This is a whole cloth quilt measuring 51.5 x 63″. It was rendered in ink on cotton, then batted and stitched.

A closeup of the head. The young man is Kip Russell, the recipient of the shipping container of goodies in the lower righthand corner of the quilt. The label on the shipping container reads:

From:
Curt & Janice Reisfeld
Princeton, New Jersey
Earth

To:
Kip Russell
℅ Clifford & Patricia Russell
Tycho City
Moon

Some may recognize this as an homage to Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit – Will Travel. I hope Heinlein would have been pleased, but since he’s dead, I can’t ask him.

There are a number of other homages and bits of silliness as well. I’d thought of running a contest to see if people could count them all. “First prize – one box of junk from my studio! Second prize – TWO boxes of junk from my studio!” However, I think I’ll do the world a favor and pass on the contest for now. I’m eager to move on to my next project.

Some of the toys from the care package.

A fictitious book conjured up for the purposes of this picture, Trees of North America. The book cover is an homage to a Golden Age illustrator, just as the round window the boy is sitting in is an homage to Rockwell.

Imagine growing up on the moon, with all barren and desolate, the largest lifeforms coming out of a hydroponics tank. Then imagine trying to wrap your mind around the notion of immensely tall trees and wild animals such as tigers and snakes. It would strain credulity a bit.

Here are the neighboring domes, which bear a mysterious resemblance to golf balls. Considering the amount of activity required to construct the domes, there’s a striking absence of tire tracks, boot tread marks, or rubble around them. I’ve wondered why this is, and concluded that aliens must have come and straightened things up. That, or Tycho city must have imported a small army of the gardeners who smooth the gravel in Japanese gardens. Really, there are any number of logical explanations for the tidiness other than the artist (me) being too lazy to render tire tracks.

Creating this thing was a bit of a slog. I began concept sketches in early October, 2011. At the time, I was a bit concerned by the fact that all of my recent work had been portraiture, either of people or creatures. Perhaps I should render something else for a change? Say, something like a city? And what better kind of city than my favorite type, the domed ones from science fiction potboilers? I used to devour science fiction by the box load when I was a girl, tales of young men venturing out to Dyson spheres or alien planets to battle bug eyed monsters. (Presumably young women hadn’t been invented when the authors were born, so they could only write about young men.)

As a matter of fact, here’s a little domed volcano and lagoon I made when I was about twelve. The whole thing is about the size of a quarter, carefully scraped together from modeling clay, Elmer’s glue, paint, and a gum machine capsule. I used to imagine that a miniature Tarzan lived inside. From this you may safely conclude that:

1. I was an insanely dull person.
2. I lived in an insanely dull place where there wasn’t much to do.
3. I had access to very few art supplies.
4. I didn’t have much of a social life, perhaps because of the miniature Tarzan thing.

Here’s another domed habitat, this time from an early quilt. The obsession persists, as does the stunted social life.

For research purposes, I got out Pyrex mixing bowls and my kid’s Legos. I was going to build a model of the domed city to end all domed cities!

Unfortunately, it was kind of lousy. The models tended to topple over at odd moments and didn’t make a convincing city. Also, the gravel in the photo stank to high heaven; it was some sort of synthetic scale gravel sold for use in model railroads, and probably full of carcinogens. But, no matter – the Pyrex-and-Lego test was a good proof of concept as far as building and lighting reference models. A nice starting place for sketches and thought, at least once the dizziness from inadvertently huffing synthetic gravel went away.

Only … I couldn’t just have a domed city in isolation, could I? Who lived there? What was the person’s story? Why did this city exist? I started doodling, and soon a person appeared in the picture. Just like that, I was right back to portraiture! Oh well – sometimes you just have to go with it.

I liked the idea of having a view of the other domes and maybe Earth. A window seat, too – I’ve always liked window seats. So who was sitting in the window seat? A kid? What was he doing? Reading? What was he reading?

I decided that he was reading about life on Earth. His grandparents, who lived on Earth, had sent him a care package of books and animal toys.

Armed with that thought and a basic positioning sketch, I began taking reference/lighting photos.

First I posed a kid in roughly same position as the kid in my sketch.

I found some toys which might be the sort of thing grandparents would send from Earth. After all, what is childhood without a rubber snake?

I even cut a strip of cardboard from a cereal box and taped it in a loop to simulate the window. Alas, that reference model has since been eaten by Dr. Trashcan, so it can’t appear here.

I consulted photos from the Apollo missions. That was enlightening. Many of the visual cues we take for granted on Earth don’t exist on the moon. Rocks appear sharp because they haven’t been weathered by water and wind. Shadows tend to be harsh, not diffuse. Since there’s no atmosphere, one doesn’t get graying and lightening with increasing distances. Finally, even though billions of stars were undoubtedly out in the sky, they weren’t visible in the photos.

I looked for images of the Earth as seen from space and from the moon. Surprise, surprise – North America isn’t necessarily front and center! It’s almost as though country divisions don’t matter in the grand scheme of the universe. Weird, huh?

With those visual references, I created a tighter cartoon of the whole scene:

At this point, I suppose I could have cheered “Oh, hooray! Only six more months to go and I’ll be done!” Happily, I didn’t know it would take that long. I thought it would take two or three months, tops, to trace this thing on to fabric, paint it, and stitch it. Ha ha ha! (Hollow, somewhat hysterical laugh.)

Here's a quick color composite, executed on the computer. The radioactive orange skin combined with glow-in-the-dark-blue uniform are rather grotesque. However, this was a useful exercise for straightening out compositional issues. Specifically, I was curious about how dark to make the lunar background. I also wanted to see if the shape-similarity of Earth, lunar domes, head, and window would tie those elements together and lead one around the picture. I also wanted to try confining color to visual elements which were alive or came from Earth - the Earth itself, the boy, the toys which were emblematic of life.

Finally, after all of the sketching and research, fabric painting got under way.

Painting the head.

Stitching the head.

Poor kid. He has long thread-like strands sprouting out of his head. Maybe it’s a disease peculiar to the moon, a fungus of some type.

At exhibits, visitors frequently ask how I decide how to stitch these things. This is how. I make a printout of the relevant part of the cartoon and draw on it. In the case of a face or skin, I may be trying out contour lines. Sometimes it takes several attempts and quite a bit of erasing to develop an arrangement I’m comfortable with.

My personal goal with stitching is to emphasize or reveal an object’s inherent texture or contours, or to convey a hidden message or mood. Sometimes that’s straightforward, as with the cushions and the contour lines around the shipping container. Sometimes, though, designs give me fits.

