probably I shouldn’t have done that. On the other hand, “country speak” comes natural when you’re a first generation descendent of hillbillies and rednecks, and have used an outhouse more than a few times when visiting grandparents.

** Another clarification: I don’t want to revile AQS or any other show if they really don’t want to get in the business of displaying art. If art-lovers aren’t a key part of their business, so be it. But clearer guidelines would be useful for everyone.

*** Kathy has written a second blog entry which shows some of her base drawings and analyzes a variety of things which could be construed as penises. I think that from now on, whenever she has an umbilical cord in her work, I’m going to squint at it and refer to it as a penis.

 

Update as of Monday, 8/17: Per Kathy, “So AQS made the decision to pull my quilt I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket with the nonexistent penis from QuiltWeek in Chattanooga and Des Moines. They are now considering whether my other piece, Fully Medicated, which has zero complaints, should also be pulled (still no penis). Please let them know how you feel about either decision at the link below.

I am so disappointed and frustrated by their actions…please share this if you think it will help. I appreciate all your support…”

Here’s AQS’ contact form.

 

An article, a story, and a quilt.

Monday, December 7th, 2015

TFF

This arrived in the mail today. Isn’t that portrait on the cover wonderful? It’s by an artist named Benjamin Shine; he created it from layers of tulle. The magazine has a nice profile of him; his website is worth a look as well.

Textile Fibre Forum, an Australian art magazine, has also run an article about one of my quilts, a piece inspired by the story of a heroic and homeless Guatamalan immigrant, Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax. It seems on point at the moment. Perhaps it has something to do with winter approaching, here in the northern hemisphere, and having my thoughts turn to people shivering and starving in the cold. There’s also hideous news coming out of Syria, with streams of people fleeing a never-ending nightmare only to encounter hardship, hatred, and perhaps death as they become refugees and try to find new homes. Newly minted immigrants to new lands.

I highly recommend checking out Textile Fibre Forum. It’s just gorgeous, maybe 15-20 articles per issue with a fairly discrete amount of advertising. It costs a pittance, about the same as an over-sugared drink at Starbucks, if one downloads it via their iOS app.

More importantly, it’s an opportunity to get acquainted with Australian textile art outside the occasional exhibits which may visit the U.S. or other countries. This, I believe, is vitally important, an opportunity for cross-pollination.

Years ago, I attended a talk by Martha Sielman. She was discussing the creation of one of her book series – either the Art Quilt Portfolio series or the Masters: Art Quilts books. One of the publisher’s requirements, she stated, was that a certain number of the artists had to be from outside of the United States. Intrigued by this statement, I thumbed through her books and looked up all the non-U.S. artists. There was a freshness about their work. Perhaps they’d been influenced by different cultural and historical traditions, or perhaps they just weren’t part of the incestuous little copycat treadmill we have here in the United States. The publishers must have known that including them was important for the sake of diversity – or perhaps they were just trying to keep the books from being entirely U.S.-centric!

 

Odalisque1

Remember this thing? Yes. I’m still working on it.

On the work front, I’m noodling away on the reclining nude of my dog, Odalisque. Here’s the current progress:

tatting

Tatted throw: not stitched.

 

pillow

Couch and pillow: stitched.

 

RyanStitching

Ryan-dog: not stitched.

 

flooring

Marble floor: stitched.

 

screen

Screen in background: partially stitched. This thing is kicking my rump. Note that there are two types of small, precise textures which are overlapped. I hope I have more sense and avoid this sort of situation the next time I design an image.

 

curtains

Curtains in background: partially stitched. This is also eating my lunch. I had a hideous time getting any texture at all stitched, given the darkness of the cloth. Having it visually behind the palms has made it even more challenging. Why didn’t I just put in a plain wall or something which could have been stippled? It wouldn’t have made a big difference as far as the composition, and it would have been much quicker to render.

rug

Rug: not at all stitched and oh my lord, how am I even going to do it?

