Friday, April 29, 2022

How long did that take?

I have been asked that question about many of my pieces of art. Sometimes I'm not sure how to answer that question. I'm not sure what they are really after. Do they think that I just whipped it out in no time and that makes me super woman? Or if I took a long time to make the piece that makes it more valuable because I spent a lot of time on it. Or is it just that they are really interested?  So do I tell them that it took me 4 months which is the usual amount of time that it takes me to complete a piece? Or do I say it took me 35 years because that's how long I have been quilting and it took me that long to reach this point? Or even 60 years since I have been doing art at least that long? How do you answer that question? Funny thing is I have never asked any artist or quilter how long something took them to do. Maybe I already have some idea how long it takes. I do love when someone comments that they could do that like whatever it is is so easy to do. My internal dialogue when they say that is, "then why don't you?"

My quilting has certainly taken many twists and turns to reach what I currently make. I started as a traditional quilter and didn't even like art quilts. I machine pieced because I knew how to sew from many years of making clothing. I did only hand quilting at that point. I followed patterns because I was used to that from all the clothing I made. I figured out how to make quilts from books.

One of my first quilts was this red and cream one. We hung this quilt in our house for years until I gave it to my SIL because she loved it.

"Denise's quilt"

Other early quilts.

"T.Rex and Others, too" made for my daughter. Machine applique and hand quilted.



"Wedding Rings and White Roses" Machine pieced and hand quilted. Queen size. 1000 hours to make.

"Trick or Treat" Machine appliqued and machine quilted. I designed some of the costumes instead of just working from the pattern.

Then I spent quite a few years making miniature quilts using paper piecing techniques. At one point in my quilt guild I was called the "paper piecing queen."

"Kelsey's Quilt Shop" 13 inches. Made from a pattern in Miniature Quilts magazine.

Other miniature quilts.

Wedding ring made for parent's anniversary.


Civil war repro quilt. Machine pieced and appliqued. Machine quilted.

Finally in 2004 I began making art quilts by taking a class at Quilt University from Susan Brittingham.

"Over the Sea to Skye" Started in 2004. Finished in 2011. It sat for a really long time while I made other quilts.


Then there was the quilt of my parents house.

"Grandma's House" 3 months from beginning to end

I took classes and master classes from people like Elizabeth Barton, Ellen Lindner, and Natalya Khorover and tried to really move into art quilting. All the while I was still making traditional quilts. I still love traditional quilts. A lot of the art quilts you are already familiar with.

 

"Midwinter Visitor" made in class with Ellen Lindner

My energy/environmental quilts. I swore I would never work in a series. I guess never say never!

"When the Dark Night Seems Endless"


"Dawn on the Charles Bridge"

There were plenty of original abstract art quilts along the way.

"Midwinter Night"

"Sunlight in the Forest"

"Light in Darkness"

 There were even quilts made from plastic bags.

"Abandoned Cement Works"

This is just a small sample of the quilts that I have made over the years. When I started this quilting thing I never would have even thought that I could create my own original quilts. But here we are.

Sometimes I think we forget how much stuff we've actually made over the decades. So how long did a particular piece take to make? A really long time and many paths along the way. 

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Friday, April 22, 2022

Some progress on second Pittsburgh piece

I've been stitching some French knots in the cathedral piece. So far I've only done some 6 strand knots. Still a long way to go. I still have to do more 6 strand knots as well as 3 strand and 2 strand knots. I'm not sure how well you can see the knots in these photos. They are splattered all over the piece.



Maybe I need to finish these pieces so winter will finally be over in central Pennsylvania! It could be that the lack of spring weather this year is all my fault.

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Thanks for reading.

Chris


Friday, April 15, 2022

Inner dialogue while making a quilt

I often have a conversation with myself inside my head and sometimes even out loud as I work on a quilt. The conversation goes from positive to negative to positive to negative to positive…..well you get the idea. Here’s a bit of those conversations.


I love planning a quilt. What am I going to work on? I love thinking about it. Thinking about it is so much easier than doing it!

This is exciting. I’ve picked a fantastic idea.

This quilt is going to be great….really great.

This is going to be the best quilt ever. I might even win a prize for it. Finally!

I can picture how it will turn out in my head.

Crap.

This is not going as well as I wanted it to.

I can’t figure out what fabric to use. Stressing out.

Relax I’ll figure it out. Do I need to buy some fabric? Maybe the perfect fabric is out there just waiting for me. 

Maybe I  should just make due with what I have. Let’s go through the fabric stash again.

I’ll figure it out.

Let’s walk away.

Yes! Yes! Yes! I figured it out.

Ok I’m good now.

Things are not straight. How could I have missed that? Should I take the piece out and do it again?

Nope it is what it is. Keep going.

Why didn’t I look at the photo closer. The details are not right. How could I have missed that?

I do this every time. I don’t pay enough attention to the photo. Why do I do that? You think I would learn.

Too late.

I wish I could start over and do things differently.

I would do things very differently. 

Live and learn. 

Maybe this quilt is not going to be that great. 

It’s time to start the quilting.  

Did I choose the right thread? Now I’m not sure. Should I rip it out?

I hate to rip out quilting. I absolutely hate it. Maybe I should rip it out.

Should I have quilted it differently?

Let’s walk away for a while.

Am I doing this right? Not sure.

OK let’s just go with it. To rip is too painful.