What’s the texture of nothingness, of the featureless void of the vacuum-filled sky? What kind of stitching does one do inside a bland, sterile environment like the domes, where the walls and floors are devoid of interest or grime? Sometimes there aren’t easy, obvious answers. Sometimes if a design is at least innocuous and doesn’t fight with the other visual elements, that counts as success.

It’s done. I’m so glad. Onward.

I received my advance copy of Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World about a month ago. I do believe that makes me the last person on the block to write about it!

Why has it taken me so long? An all-consuming project. I started work on the project October 3 of last year, confident that I’d whip it out in a couple of months. Yesterday, the better part of seven months later, I did the last bit of inking. In between there were muscle aches, pin pricks, mistakes and recoveries, despair at wondering if I’d ever finish the dadgummed thing, and now anxiety as I ponder future projects. I’m one of those anxious artists, you see, not happy unless I’m working and nothing is ever good enough.

Not that it matters, at least in the eyes of some. During the past year, I’ve had a number of experiences which have made it abundantly clear that many don’t regard fiber-based art – what I’m creating – as “real” art at all. There’s a paternalistic dismissal of fiber art as a “ladylike pursuit” in the vein of 18th century paper quilling, creating jewelry from the hair of the dead, and harpsichord playing. A fine thing to dabble away at when one isn’t in the kitchen or managing the servants, but not a medium for serious artists. Because, to paraphrase the thoughts of an acquaintance, we all know that a mark made with thread or fabric has inherently less artistic value than a mark made with pencil or paint.

Thank goodness for Martha Sielman. I don’t think she’s unaware of such concerns, unaware of the broad dismissal of fiber works as a kind of pink collar ghetto. However, she seems to simply sweep them aside and render them unimportant. In particular, she’s done yeoman service in chronicling the medium of art quilting. With Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World, she’s given us the first volume in an encyclopedic survey of art quilts, with future volumes to cover topics such as landscapes, people and portraits, and abstracts.

This first volume is divided into galleries whose topics include flowers, birds, water, animals, leaves, insects, trees and textures. Sielman has carefully selected works representing diverse compositional and rendering methods, making this both a pleasurable read and a useful reference work. Two or three artists are profiled in depth in each section, with the galleries filled out by the works of myriad artists (including me). I was delighted to see some of my old favorites, including Betty Busby and Annemieke Mein, and to be introduced to artists with whom I was unfamiliar. Here is an excerpt profiling Betty Busby.

Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World is available through SAQA, Amazon, and other retailers.

Here’s the first half of the video:

At 16:13, Deborah Corsini is innocently going about her business when the gigantic head of my piece, Farmer Brown, looms up behind her. Very 1984. At 17:40, Corsini briefly discusses Farmer Brown. My piece is only one part of the show, of course. The work of Susan Shie, Betty Busby, Katie Pasquini Masopus, and many other is also highlighted.

Here’s the second video:

It was very nice of KMTV to make those videos available, particularly given that many aren’t able to travel to the exhibit.

In addition to creating new works and lurking at the museum, I’ve been reading Stephen Farthing’s extensive Art From Cave Painting to Street Art. That’s how I roll. I like to start by contemplating art in prehistory, when our tube worm ancestors were shaping themselves into intriguing-looking fossils, and read up to recent times, when artists are preserving tiger sharks in formaldehyde. Then I close the tome and consider those who make charming prints out of fresh human placenta (not in the book, and link not recommended for everyone) and mutter “what is art?” After this exercise, I return to my own work, reassured that it at least won’t cause cancer or spread disease.

As usual, a few passages from the book caught my eye:

p. 227, Rembrandt
“Rembrandt’s lavish spending, fall in production, and refusal to compromise his artistic principles landed him in debt. He was declared bankrupt and forced to sell his townhouse. The artist was buried in a pauper’s grave.”

Oh dear. A very unpleasant end for a great man.

p. 229, Vermeer
“The outbreak of the Franco-Dutch war in 1672 saw his earnings slump On his death, he left his widow massively in debt.”

Mmm. Not good.

p. 217, Caravaggio
“In the last few years of his life, Caravaggio became notorious for his violent activities. He murdered a man in 1606 and spent the rest of his life on the run in Naples, Sicily and Malta.”

I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

p. 340, Gauguin
“Gauguin moved to Tahiti and painted vivid, primitive works. He attempted suicide in 1897 and settled with a Tahitian girl on the Marquesas Islands in 1901. Sentenced to imprisonment for libel in 1903, he died before starting his sentence.”

I hope this isn’t mandatory for serious artists, the business about mental disturbances or dying a pauper? I’m not in the least interested in killing anyone or settling down with a teenage girl.

p. 336, Van Gogh

Oh dear. I think … let’s not go there today.

If I could go, I would. I’ve only met Betty once, having dinner with her and a group, but that was one of the most interesting, entertaining meals I’ve ever had. She’s very smart, has a great design sense and a great sense of humor.

If, like me, you can’t attend her class, you might enjoy seeing some of the work on her website or enjoy a visit to her blog.

On her blog, she discusses the creation of some of her works. Very illuminating. I always enjoy seeing her work in person, but it adds an extra dimension to, say, visit the current Quilt National exhibit, read the words “hot knife,” and realize that she actually burned or melted away fabric to create part of the design. An industrial technique harnessed to create a wonderfully organic design, and somehow all very Betty.

I can’t really post any photos of the exhibit, other than this sign:

Try not to hurt your eyes squinting. The Museum’s curator, Deborah Corsini, kindly gave me a “shout out” in the second to last paragraph. Remember the song from Sesame Street, “One of these things is not like the other …”? Yeah. It was all I could do to not hum it at the reception. Although there are several representational works in the show, by and large the show is abstract. So abstract that the likes of Mondrian and Pollock would squeal with joy, provided they were the types to squeal. I appreciate the Quilt National jurors’ giving Farmer Brown a chance.

(Speaking of jurors, Nelda Warkentin will be speaking March 18. I’m looking forward to an insightful talk. I’ll be participating in the gallery walk again as well.)

Immediately after the reception, I hit the road, driving 450 miles south to San Diego. I still haven’t caught up with email or blog comments sent during the last couple of weeks. (*cough* months *cough*) I wish I could claim that was atypical.

Why Southern California? Why, Lego Oland, of course!