All this work, months of work, and I haven’t even gotten to the punchline of the picture, a dog reclining on a couch in place of the standard nekkid woman.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m feeling discouraged. I was hoping to enter a show at the end of this month, but this thing isn’t even halfway done. I’ve lost four days of work during the past week, what with chaperoning my kid’s field trip, hosting a STEM activity for Cub Scouts, and being knocked on my rump by Dramamine that I probably didn’t even need to take. Not to gripe – first world problems! Lots of people would love to be able to drop what they were doing and head out on the San Francisco Bay for hours with their kid’s class! But you know, I’m not a piñata. If someone smacks me with a baseball bat, I won’t puke out artwork.

I have considered brewing up a pot of coffee and pulling a couple of all-nighters to see if I could knock out a bunch of work. Alas, I suspect it would end with a bunch of lousy stitching which had to be ripped out and my shaking like an autumn leaf falling from a tree. The workmanship has to be good; otherwise there’s no point.

Meanwhile, my kid has been getting over a cold and we’ve been dunned with day after day of grey skies. The dreary weather and his cold made me remember a cold of my own.

Fifteen years ago, I was off on a photography trip to Rome and Paris. One of my clients was writing a book; the trip was a way to help her attain a dream. That was really important to me then, helping people figure out what they really wanted and helping them reach for it. I also craved a bit of adventure, which the trip would provide.

Boy, did I get my wish! I could write a book of my own. Absolutely nothing about that trip went as planned. We weren’t even on the airplane before my client poked around in her purse, panicked a bit, then announced that she’d forgotten her traveler’s checks. My memories past that point include her cheerily announcing “the last time I was here, I got deported for drugs”, multiple episodes of driving child pickpockets away from her, and a wild rush hour drive around the outskirts of Rome when we went to the wrong airport for the flight to Paris.

One of my more pressing personal issues, though, was a killer head cold. It set in during the interminable flight across the Atlantic from the U.S., rendering sleep impossible. By the time I needed to be perky and shooting photos of multi-breasted statues spurting water out of their nipples, I was thoroughly exhausted and spouting my own secretions out my nose.

I did my job. I focussed. I planned. I walked all over Rome, Tivoli and Paris laden down with gear. I took hundreds of photos.

My cold thoroughly annoyed my client, though, and she wasn’t shy about expressing herself. “I never get sick,” she told me accusingly, as though my hosting a virus was meant as a personal affront. “There are viruses and bacteria all around us, but I don’t come down with them. I’ve never even vomited, not in my whole life.” An endless array of home remedies were proffered, including raw garlic and a strange, unknown blend of dried herbs.

Somewhat alarmed by her drug deportation story, I politely declined and turned to standard, pharmacy-variety remedies. She continued to press ristras of elves’ bane and Hungarian witch peppers on me. She grew sharp when I stated that I could ingest her garlic and herbs and the cold would last about a week, or I could continue with the pharmaceuticals and it would be gone in seven days.

The last straw, though, was my skin. I am not one of those people who cries cutely or looks adorable when I’m sick. I tend to head straight into the territory of skin like a boiled lobster and massive, noisy expulsions of ectoplasm from whatever orifice is exposed.

My client was understandably revolted. Repeated forays with Kleenex had left the skin on my nose and cheeks dry and, in some cases, hanging in tatters. “Put some of this vitamin E oil on your skin!” she commanded one evening. I declined. “It will be fine by morning,” I stated, barely hanging on to my temper, “I’ll just rub a little of my moisturizer on it and it’ll be as good as new.”

My client sniffed in disbelief. I headed off to bed.

The next morning, knowing that there would be an inspection once she woke up, I took a razor to my face. Wonderful things, razors. They do an incredible job of removing pilled-up fibers from sweaters and sheets, hair from one’s legs, or, as it happens, dead skin from one’s face. After ruthlessly scraping away all signs of skin damage, I slathered my face with moisturizer, then braced myself for the inevitable.