Neck hurts, let’s take a break.

Quilting is done. No turning back now. 

Now onto the hand stitching.

French knots…are they too big?

Rip them out and start over. 

Still too big.

Rip them out again. I’m good at that. I’ve had lots of practice.

Starting to stress out.

Am I doing this right? Why do I always have doubts??

Let’s go smaller and different sizes.

Better now.

Keep going.

Not sure this is looking good.

Oh well let’s just finish.

Done. I wish I knew how it was going to turn out so I could have planned better.

I hate this quilt right now, but I’ll get over it. Eventually I will like it.

This happens every time.

So what would I have done differently in the Pittsburgh pieces?


We stitched in a lot of the features of the buildings. I would have used fabric to create those features. 

We did value studies and picked one. The ones I picked did not really fit the idea of a snow storm. The buildings in the distance should be fainter and features like windows would have been closer in value to the buildings. The painting of snow helped create this effect, but adding that effect with fabric as well would have made me happier. The pieces came out well, but I wish I could have known what I know now when I started. I was taking a class and followed the rules of the class. I think I’m done with classes for a while.

New photos of the streetcar piece. There are about 2000 French knots in it  


Linking to Nina-Marie.  http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Do you have conversations with yourself. What are yours like?

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Friday, April 8, 2022

Time to enter some artwork

This summer the arts festival in central PA is going live rather than virtual. So I’m going to enter 2 pieces in the Images juried exhibition. https://arts-festival.com/images-juried-exhibition

My first piece is “Dawn on the Charles Bridge.”

Dawn on the Charles Bridge 36 in by 36 in

My second piece is “Abandoned Cement Works.”

Abandoned Cement Works 18 in by 18 in

Hopefully one of them will get in. Thoughts on revising my artist statement are appreciated. This is what I have used before. I'm thinking that it needs some work or a lot of work. It probably does not need that bit about doing art since I was a kid. Do you have any advise on this?

I have been doing art in one form or another since I was a child. I have sketched, painted, made baskets, done metal punch and worked with stained glass. For the last 35 years quilting has become my obsession. The inspiration for my quilts comes from nature, my love and fascination with old buildings as well as my attraction to things like cement works, oil rigs, and energy sources. My career spent teaching physics, astronomy, and meteorology has had a strong influence on my art. This can be seen particularly in my energy/environmental series.

Of course you are asking what about the Pittsburgh pieces. You can only enter 3 artworks and they have to have been done in the past 3 years. So for the Charles Bridge it is now or never. I doubt that if you entered 3 pieces that all 3 would get in. Sometime I wonder if I should only enter the Charles Bridge so I'm not competing against myself with both the bridge and the cement works. Or even how important that is. I will enter the Pittsburgh pieces next year.

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Friday, April 1, 2022

Figuring out why you want to create a piece

When we started the Natalya Khorover class last fall called "Sense of Space" we had to figure out what we were going to work on. Isn't that one of the exciting parts of the creative process? I find it really exciting narrowing down what of the many ideas floating around in my head I will actually do. Before the class I was searching Pittsburgh buildings online and I saw a photo of some Pittsburgh buildings in the snow and that is what clicked in my mind as my inspiration. I grew up in Pittsburgh and it is a city that I love. So why not do Pittsburgh in the snow? I do love a challenge!! Once I created a piece with a forest in the fog. See this post

Natalya made us gather photos of buildings that were interesting to us to use in our collages. During our first class she went over our photos and made us talk about them. Then we had to write what she calls a mind map of why we are creating these pieces.

Here is my mind map for the Pittsburgh in the snow pieces. I don't think I've ever posted it. It certainly is a way to solidify why you want to work on certain pieces. Maybe it is a good thing to really think about that before starting new work. Have you ever done a mind map or anything like that?

My Pittsburgh mind map

In addition to the photos Natalya also made us look at paintings of the city we were working on to get inspiration for the colors we were going to use. I did find lots of photos paintings of Pittsburgh in the snow and chose the blue grays and whites that I finally picked to work with.

I grew up riding street cars. We called them that, but most people call them trolleys. So I have fond memories of riding them just about everywhere as you can see from the mind map and why I incorporated one. The line we were on was the Library line and you can see that stitched on the front of the street car. Actually it was the Shannon Library line, but the label at the top of the street car was not big enough for all of that! I'm sure when I was freezing waiting for one in the snow that was late I was not very fond of them. The street cars used to ride on rails and were attached to overhead electrical lines in the city. They don't do that now. They built a subway system to take them underground once they reach the city. They also don't look like that any more. They are much more streamlined and modern looking now. I decided to create one that was from my childhood rather than current ones. After all my inspiration was from growing up there.

The sketch of the street car piece

My street car

How do you decide what you are going to create? Do you just pick something or do you really analyze why that piece is inspiring you? We do spend a lot of time working on a piece so maybe thinking about why we are doing it is a good idea. What do you think?

I did do more French knots this week, but don't have any photos to show. I had SI joint injections on Monday and the right side hurts more than before the injection there. Go figure!

Thanks for all the comments on my last blog and thanks for reading. I think next week I will talk about the ups and downs of where my brain and attitude are while creating a piece. It's certainly an emotional journey from beginning to end....at least for me.

Linking to Nina-Marie. She has an interesting blog about Michael James today. Go check it out or look him up.

Chris