Yes, it’s always a pleasure to visit Lego Oland in sunny Fornia. One can throw a child on a ride, then kick back with a cup of coffee and admire the many giant Lego sculptures. Slothful parenting at its laziest. For those without a suitably-aged child to act as a beard, I have the following photos:

There’s something ironic about creating a giant dinosaur out of petrochemicals, although I suppose actual dinosaur remains would comprise a very tiny percentage – if any – of the stuff pumped out of the ground.

A tranquil family grouping, also rendered in plastic bricks.

Legoland has some joyous fountains which almost rival those at the Place Igor Stravinsky in Paris.

Yes, of course. That’s the first thing female firefighters do after donning full SCBA gear so they can battle a raging fire: they slather on the lipstick. Sexism lives.

“Is that a Lego banana in your pocket, or are you just …”

Oh, never mind. I shouldn’t go there, particularly after getting hinky over the firefighter with the lipstick.

Very nice sea monster-inspired ostrich. Wish I’d thought of this.

Legoland employee toiling in the model shop, with only a sheet of plate glass between him and visitors. Poor guy. There is no escaping The Eyes.

Heck yeah! My yard would be about a thousand times more interesting if I had little grace notes like this around.

You know what this means, don’t you? That’s right. Somewhere, there are voracious aphids the size of a German Shepherd. Lock your doors and keep an eye on the Aspidistra.

I love these cars. I’d totally drive one around town if it was street legal.

A trip to Southern California also means a visit to Balboa Park. It’s practically a requirement. The Mingei had a neat exhibit of Post-War Modern San Diego design.

There I discovered a new favorite artist, Barney Reid. This wall hanging is very scrumptious indeed.

Jane Chapman, 1950
This shot is just to establish that we’re looking at a very tall, narrow wall hanging.

Here’s a little closer look at a section of it. What do we see? Abstract shapes rendered in fiber and heavy, very textural threads. The sort of thing the art quilting world often regards as Innovative Contemporary Art. However, this piece was made over sixty years ago.

At the end of a post on her blog, Kathy Nida has written a couple of thoughtful paragraphs about work being perceived as more or less artistic depending upon the medium in which its rendered. She asks what “makes a line made with a paintbrush or pen or pencil more artistic to those who consider what is art than the line made by a piece of thread or fabric?” In my opinion, it is because fiber is a pink collar ghetto. It isn’t intrinsically more or less artistic. It simply isn’t used as much by males, and therefore it isn’t as highly valued. If Kandinsky had chosen to create his abstracts in fabric, rather than in paint, there wouldn’t have been a question about whether the work was art or not. As far as the mainstream art world goes, a work’s artistic value is determined by the artist, not by the art.

Sixty years ago, Jane Apple Chapman and her cohort were making abstract shapes and marks with fabric and thread. Art regarded as craft. Today, we are still making shapes and marks with fabric and thread. Some of us create abstracts rather than figurative works because that is what we love or what we’re driven to do. Others of us create abstracts because we hope that in so doing, our fiber pieces will be regarded as serious Art. The same ground Jane Chapman trod sixty years ago.

Good luck.

Phyllis Wallen, Funform

Barney Reid, Cocktail Napkins, early 1950s
I like this man’s work.

I saw several of these signs around. This one was on a chair covered with faux fur. On the one hand, it’s amusing. On the other hand, I’d like to liberally plaster them all over my work. Many venues are scrupulous about keeping the bare hands of visitors away from fiber-based pieces. Some (*cough* Mancuso *cough*) are not. Last fall I watched dozens of people stroke and pat the piece I had at PIQF. They meant no harm, but the damage does accumulate. A little hand lotion there, some natural skin oils and soils there, perhaps a ring snagging on the work. Suddenly the piece I took to the show in pristine condition has acquired a shopworn aspect. And you know, I can’t exactly throw it in the washer to clean it, nor will anyone want to buy it if it’s soiled. Thanks loads, folks. So, bottom line, I wish people wouldn’t run their hands over things until they’ve purchased them.

From a Maneki Neko exhibit at the museum. They had an astonishing variety of these friendly cats.

At the San Diego Museum of Art, tucked away in a room beside the cafe, is this Huichol art car. It’s encrusted with literally millions of tiny beads. My photo is ghastly, but I hope will give some sense of the car and encourage others to go see it.

Another bad photo. My apologies to the artists.

Anyhow, it was a good trip and it’s good to be home. It left me with renewed energy to work, and work I shall – I’ve been pounding away at the current piece since October, and it isn’t anywhere close to done.

The Quilt National exhibit has opened at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. It will run through April 29.

The Museum has put out a nice flier for the occasion. (I’m biased, of course.) That’s Bette Uscott-Woolsey’s 52 Pickup at the top of the flier, followed by my Farmer Brown, then Marti Plager’s January, and finally Dianne Firth’s Earth Bones.

If you’re in the San Jose area, or in one of the other areas which the Quilt National collections will tour, I recommend stopping by to enjoy the exhibit.

While Quilt National offers a wonderful print catalog, the experience of attending an exhibit and seeing works in person is much different than that of perusing a book. While we can admire Susan Shie’s Stars on the Water in its 6 x 7″ book reproduction, we appreciate it much differently when we encounter its 86 x 79″ mass. We see that the textural dark marks across the surface are actually writing – lots and lots of stream-of-consciousness writing, laboriously executed with an air pen. We can enjoy the saturated colors, which are incredibly difficult to reproduce in print, and get some sense of the hand of the maker.

Similarly, we can better appreciate the texture, scale, and other subtleties of others’ works. In person, Paula Kovarik’s Global Warming is a subtly hued exploration of environmental concerns, accented by a fringe of plastic garbage bags. Betty Busby’s Opposites Attract treats us to an elegant abstraction of microscopic images, with designerly variations in pattern, color gradients, and surface. And yes, there’s my own Farmer Brown, a mischievous young man writ large, waiting to bash people over the head with his battered straw hat.

I’ll be attending the walkthrough and reception this Sunday. I hope that Lura Schwarz Smith will be as well; she’s a very warm sort of person who exudes a gentle humor, and she does marvelous work.

On March 18, the Museum will be offering a lecture by Nelda Warkentin. This is a great opportunity to gain insight into her work, as well as her experiences as a juror for Quilt National ’11. I hope to attend her talk and participate in the accompanying gallery walk.

Artist as Quiltmaker

In other exhibit news, my piece Siesta has been juried into the Artist as Quiltmaker show. That exhibit will be held May 13 – July 29 in Oberlin, Ohio. Siesta and other works will be available for purchase.