“Good morning,” we both said, then she peered at me minutely. I could tell that the words “Vitamin E” were on the tip of her tongue, and she was just dying to cram an entire unpeeled head of garlic down my throat. However, there wasn’t a speck of dead skin in sight.

“Huh,” she muttered, “I guess you were right.”

“Yep. A little moisturizer takes care of it every time,” I lied.

She is gone now. The dear lady who never had colds, who had never vomited in her life, who faithfully downed garlic and mystery herbs and swished hydrogen peroxide through her teeth, was felled by a slow, extremely painful illness.

I still miss her.

Nice news

Wednesday, September 16th, 2015

This is nice. The latest edition of Textile Fibre Forum is out. It has a profile of Annabel Rainbow with, yes, some photos of the matter-of-fact, unsalacious nudes which many magazines are too immature and squeamish to print. It also includes a fascinating article on curation by Brenda Gael Smith, a profile of Denise Lithgow, and a shot of one of my pieces over in the reader gallery.

Rainbow

Reader

Me me me me me me me. My work my work my work.

The Australians have a nice tradition of fiber art, much of which we unfortunately don’t see in the U.S., so Textile Fibre Forum is refreshing and a delight. Neroli Henderson recently became editor of the magazine, and her hard work is evident.

I haven’t had much luck finding Textile Fibre Forum on newsstands here in the U.S. Fortunately, it’s available on the iTunes store for a pittance, about the same amount I’d pay for a venti caramel latte at Starbucks. That, plus the fact it’s free of calories and cholesterol, make it a pretty guilt-free treat. I believe it’s also available on the Android store.

 

WhyKnot

This piece, Why Knot?, will be at IQF Houston next month. I’ve received some nice news about it. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make the trip to be present on awards night. I’m very happy for whatever award it receives, though, as well as for the other people who have work in the show. I’m sorry I won’t be there to celebrate and view the exhibits.

The Halfway Point

Sunday, July 19th, 2015

About halfway through summer, halfway through various projects …

MQU1

This arrived last month, the July/August edition of Machine Quilting Unlimited.

MQU2

There are several neat articles in the magazine (Marianne Williamson! Awesome!), and they also included my piece Why Knot? They’re a nice magazine to work with and their graphic designers/layout people do a great job. It’s a pleasure to have my work in their publication.

While I’m on the topic of Why Knot?, I’ve learned that it has been juried into IQF Houston, so it’ll be making a road trip to Texas this fall. I don’t think I’ll be going, so I hope my quilt won’t be taking on bad habits in my absence … smoking, eating barbecue, harassing coyotes. Who knows?

What else do I have? Work I can’t post. Hot diggity. It was totally worth visiting this page for that, wasn’t it? Seriously, I find it a pain. Just when I’m juiced up from working on something and could cheerfully post progress photos and the like, I can’t. A couple of things have the “work must be hermetically sealed” exhibit requirement. By the time I can post progress photos, I’ll be on to the next thing and my attention and enthusiasm will be on that, not on whatever I’m working on now.

I will note that I’m working on some 3D-rendered surface designs, though, a couple of apocalyptic environmental pieces. Once the designs are fixed up, I’ll ship them off for printing, then stitch on the resulting fabric.

oil

Sometimes I spend days trying to get something just right and it goes to pot. Here I was trying to do a fluid simulation to depict an oil well. Yep. Things weren’t going well that day. Fortunately, I save versions as I work. I was able to go back a version or two and rescue things.

Garbage

I also had the great idea of creating a mountain of rendered garbage for the scene’s background. The result did look like garbage, but more in the metaphorical sense. The texture I have on the garbage bags makes them look more like laundry detergent pods or a nasty variety of candy, and the bag arrangement looks more like a stone wall than a mountain. Okay. Part of art, writing, and many other endeavors is fearlessly trying stuff and being willing to admit when it isn’t working out.

