Accepted!

 My “Dawn on the Charles Bridge” art quilt was accepted into Images 2022 in central Pennsylvania. 

This was my entry.

Here’s my acceptance email. They only accepted 52/285 entries.

I’m pretty excited. I’ve entered 6 juried shows and have gotten accepted all 6 times. Yesterday I had a lot of self doubts and thought I was going to be rejected. You never know in the art world if an art quilt will be accepted. Usually it’s paintings or photos that get in. I’m pleased people will get to see a fiber piece. 

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

Chris

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

Going to be interviewed

Next Wednesday I am going to be interviewed by someone from the State College Magazine. The article is going to be about Olli instructors. Last spring I taught a class on making an art quilt from a photo and will be doing that spring 2020 as well. So I will be included with lots of other interesting teachers. The person interviewing me will be taking photos of my quilts as well for the article.

"When the Dark Night Seems Endless"

Energy/Environmental Quilts

"Dawn on the Charles Bridge"

"Midwinter Visitor"

"Midwinter's Night"

Thanks for reading.
Chris

Charles Bridge Photos

“Dawn on the Charles Bridge” 36 in by 36 in

I think I finally got some decent photos of my quilt.

It's a good thing that I am done with this quilt. I think from beginning to end I was working on it for 3 months. I have been up close and personal with it too long. I can see all the "errors." Time to step away and eventually I won't focus on them any more.

 It is hanging on the wall near the canal house quilt.






Here are some close up photos.

Thanks for reading.  Off to Michigan today to visit my sister and go to the AQS show.
Chris

A week of progress

"Dawn on the Charles Bridge" 36 in by 36 in

I finished quilting the Charles Bridge quilt and spent hours squaring it up. I must have measured things 50 times to make sure things were right before making the first cut.You can't take it back once you cut off the first edge!

The facing is done and now to make some sleeves and a label.

Neither of these photos are great. I will need to get some better ones once it is hanging on the wall.

I showed my quilt at my fiber group meeting on Monday and they went crazy over it.

I started working on the Halloween kit. I made the mistake of washing the fabric before cutting the blocks. That was no problem for the regular fabrics, but was an issue for the fabrics printed with the costumed people. I have to add some extra bits to those pieces to make them large enough since they shrunk. I wish the directions had said not to wash ahead of cutting. I did not take shrinkage into consideration. So a little improvising was needed! I still need to add 2 borders to this quilt top. So much for a mindless project. Margaret calls these kinds of projects "Someone else's directions!" They are a nice break from the brain intensive original art quilts. I guess I can even "screw" them up. At least I'm consistent.

I guess I could have cut things smaller than the directions said to. I think the added bits will work so I will leave it as it stands.



Linking to Nina-Marie.

Thanks for reading. Off to Michigan this coming week for the quilt show.
Chris

Getting there

I am finally quilting the statues and lights on the Charles Bridge quilt. After that is finished I still have to do the sky and some odds and ends and it will be done. Of course while I am quilting the statues I am trying to figure out how to quilt the sky.  Any ideas?








I have really dragged this out. Even though this quilt is going to end up being 36 in by 36 in which is a good size there are lots of very small pieces.

I think my next quilt will be a Halloween kit that I bought. I think I need to make something that I don't have to think so much about. Sometimes I need to do something easy after finishing an art quilt. Do you ever have that need?

Linking to Nina-Marie.
Thanks for reading.
Chris

I think I figured out what was going on

Once I started quilting my Charles Bridge quilt I figured out why I was procrastinating so much. I think I was dreading the tedious quilting around all those statues and bridge lights plus worrying about how to quilt the buildings.

I still have a long way to go, but at least I am finally on my way.

Thanks for reading.
Chris

Why am I dragging my feet?

It seems that at every step of this quilt I have been dragging my feet. It took me three days to pin it. I could not get motivated to pin it. Then it has been sitting for 3 more days and I still have not started to quilt it. I did get threads out, but that's as far as I have been motivated to progress. I know once I start it I will pretty much work on it non stop, but getting started has proved to be difficult. I don't know why. It's not that I don't like it and dread finishing it. I just need to convince myself to do just a little to get moving. Have you ever experienced this in your own work?

Last night was the awards reception for Images 2019. There were 6 merit awards handed out among the 59 pieces that were accepted into the show. As is no surprise I did not get an award. Too much competition from paintings and photographs. I did see a young boy really looking at my toxic rusted barrel quilt so that was great. And I did not hear anyone say, "It's only sewing." Last year a young woman commented that my quilt was only sewing.

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Thanks for reading.
Chris

I think the top is done!!!

I will let this hang for a few days on my design wall before I sew down the pieces. As you can see I still can't get an accurate photo in term of color. The sky and the bridge especially look more blue than they are. The are a blue violet that can look blue depending on the lighting. The photo actually looks more accurate on my iPad than it does on my computer.

I was contacted by someone that saw my canal house quilt at the "Quilts=Art=Quilts" at show last fall. They complimented the quilt and asked if it was for sale. I am not ready to part with it yet so my answer was no. Hard to part with something that I love.



Now I have to figure out which way the Charles Bridge in Prague is oriented to decide if this quilt will be called "Dawn on Charles Bridge" or " Twilight on Charles Bridge." I think this is facing east, but I would not bet my life on it.

What do you think about the quilt?

Thanks for reading.
Chris

Any progress being made?

I did not realize how sparse my purple fabrics were until I started picking fabrics for my Charles Bridge quilt. And then to complicate things I have mainly red purples and I want blue purples for this quilt. My very small local quilt store did not have what I needed so I sent away to Thousand Bolts and Just One Nut. I love their fabrics and their prices. The fabrics arrived yesterday. They look pretty good. Hopefully I now have what I need. Right now they are soaking to get out the excess dyes.

Do you have holes in your fabric stash?

The pattern for the bridge

Last week I took a class on Japanese paper folding and dyeing. It was fun. Not sure how it's going to translate to fabric, but it was a nice diversion. Here are the papers I made.

Thanks for reading. Linking to Nina-Marie and Off the Wall Fridays.

Chris

Moving along on the Charles Bridge quilt

I have sketched the bridge and enlarged the pattern. This quilt should end up being 36 inches by 36 inches. I traced the photo on my iPad in the Sketches Pro app. I have my purple fabrics chosen and washed and will get started on this tomorrow.

I start PT (arthritis) on my left knee tomorrow as well. We head to Disney on Monday so I doubt I will get much done until we come back. I just hope my knee "behaves" while we are there. I'm sure we will be doing a lot of walking and standing while we are there. This is a new problem...just another one of those little surprises that the body whips out on you when you least expect it.  I want my 20 year old body back...or even my 40 year old one.

The bridge photo with tracing overlay

The sketch

My next decision will be whether or not to include what looks like a black outline around the pieces when I make the quilt. What do you think? Of course do you do that with fabric, thread, or marker?

Linking to Nina-Marie.
Thanks for reading.
Chris