No Place to Call Home

SAQA’s No Place to Call Home exhibit, curated by Kathleen McCabe and highlighting various aspects of homelessness, will be appearing in Loveland, Colorado July 1 – September 16. My own work, Leaving, will be appearing there. It and various other works will be for sale, with 1/3 of the proceeds going to a homeless assistance group.

Machine Quilting Unlimited has very kindly featured Flooded in their January/February edition as the Jaw Dropper.

I’ve gotten to work with some good people and publications over the years, but this was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. MQU’s Managing Editor, Kit Robinson, was very specific and helpful about the content they wanted. I didn’t have to tie my work up for months on end, and the whole business took place with a minimum of fuss. Their layout/design staff did a wonderful job of laying out the feature and highlighting the qualities of my quilt. Finally, the complimentary copy of the magazine arrived as promised, in a timely manner, without my having to inquire about it. I really appreciate all of the above.

Back to work – a piece of cotton is calling me, and it won’t brush ink on itself! I hope everyone is having a good, productive new year.

Weiner dogs aside, this post is going to focus on portraiture, images of people. The next post will focus on other works I saw at IQF Houston, then there’ll probably be a final post filled with visual navel lint, the odds and ends which don’t belong anywhere else.

At the end of this post are some links to others’ photos and videos. I found that, although I strolled through the Festival several days, I’m still seeing pictures which make me say “Huh? Was that at the show?” Perhaps the people who take photos of every single thing really do have the right idea!

To start things off nicely, here’s some of Maria Elkins’ work:

This is Windblown. It took one of the top eight prizes at the show, the “Fairfield Master Award for Contemporary Artistry.”

I’ve been following Maria’s work for several years, using some of her experiments as departure points for my own. It’s a pleasure to see her hard work rewarded.

A detail of the face. I’m getting a little Art Nouveau feel from this closeup. And, oh my, I do love to spy on how others do things. Look at how she’s rendered the teeth, with a very subtle separation between teeth and gum, and the eyelashes becoming one non-fussy, expressive mass. She’s also stitched some feathers into the woman’s hair, a nice nod to traditional needlework.

A detail of some of the stitching in the sky. Again, very expressive and a nice nod to tradition and the medium.

Here’s another of Elkins’ works, Embrace 1, based on woodblock prints she made a few years ago. I suggest a detour to her blog to see some of the prints. They’re alive with texture and pattern, making it not altogether surprising that she tried a fabric interpretation.

This is a looser, more abstract style than I remember seeing from her, but still very much “her”.

Memories of Gombe, Mary Pal

Mary creates these portraits by manipulating cheesecloth on a dark background. The resulting density and grain direction of the cheesecloth thus capture the nuances of facial expressions and other details, a challenging business indeed. It probably doesn’t hurt that Mary has a great eye for compelling imagery.

Here’s a poorly photographed closeup of one of the eyes from the portrait of Jane Goodall.

Solace

Mary is now roaming North America, teaching classes in this technique. Although I’m not interested in working in this mode myself, I’m tempted to look up one of her classes. It’s often the case that when I study under someone who does really wonderful work, I not only gain insights into their work but my own as well. I’ll bet she has some interesting things to say about composition and the nuances of shading and facial expression.

Disclaimer: I can no longer claim to be impartial regarding her or her work. I had the pleasure of meeting both Mary and Betty Busby at the show, and having a supper which was one of the highlights of my trip. I dare say it was a meal the waiter won’t soon forget, either.

God’s Greatest Gift to Me Was Dad, Cindy Garcia

This is a portrait of Garcia’s late father. Garcia has captured the almost-painful sense of fragility we sometimes observe in the elderly. The hunched shoulders and positioning of the head with respect to the shoulder area speak volumes.

She credits Marilyn Belford for the technique, but clearly has made it her own as well.

Mattie, Topher, and Jack, Elizabeth Habich

A nice slice of life. Give kids rocks, sticks and some water – or in this case, rocks holding down a piece of plywood covering a smelly hole – and they’re set. You could plunk this scene down anywhere in the world, and the story would be much the same.

Bukonyan Elder, Virginia Greaves

A portrait of an elderly woman from Bukonya, Rwanda. The planes of her face and positioning of her hands upon the cane are so expressive.

Organic is good for you!, Bodil Gardner

Journeys end in lovers meeting

Her work is always extremely likable.

Woman Waiting I, Pamela Allen

A response to the ghastly experience of her husband’s serious health problems, and endless hours waiting and attending to his recovery.

The next five works are Allen’s as well. I love her work. Can’t get enough of it.

Wonder of Birds

Making Her Exit

I hope Allen will forgive me for copying her entire artist’s statement for this quilt. I think her experiences will resonate with many of us:

“At age 30, I felt it was make or break time, if I was ever going to pursue my dream of becoming an artist. It seemed iffy, but I enrolled in art school and worked at my day job part time to finance it. On graduation, I made an excited move to my new life. Instead of the sameness of my former career, I have enjoyed a life of infinite choices, chances, and changes for 30 years. I can hardly believe I was ever that other person!”

I spent my twenties shoving electrons and positrons down a two mile long tube and smacking them together to see what would fly out. (Imagine driving two cars toward at each other at high speed, and crashing them so you could have a look at their components. Hey! A piece we’ve never seen before! I think I’ll call it … Carburetorum. Now gimme my Nobel Prize!) It was interesting work. It was also work I wasn’t well suited to, and at some point I too felt it was make or break time. I’m glad I made some changes, and I’m sure my former coworkers are as well. Like Allen, I can hardly believe I was ever that other person.

A Very Stingy Tooth Fairy

Cold Canadians

The Dionnes at Quintland

From Allen’s artist’s statement, “I looked at Picasso to develop the strained and stressed faces of the children.”

Sakura Sakura, Hiroko Miyama

A joyous portrait not only of the artist’s grandchild, but of the dog.

She had at least one other grandchild/dog image in the show, Natsumi & Sumire. I’m annoyed with myself for not getting a shot of it. It would have been nice to be able to compare the compositions, the rendering of the child and the dog.

Self Portrait, Joan Sowada

This depicts Sowada at various life stages, with projections into the future based on an elderly aunt. I’m particularly fond of the section of the portrait with her hand resting on the back of the chair. It reflects her vibrance of personality.

Sowada is a neat person. She had work in Quilt National this year, during which I had the pleasure of meeting her. She’s one of the few people there I wasn’t too gutless to converse with.