I’ve spent hours either making or casting about for 3D models for my scenes. Here’s a model I ended up making, one of those ubiquitous red plastic cups:

SoloCup

Hmm. Maybe should have added a few more vertices to smooth it out. Anyhow, good enough for the job at hand. I could have bought a model – here’s a nice one for $19 – but it wasn’t that hard to make and didn’t need to be too precise for the scene I was building.

There are many, many sources of 3D models these days, some free and some for coin. One such source is the Daz3D site. They particularly specialize in models of humans and accessories. Now and then they offer freebies. A couple of months ago, when they were offering something gruesome like a haunted asylum or zombies (maybe it was zombies haunting an asylum?) I asked my ten-year-old son whether we needed such models. He took a look at the gloom and gruesomeness in the ad and bellowed “Oh HECK YEAH!” He could think of jillions of occasions when he might personally need 3D models of zombies or an asylum, and that wasn’t even taking into account my own needs. Really, is there any occasion for which zombie or spooky asylum imagery aren’t appropriate?

I duly registered with Daz, obtained the freebies, and filed them away on my hard drive. Strangely enough, our need for zombies and asylums wasn’t as great as we thought, so they haven’t yet been used.

Since then, though, Daz and I have become great friends. I say this because they send me an email every day or so, which is what good pen pals do. Usually the letter is filled with colorful and, dare I say it, fetishistic imagery. The subject lines are things like “BOGO is a Go-Go” and “It’s a Zevtastic Weekend”

Here are some samples:

Fashion

Hot damn. Everybody knows how much I care about fashion. Sea vehicles, too.

 

Adventures

Not sure I want to know what the related fantasy items are.

 

Utility

Huh. I’ve never seen anything like that at the hardware store. Maybe I was too focussed on stuff like caulk and bolts.

 

Crazy

You know, I’m beginning to suspect that I’m not in the core part of their target market. Members of their target market are probably more the sort who like to gaze at breasts.

 

skyler

Bleh. Nope nope nope. Don’t want to know. Seriously. I’m not joking. I don’t want to know what people are doing with this model, particularly the way it’s dressed and posed. I’m a mom. I even get skeeved out by boy bands. Justin Bieber naked? Bleh. Get thee hence, Satan. Don’t want to see the buttocks of anyone younger than me unless they need a diaper change.

 

Freaky

Wait. The rest of the ads weren’t already freaky?

 

main-promo

No idea. More breast imagery, though. The outfit looks uncomfortable – the strap across the chest, and what if you need to use the restroom? – but I guess 3D models don’t care.

 

Woodlands

She looks annoyed. Maybe the 3D models do care about wearing freaky costumes. Or maybe the ears are uncomfortable.

I’ve considered unsubscribing from Daz’s emails, but I never know when they’ll offer something I need. Also, I’ll reluctantly admit that I’ve begun to find them entertaining. I never know what they’re going to send next, and I can only speculate that the young men who form their target audience eagerly await each email and find it very, um, stimulating.

Meanwhile, summer. Outings. Camps. Play dates.

At the beginning of the summer, I drug the boy down to Legoland. I like going to Legoland. My kid doesn’t, or at least not as much as he used to, but he endures it for my sake. I have to have a child to visit Legoland; adults aren’t allowed to visit by themselves.

I took these photos with my hand-me-down iPhone, thinking that I should pare down the amount of stuff I carried on the trip. I wish I’d taken a decent SLR along. There was lint and dust under the iPhone’s lens. Cleaning it out will require taking the phone apart. I can remove artifacts with Photoshop, but it gets to be a pain. Kind of a waste of time to remove something that shouldn’t have been there to begin with.

bison

Legoland. Is there a more perfect amusement park on earth? I don’t think so.

 

Miniland

I love every bit of it. The giant models of buildings in Miniland …

 

StarWars

… the Star Wars exhibit. Okay. I’m not into Lego Friends, but I guess I can’t blame the Lego company for their pink-burqaed, cynically capitalist attempt to lure in young females.