Holy Cow, Jennifer Day

Based on a photo of best friends in a cow pasture at Day’s ranch. She has covered a printed surface with dense, dense free motion embroidery, somewhat reminiscent of Carol Shinn’s work. This piece won the Spirit of Texas Award.

Here’s Megan Farkas with her work, Sakura I: Hanaogi Views the Cherry Blossoms, for which she won the Future of Quilting Award.

Farkas may LOOK radiant, but make no mistake, that’s a look of sheer terror on her face. Justifiably so, if you ask me. The lot of one of those top prize winners isn’t an easy one. Like rare zoo animals, they’re put on display in a little habitat which looks attractive, but is cunningly designed to prevent escape.

Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Yes. The scene doesn’t seem so benign now, does it?

Do you see how she has her legs up in what looks like a ladylike fashion? That’s because she’s tied to the seat, which is at a potential of 5 kV. If she so much as brushes a foot against the floor, she’ll complete a circuit to ground and – ZAP! – that’ll be it for her.

Or, you know, maybe I’m wrong about all of this. Maybe she really is having the time of her life. It’s a hard call.

Checks & Balances, Caryl Bryer Fallert

It’s always neat to see what Fallert is up to. This quilt may reflect some of her enchantment with dancing, shades of the self-portrait she made a couple of years back.

A closeup so we can admire the figures which are rendered in stitch.

A closeup highlighting some of her precise, intricate stitching.

Dance (Panels 1 and 5), Randall Cook

He’s rendered these figures with Shibori, which lends an organic effect.

Here’s a detail shot of the figure on the right; it gives a little better sense of the organic quality of Cook’s painting and stitching.

Fractured Self

Fractured Self. That’s an intriguing title, even more so when one considers that the subject’s genitalia have quite literally been splintered away.

Intrigued by Cook’s work, I looked at his website. He’s done a number of nudes, studies of the finely muscled male form. Aside from their artistic merit, they’re aesthetically preferable to the images which would result from my doing honest self-portraits revealing my lumpy, post-baby body. (Perhaps I could display such work with a special tool with which people could put out their eyes after viewing?)

However, there is – ahem – a notable absence in each of them. I am of course referring to the Big P, the penis. Now, this may very well be an artistic decision on Cook’s part. If one includes that anatomy, there’s the question of how to arrange it, so to speak, the implications of which could be fodder for an entire paper, not to mention tittering and pearl clutching by some.

That said, I suspect – but don’t know – that in order to display at many shows, he has to literally emasculate the males in his images. That, or the models are discreetly posed with their nether regions off the canvas, below water, coyly hidden behind a thigh. We can cope with any number of other body parts, it seems, but not the Big P. Alas, I’m left with the same feeling I had as a child, when I’d curiously peer beneath the waistband of a friend’s Ken doll: there was no there there! Surely this wasn’t the correct state of things?

I have heard any number of arguments against depicting nudity – particularly male nudity – in artwork. Many seem to center around decency, keeping privates private, prurience, not wanting to see dangly bits, or Thinking Of The Children (approximately 50% of whom possess the anatomy under discussion). Please indulge me while I go on a brief verbal rabbit trail.

In the merchandise area of Festival, I saw campy fabric featuring muscular, generously proportioned cowboys. “Lookit them bulges!” I heard a woman crow. There were also ironing board covers festooned with attractive towel-draped males; when ironed, the towel would disappear.

Why is this sort of leering, winking depiction of people okay, but honest nudity in artwork isn’t?

While at Festival, I was subjected to some unbelievably personal conversations, most of which I wasn’t able to politely escape. From the two women behind me in the coffee line, I learned about Cousin Fenster’s testicular tumors. Another pair discussed having to fold up drooping breasts in order to get them in a bra, and the thinning out of pubic hair as one ages. On the bus to the hotel, a woman indulged in a loud extended speech about having her dress blow up over her head, exposing her flesh-colored Spanx before a busload of people. That is a dose of humiliation most of us can sympathize with, I think. But then she continued in that vein, pondering ways she could embellish the Spanx so she wouldn’t look naked, lest the issue reoccur in front of, say, a busload of men heading to Minute Maid Park. (“I dreamed a busload of men saw me in my Maidenform Bra,” I thought to myself.)

Yes, it’s true; I’m a weirdo magnet. However, these weren’t just isolated incidents. I heard conversations of this nature every day. At the end of the Spanx soliloquy, I thought “Okay, all of these things are universal human issues, but they’re rather personal. Why is it okay for these people to discuss these matters in front of strangers, but it isn’t okay for Cook to have even a discrete, innocuous penis on his work?” Because I know in my heart, artistic decision or no, that it wouldn’t be okay.

We all do what we have to, I guess.

On a more cheerful note, I’d like to suggest that Cook’s works don’t have to be permanently emasculated. I know an artist who crochets body parts. (Link NSFW) For a suitable fee, I’ll bet she’d be delighted to fix him up with something that he can pin on his quilts when they’re lolling about his studio, then remove when they go off to shows. And, Spanx woman? You were wondering about a suitable embellishment for your flesh-colored undergarments? I think my friend can also help you out.

Links to others’ images and videos:
I’ll see if I can find more before my next post.

Maria Elkins has run a series on IQF people and portrait quilts. I suggest starting at the first one, then paging through to find the successive entries.

A nicely produced video, courtesy of Bonnie McCaffery.

Another video, with some fun interspersed interviews with visitors.

Luana Rubin’s Flickr set.

Luana Rubin’s page of videos, including a tour of the warehouse, first prize winners, and top cash prizewinners.

“Oh boy! The 2011 Fall IQA Winners Circle! Will I get an award? Will I will I will I? Gosh, I hope nobody forgot my award! I hope it’s not all a mistake!”

A shot of the audience. My goodness – such a wild crowd! The last time I saw a scene of such debauchery, it was at an Ozzie Osbourne concert!

(Just kidding. I’ve never been to a rock concert.)

The cool ceiling treatment, comprised of swirling lights with colored filters/gobos and long swaths of fabric hung from the rigging. I spent a great deal of time studying it, for reasons I’ll explain in just a bit.

I didn’t take any photos during the actual ceremony, but for the sake of this narrative, let’s pretend I did and that this is one of them. “The third place winnah, Art Pictorial, is …”

If you want more authentic photos, see these. There’s also a complete list of the award winners here, and I’m sure IQA will soon have CDs with photos of the award-winning quilts for sale on their website.

After the ceremony, with people admiring the top award winners. If you peer really carefully, you may be able to spot black draperies above each of the works. These covered the works until each announcement, when a battalion of invisible elves would raise them. A few of the cables squeaked as they were pulled, a fact which gave me perverse delight.

Now, not long before the ceremony, I’d piled off an airplane. I was coated with an invisible noxious layer of airplane sweat and stranger germs, the latter from the male who’d sat beside me and attempted to vivisect me with his elbow. I was also ravenous, having been reduced to chewing my tongue and pretending it was a Slim Jim. A quick shower took care of the first issue. To address my hunger, I grabbed a packaged salad from a food cart.

Rarely has a salad been greeted with such gusto! It was a miracle in a pressed cardboard bowl, a small mountain of shredded cabbage, almonds, pepper slices and fruit, all topped with a zesty jalapeno dressing. Enough fiber, I hazard to guess, to weave a poncho for an elephant. After devouring it I felt wonderful. Swell, in fact.

About 45 minutes into the awards ceremony, my abdomen also felt swell – as though it was swelling up, to be precise. I grew concerned that the salad might not want to stay put, that I might emit a noise like a duck being stepped on when it was my turn to step across the stage. Should I step outside to address the issue? But no, I could be called at any time. How ghastly it would be to travel halfway across the country and be felled by cabbage, just at the moment I’d longed for and never thought would come.

There was nothing to do but concentrate on the patterns made by the pretty swirling lights on the ceiling and clamp my legs together like the proverbial chaste maiden holding an aspirin between her knees. Bits of the ceremony seeped into my brain, award-winners overwhelmed with emotion and choking back tears. When the top eight award winners were being called, I could see some of them bouncing in their seats, getting increasingly excited when they weren’t called: they knew the top award would be called last. The part of me that wasn’t focussed on containing my salad felt a burst of affection for the show’s organizers and sponsors. What a nice thing they’d done, giving these people a venue to exhibit work and an opportunity to be recognized. Because of their actions, that teary first place winner in the next row was having a night she’d never forget.

I experienced something similar to the top eight during the painted surface awards, expecting to be called for honorable mention or third place. At some point I realized that not being called must mean that I was in second or first place: Oh! Well, that was nice! Much better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. In the end I walked away with second place, inanely telling Ricky Tims “Howdy!” when he handed me the nice white envelope with the check inside. First place went to Mardal and Hougs, whose work I have long admired. As I waddled back to my seat, knees resolutely clamped together, I reflected on the fact that there are far worse fates than being beaten by Mardal and Hougs.

Here’s Flooded, my submission, on display with its ribbon. Now, it’s hard to tell from this photo, where I’ve adjusted the white balance in Photoshop, but it didn’t show particularly well. On the show floor, it looked washed out, desaturated and yellow, and suffered from comparison with the works on each side of it, which were alive with color. This was a bit of a shock, given how lively it had looked in my studio. Indeed, when I’d painted it, I was concerned that I might be making the colors too saturated and contrasty.

A photographer friend who was on the scene suggested that part of the issue might have been tungsten lights on the show floor. Indeed, when he adjusted the white balance on his camera, I could see the colors in his photos become more pure. However, it may also be the case that I need to increase the dynamic range of future work, bumping up the contrast and allowing for issues like yellowing tungsten lights. So if you’re also displaying your work, allow for unpredictable lighting and backgrounds.

Needless to say, after seeing my own work and others’ wonderful work on the show floor, I was even more grateful that the judges had given Flooded an award.

Here is my ribbon, a very nice ribbon indeed. (The last one I received, way back in the third grade, was a piece of satin which had been shoved through a typewriter.) I took a photo of it because I won’t see it again for six or seven months; Flooded, the ribbon, and others’ prize-winning quilts will be going on tour.

As the ribbon notes, the painted surface awards were provided by Ricky Tims, Inc.. I hope to find out more of the story behind that. When one tots up the painted surface awards, it’s an outlay of at least $2,000 for prizes, and there may be further costs I’m not aware of. I suppose one could chalk the generosity up to good advertising and hope he gets a return on the investment, but I suspect that there’s more to the story than that. Perhaps he’s trying to give back a little, or help further the industry. But why the painted surface category? Tims is noted for his hand dyed fabrics and popular quilt-designing techniques, including Convergence, Rhapsody and Kaleidoscope. (Be sure to look for his books on Amazon or other places fine books are sold!)

It’s somewhat mysterious, but much appreciated.

I will close this entry with a gratuitous unrelated image of a pumpkin, which I’d failed to dispose of before leaving for Houston. I’ll get some photos from the show floor posted during the next few days after I cull through them – and yes, after I get rid of the moldering pumpkin and encourage its resident to move on.

An extensive merchandise area occupied about half of the floor space. On some level, that’s what the show is really about: selling things. If it didn’t pull in money, the exhibit of quilts wouldn’t occur. One can feel bemused by the juxtaposition of one’s laboriously stitched masterpiece with the EZ-Scraper 3000 booth or simply go with it, appreciating the fact that people have a place to share their work.

I only took photos of a fraction of the quilts on exhibit. I did see people walking up and down the aisles, doggedly (and perhaps blindly) click-clicking away at each quilt. I’ve done the same thing in previous years and have discovered that I never refer back to those photos. Never. Thus, this year I just focussed on a few things which caught my eye.

I attended the show with a couple of friends and discovered that their tastes are different than mine – quite different! Friend #1 was fond of symmetrical or geometric compositions, often featuring circles or op art themes. Friend #2 seemed drawn to more traditional works which showcased meticulous stitching. As for me, I like whatever I like, often for disparate reasons.

I learned that it’s literally the case that three different people will see three different shows. I also noticed different things each time I visited the show. Perhaps the true value of different people’s blog entries, then, is not so much seeing a complete catalog of show entries as it is seeing what different people are drawn to and why. Accordingly, at the end of this entry I’ll post some links to others’ blogs. Someone else’s notes may reveal a gem I didn’t mention.

Rift, Sue Dennis, 52.5 x 63″

There’s a certain emotional impact which comes with large works. I turned a corner and there it was, glowing against the dark backdrop curtain of the exhibit, containing intertwined and somehow mysterious symbols. I found it both incomprehensible and fascinating.

I’m glad to be receptive to this piece, to be able to admire it. For many years I loathed yellow and orange, as they were indelibly associated with a toxic relationship. Thus, Dennis’ artist’s statement seems on point: “Reflecting on numerous situations has led me explore family relationships, the underpinnings of these and the emotions inherent in families. The seed pods represent people.”