 

hotel2

You know that windmill you drive by when you’re going through Carlsbad? That’s the hotel we stayed at. The interior of the windmill is sad. There’s a massive vaulted space which should feel airy, but somehow it contrives to feel depressing and outdated. Just off to the side there’s a TGI Fridays which is accessed through a door in the windmill, a door which slams uncontrollably and loudly enough to rupture one’s eardrums. The experience pretty much destroyed every fantasy I had about windmills.

 

hotel

Here’s the view from our hotel room. Gorgeous! Pipes. A wall. Wires draped here and there. That must be the deluxe courtyard view touted on the reservation website.

Well, I guess this is what happens when you don’t cough up the $400+/night to stay at the Legoland Hotel during the height of the season.

 

Musee

Another trip, just for the day, up to the Musée Mecanique on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. The place is so cool. Tons of old coin-operated mechanical arcade machines. One can have a lot of fun on $5-10.

 

AnnSam

Plaque outside the building. It has a decidedly grotty, impromptu look about it, as though a passerby stuck it up with an entire tube of adhesive. I imagine Ann and Sam aren’t with us anymore – not too many people reach their 70th anniversaries – but their plaque lives on.

 

Sal

Laffing Sal. I believe one of her twin sisters lives in Santa Cruz.

 

BellyDancer

Good. Guess that takes care of sex ed.

 

Sailor

Poor fellow. He has a skin condition. Hope he’s not on meth.

 

FloppedOver

Another case of substance abuse, perhaps strong drink?

 

MarriedWoman

I didn’t look at this Nickelodeon reel. I had a strong suspicion that it would depict something unpleasant. Dishwashing or toilet scrubbing, maybe. Putting up storm windows. Other things married women wish to avoid. To heck with all that stuff.

 

Elephant

While up at the wharf, I made my family visit the Rainforest Cafe. I was curious. I’m glad we did it. Now we never have to go again.

Seriously, if you enjoy dim lights, fairly expensive food which aspires to be more than it is, and animatronic animals which make jackhammer-level racket every so often, this is a great place. Otherwise, perhaps not so much. The waitstaff were pleasant enough, though. Can’t blame them for the fact it’s a tourist trap.

hat

They do hand out rather nice little paper hats. I need a bio photo for some website or other. Maybe I should send this.

 

adventure1

Also hauled the boy and one of his friends up to the Adventure Playground in Berkeley this summer. Think “Home Depot meets Lord of the Flies”. I’m kidding. It’s a great place, actually, where kids can earn the right to use tools and woodworking materials to build their own creations. The staff there go to great pains to make sure the kids have enough freedom to learn and enjoy themselves while keeping the experience safe.

 

adventure2

One of the kid-built play structures, formed from salvaged materials.

 

adventure3

Inside one of the structures. Spooky-cheerful.

 

Vasona

Another day, taking the dogs out for a walk beside a lake, because I’m an idiot.

 

dogs

I thought it would do the dog we recently adopted, the white furball in the photo above, some good to get out. Go someplace in the car other than the vet’s, get some fresh air, see some new things.

Alas, he whined pitifully all the way to the lake and most of the way back. Ryan the weiner-basset didn’t whine, but he did slobber all over the front window and pass gas in my face during the drive. Neither dog particularly wanted the (plain) hamburgers we bought them, saving them until they were home again. Too excited, I guess.

Both of them were brats at the park, pulling on their leashes like crazy and barking at other dogs. At least they had the sense to not try that with the geese. Ryan seemed to tell Jake “Be cool, man. Be quiet and don’t look ‘em in the eye.”

Ah, well. Maybe it’s like dealing with kids. You have to take some chances and work with them a little before things get better.

 

mustaches

A disguise for every occasion? Yes, please! I particularly appreciate the lack of gender discrimination. I might want a mustache to supplement the one I’m already growing. One never knows.

Only 4 1/2 weeks of summer left. It’s palpably trickling away. Time to get the boy out for more experiences while he isn’t old enough to be ashamed of being seen with his mom, and get another quilt design or two ready to go.