The Many and the Few, Sue Dennis, 23.5 x 41.5″

A composition in Eucalyptus and Kurrajong leaves. This was made in 2006, perhaps four or five years before Rift. It’s interesting to see the changes in her work.

Time – Timeless, Tana LaDuke, 71.25 x 42″

This is a particularly subtle, textural composition. She’s used rust dyeing, which artfully supports the concept of time passing. Her stitching is elegant, reminiscent of the weathered carving one might see on an ancient monuments. The vertical column of text is a passage from Ecclesiastes, the one famously rearranged and beaten to death by the Byrds in their song Turn! Turn! Turn!

Works like this one make me consider fabricating my own award ribbons and stealthily pinning them beside things I admire. I’ll be the Banksy of fiber arts shows, adding ribbons where there were none or anonymously mailing them to artists. (Gosh, no. That won’t creep anyone out.)

On a related note, as I go through shows, I frequently ask myself “Why did this need to be a quilt?” I mean that in the most non-critical way possible – really, it’s sufficient that the person wanted to make a particular thing out of fiber. However, in terms of improving our art, if that’s what we want to do, would there have been a better medium for executing a specific project? Does a particular piece take advantage of the unique qualities of fiber, or would it have been fine rendered as, say, a poster or a collage? When pondering this I often look at the stitching and whether it seems to support/reinforce the surface image or appears to be an afterthought. I also look at the texture which results from stitching. Does it contribute anything to the piece?

In this case, I believe the answer is yes. This needed to be done in fiber. LaDuke could have executed this as, say, a poster, using ink to draw what are presently stitching lines. However, the end result would have lost the richness which results from light playing across its surface variations.

Swan Lake de los Muertos, Nancy Arseneault, 67 x 78″

It’s strange. I like that. If you ask me, there aren’t enough dancing skeletons in the world, particularly ones wearing tutus.

Arseneault has designed a number of quilts with a Day of the Dead theme. Here’s a Quilter’s Newsletter blurb on her beauty parlor-themed quilt, with appropriately ghoulish customers.

Flam & Menco, Charlotte Kruk & Carol Traumiller

This is created from M&M candy packaging and embellished here and there with sequins and beads. It’s a marvel, isn’t it?

A shot of the skirt.

I was delighted to see it, on a very personal level. A few years ago, I saw Kruk’s “Traje de Luces,” a matador’s suit of lights constructed entirely of M&M wrapper refuse. The artist’s statement mentioned something about a “Cease & Desist” letter from M&M/Mars.

“There has to be a story behind this,” I thought, so I went and Googled it. According to articles such as this one, back in 2001, M&M/Mars had gotten wind of her making dresses from refuse candy wrappers. Quoting from this story, “They ordered her to ‘immediately turn over for destruction’ the pieces she had made from their packaging.” Oh dear.

A number of letters were exchanged, that being the way of attorneys: they have little to lose by dashing off lists of demands. If all goes well, at least from the viewpoint of the corporate legal department, the recipient will be frightened into compliance. The matter will then have been resolved cheaply, without having to go to court. If matters don’t go well, they can have a junior person in the vast corporate legal department continue sending letters and perhaps, eventually, take more definite legal action.

It must have been extraordinarily unpleasant to be in Kruk’s shoes. It’s one thing to know you have a right to repurposes your own trash to create art; it’s quite another to stand your ground against an organization with virtually inexhaustible resources. One could quite literally get dunned into bankruptcy simply by paying one’s own lawyer to write letters in response.

I don’t know M&M/Mars’ side of the story, but I can guess. They may have gotten wind of Kruk creating or selling something made with their packaging or corporate marks, then ritualistically sent out a Cease & Desist letter in anticipation of a trademark or other violation. It’s a shame that other courses of action weren’t pursued after the situation was clarified, such as M&M/Mars using the garments in a publicity campaign. As it is, they did get publicity – just not of a positive nature. To this day, if I have a choice between buying two candy bars, I won’t purchase the one made by M&M/Mars.

Homeless Love, Mary Pal, 34x 24″
Part of SAQA’s Layers of Memory exhibit

Pal has created a series of portraits by manipulating cheesecloth on a painted buckram background. She shades areas by layering or otherwise manipulating the cheesecloth to create different densities. She also gives areas a sense of texture/direction by the orientation in which she lays the material down.

Since this technique has yielded such striking results in Pal’s hands, I suspect that it’s destined to become popular and much imitated. There will be workshops and books: if Pal doesn’t offer them herself, someone else will. In six months to a year, we’re bound to start seeing shows flooded with cheesecloth portraiture, much the way we’ve seen portraits à la Esterita Austin and landscapes à la Noriko Endo.

Shattered, Betty Busby, 42 x 36″
Part of SAQA’s Layers of Memory exhibit.

I had an amusing experience at the show. Now and then someone’s work would catch my eye and – what do you know? – it was created by Betty Busby! That happened frequently enough that I’m going to have to see if it occurs at other shows, perhaps give the phenomenon its own name. Something with a hyphen and lots of syllables, shades of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Maybe the Busby-Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.

She really does have a remarkable sense of design. She also appears to be quite prolific.

Raptor II, Betty Busby, 49 x 33″

I was charmed by this, with its monster-sized bite mark out of the corner. If you ask me, there isn’t enough artwork around which has been chomped by a dinosaur.

Coral Sea, Betty Busby, 56 x 48″

Lovely.

Dreaming of the Northern Lights, Helen Granville, 37 x 57″

A closeup.

Sometimes I look at other people’s work and think about who might buy it, or to whom one might market it. When I saw this, I thought “I could see that in a CEO’s office.” It’s lovely, of course, but also the type of art which would work well in a corporate setting: abstract and contemporary. Open to study, but also not likely to offend or make demands.

Garden of Haiti, Susan Shie, 69 x 82″

It’s always a pleasure to see one of Shie’s works. They’re instantly recognizable, with their vivid images on whole cloth and stream-of-consciousness writing rendered with an airpen.

A closer view, showing some of the writing.

The stitching is an interesting choice, a loose grid meandering across the whole quilt. I’m guessing that it’s a challenge to devise quilting which won’t fight for attention with the writing. It’s also a pretty ghastly, laborious task wrestling a quilt this large through a sewing machine. However, this is one of those times when I wonder whether a particular design would have fared equally well as a mural or a painting on canvas.

I can think of at least one practical argument for going the fiber route: shipping. Part of the reason Shie’s works pack so much visual punch is their size; this particular work weighs in at 69 x 82″. If it had been rendered on, say, stretched canvas, the cost and hassle of shipping probably would have grown prohibitive. I’m picturing a huge, custom-built crate and a costly cross-country ride on a freight truck, plus a small army of strong backs to haul the crate around.

As matters stand, she can fold a particular work up, place it in a (large) box, and we have the pleasure of seeing it in a show. Shipping is no doubt still expensive, but hopefully doesn’t require that she take out a loan.

Mistaken Identity, 48 x 68.1, Susan Wessels

This is one of those designs which grabbed me when I walked around a corner.

From Wessels’ artist’s statement, “As we try to make sense of what we see and experience, we identify, categorize and label. Do you see caricature or king, stiff-necked or soft-spoken, open-minded or scatter-brained, alien or familiar?”

I have no idea. I just know that I like it.

Grounded Spheres, Enid Viljoen, 65.7 x 59.1″

A closer view.

Rich, lively and joyous. It makes one eye the yarn ends and scraps in one’s drawers with newfound respect, doesn’t it?

You Can’t Put Hole Where a Hole Where a Hole Don’t Belong, Irene MacWilliam, 39 x 39″

A closeup.

This is comprised of multiple layers, with facings lining each of the holes. It’s named after a song by Bernard Gribbens. I am personally reminded of the Sea of Holes in Yellow Submarine, and expect a miniature Paul or Ringo to pop out at any moment.

Branch-Lines at Matlaske, Katherine College, 24 x 60″

This composition is subtle and elegant. She even has area where a fictional branch may have been pruned away and stitched it accordingly. I wish I’d photographed a closeup of that area. Such details can really bring work to life.

Block-a-Day Therapy, Griet Lombard, 51.5 x 51.5″

A closeup.

Hand pieced, appliquéd and quilted. The saturated colors and irregular edges lend a festive quality, don’t they? She says “the repetitive movement of hand stitching incorporating subtle differences calms the soul and creates space in the mind for introspection.” Perhaps this is her equivalent of creating a Buddhist sand painting, an act of meditation.

Much as I admire her work, I loathe hand sewing myself and I can’t imagine how she does it. There’s a sort of mythology about writers and private detectives keeping a bottle of Jack Daniels in their desk drawers, taking occasional nips when the going gets frustrating. Personally, I think the booze would be better reserved for hand stitching. Since I find whisky disgusting, that’s saying a lot.

Introspection, Maya Chaimovich, 48 x 57″

This is lovely, somehow melding softness and intensity. Sometimes I admire someone’s work all the more if it is alien to me on some level, something I couldn’t imagine creating myself. My mind just doesn’t work this way.

Here’s a bit more about Chaimovich.

Persephone Rising, Marilyn Belford, 82 x 67″

Belford has created a number of these portraits in her Women of Legend series. I hope she’ll continue making them. I’d love to see a solo exhibit.

Homage to the Ailing Pacific Madrone, Patty Mitchell, 37 x 27.5″

This has a tidily pieced background, then applique forming the vegetation and some of the background details. When I first saw this, I was reminded of Gloria Loughman’s work. Nope. Bad guess. Mitchell credits Kathy McNeil for her landscape workshop and for encouragement.

This may be a good example of how several people are using a similar technique – forming naturescapes with pieced backgrounds and appliqued details – and are putting their own stamp on it.

Fern Pool, Gloria Loughman, 80 x 70″

If you ever have the opportunity to see Loughman or her work in person, do so. Both are delightful.

The Tsar’s Decree, Megan Farkas, 41 x 52:

If you had to make a quick guess, which cultural tradition would you say inspired this quilt? If your guess is something along the lines of “Japan, perhaps an homage to the tsunami woodcut prints of Hiroshige or Hokusai,” you’re mistaken. You also have company, because that was my guess too.

This was actually inspired by “a 1905 Russian fairy tale illustration by Ivan Bilibin,” in which “the Tsar’s wife and son (in the barrel) have called on the waves to bring them safely ashore …”

For the sake of comparison, here’s a picture of Bilibin’s original illustration.

Now, was Ivan Bilibin himself inspired by Japanese woodcut prints? I have no idea. This matter will need additional research.

Crazy in Black & White, Geraldine Nall

A closeup of the central motif.

This quilt is small, perhaps a foot on each side. From the artist’s statement, “It has 6,300 pieces and consists of 140 1.5″ and 2.5″ square pineapple blocks.” I’ll bet that if we chatted with Nall, she’d modestly murmur something about finding the work “relaxing and meditative.” I’ll also bet that her house is far tidier than mine.

Just Doodling, Loretta Armstrong, Pat Dicker and Sandra Harrington, 42 x 42″

A closeup of the lower lefthand block. Notice the extensive but subtle beading.

This group project was inspired by Zentangle® designs. In my opinion, it’s remarkable for the fact that there’s good size/quality continuity between the panels. Often when I view group projects, such continuity has suffered.

This is Why I Pre-Wash, Joni Strother

This is comprised of the Shout Color Catchers Joni had included in her laundry when pre-washing loads of batiks. A cautionary if humorous tale, one might say. It also forms a nice stitch sampler.

It Came from Beneath the Sea, Roberta DeLuz

I was suckered in, if you’ll forgive the turn of phrase, when I saw the tentacle wrapped around the clock tower. DeLuz states “This is a tribute to my father, who instilled a love of classic monster movies in me.”

I greatly admire the use of sequins as suckers.

San Francisco Presidio Pet Cemetery, Judy Mathieson, 36 x 45″

Some quilts just plain have a good heart. This is one of them, a memory quilt based on the pet cemetery in the Presidio, near the Golden Gate Bridge. Hundreds of military pets are interred there, people’s beloved and good dogs, cats, rats, or even iguanas. Their days in the sun came and went, and it’s good to remember them.

I also had a quilt in the show, Siesta (or, as I like to think of it, Raccoon with Mange). Here’s a shot of people looking at it as well as admiring Betty Busby’s quilt, Raptor II.

I’m going to end this post with some links to others’ PIQF posts. Notice how diverse everyone’s picks are. It really is the case that we all admire and enjoy slightly different things:

Sue Dennis – she has a number of entries on her blog. The October archive seems to include them all.

Christine Thresh

PiecedGoods

CTPubs Gallery of photos

Lemon Tree Tales – Another archive with multiple entries

Told You Sew!