Redefined

2008 - What's next (as far as I know it)

Did I bore you with the long list of exhibits from 2007? This one is going to be a lot shorter because I don't want people unsubscribing from my blog en masse. Thank goodness, the end of the year only comes around once a year.

I already mentioned several current exhibits that will continue into 2008.
- Connected is on exhibit at the Wichita Art Museum until January 6th.
- Knitted will be the Visions Art Quilt Gallery in San Diego through January 13th.
- Post Rock Country, Kansas will be displayed in the Kansas governor's office until the end of April.

Starting January 11th, I will have work at Untitled [ArtSpace] in Oklahoma City. It's a collaborative project named Portable Picnic. You can read about this project here and here.

I am particularly looking forward to a very special exhibit at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio, opening June 20th and continuing through August 31st. Knitted and Transformed will be there and images of Knitted were used for preshow publicity. The curators told me that only a few of the artists in the exhibit had more than one piece chosen and, considering the big names involved, I feel very honored.

In August-September, I will have a solo show of my Definitions series at the Steckline Gallery, a beautiful little gallery at Newman University here in Wichita. The gallery director's name happens to be Mary Werner, but there is no familial relation, so you shouldn't assume I got this gig because of nepotism. I may hang a disclaimer on the wall during the show because I'm sure a lot of people will wonder. Perhaps I should name the whole exhibit "No Relation" and dispel any doubts.

Have a great New Year!

Fun with statistics (and blogs)

When I started this blog in June, I also signed up for Feedburner, a service that collects traffic statistics for my blog's visitors. I really love to see who is stopping in to read my stories. So far, I have had visitors from all over the world, including Malta, Uganda, India, Mexico, Hong Kong, Egypt, the Scandinavian countries, most of Europe (including the U.K.) and lots of people from Canada. My blog is most often translated to Dutch/Flemish and German, but has also been read in Japanese. Hmmm, I wonder what "discombobulated" translates to in Korean?

One of the most amusing sections of the traffic stats is where they show me the exact search string someone has used to find my blog. Sometimes, I understand how my site popped up, like when someone searches on "pomegranate jamming", "skinny quilts" or "Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus". What I don't understand is how others found me, by searching on "how to fold a pocket handerchief" or some guy's name I've never heard of before. Yesterday, someone found my site by searching on "tablecloth French San Diego". I wonder how Google knew I was part French.

I frequently get a lot of one-time visitors because they searched on "reasons for being an artist" or "top ten reasons to be an artist". If you google that search string, my post comes up on top. Fancy that!

Thanks so much to those of you who leave comments on my blog. I love reading them and enjoy them more than you know. I may not answer every single one, either on the blog or in private, but I always read each comment many times over.

Keeping a blog has been a wonderful way for me to document my work process, although lately I feel I've been doing that to the exclusion of my other caregories. Perhaps I should add in a few more organizational tips, old stories or humor pieces, but ideas don't always jump off the top of the shelf and onto my my head when I want them to. If you have any special requests, let me know and I'll suddenly find inspiration. What do you like the most about my blog? Reading about banjo houses and artstrology or do you prefer when I discuss my latest work in process?

As I mentally close out the old year, please know how much I appreciate every one of you. Thank you for stopping by. Please come back and visit again.

Recycled leftovers

I'm about to send off several pieces to be photographed, but thought I'd have a little fun first. So many of my artworks are such big productions that I wanted to make something that would only take a day or two. I whipped this up from pieces left over from Extruded and Triangulated.

This is an actual quilted wallhanging, but it's quite stiff because, with one exception, there is buckram inside of the strips instead of batting (buckram is the stuff they use to stiffen hats). The finished size is 18" square. Notice that each strip is heavily quilted in straight lines. The stitching holding the strips together is kind of wavy, but I don't care. Sewing over the buckram was like trying to stay on a straight line on the highway when you are getting blasted by gusts of high winds from each side. The stitching had a mind of its own.

I don't know the title yet. I contemplated Isolated or Exiled, but those sounded too dreary. Another possibility is Partitioned, which isn't exciting, but also doesn't make me sound like I need psychotherapy.

2007 - Looking back (and forth) at my exhibition record

Here's where you could have seen my art this year. Some of it is still there. Please go see it!

Extruded was in Stretching the Threads, Atlantic Center for the Arts (New Smyrna Beach, Florida) back in April. Mary McBride, the curator, is a talented fiber artist herself and always puts on one heckuva fiber show. According to the art reviews in the paper, this was the best one yet and I was honored to be represented. Here is an installation picture. Mary said that people walked around on the driveway outside the window to see how the back of this was made.

Tangled started the year still on display in Quilt Visions, a very prestigious art quilt exhibit at the Oceanside Museum of Art (Oceanside, California). Feel free to buy the catalog here. This work was also  in Ana 35, an all-media show of contemporary art at the Holter Museum of Art (Helena, Montana) from June through August. I wish I had installation pictures of this show, as it is a good one, but this was one of those times when I sent out the quilt and got it back, without any printed information, pictures or website presence about the exhibit itself.

Knitted was first shown at a four-person exhibit at The Fiber Studio (Wichita, Kansas) in May and June. It is currently on exhibit as part of Fabric of the Imagination at the Visions Art Quilt Gallery (San Diego, California) through January 13th, so you still have a chance to see it. After I shipped it to San Diego, they had the terrible wildfires in the area and I was really scared it might go up in smoke, but the gallery was safe and so was Knitted.

Connected was displayed at a number of exhibits this year. As part of a SAQA exhibit called Transformations, it was shown at the International Quilt Festival (Chicago, Illinois) and the Grants Pass Museum of Art (Grants Pass, Oregon). It was also chosen as the cover art for the catalog. Later, it.was invited to be shown at the Wichita Art Museum (Wichita, Kansas). The official title of the exhibit is Quilts from the Prairie Quilt Guild, but I have trouble putting anything on my resume that says "quilt guild", so I've chosen to utterly ignore it. It's still at the museum until January 6th.

Prepackaged was shown in Fiber Directions, Wichita Center for the Arts (Wichita, Kansas). You can see installation photos here. I was a little surprised to be accepted, as this is the fourth time in a row they have used Jason Pollen as a juror. He's a great guy, but very focused on surface design, but the success of my work doesn't rely on surface design techniques at all, so I was glad to finally enter something he liked. Of course, it wasn't the one I thought he would pick. I thought he's choose Knitted, if anything.

Discombobulated was shown at the Visions Art Quilt Gallery (San Diego, California) as part of the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection. Del Thomas is one of my favorite people in the art quilt world because of the tremendous personal support she gives the artists whose work she owns. She still allows me to enter and exhibit Discombobulated even though she's owned it for five years. I will always be grateful for her friendship.

Emotional Entanglement was in Covers Blown! at the Alice C. Sabatini Gallery (Topeka, Kansas). This was yet another great Kansas Art Quilters show curated by Linda Frost. I was very pleased that they hung it freestanding instead of against the wall. You can see an installation picture here.

Popped is travelling with a Kansas Art Quilters exhibit, Altered Views. This year, it was exhibited at the LPL Gallery and the Unity Gallery, both in Lawrence, Kansas and at the Irene B. French Gallery in Merriam, Kansas. This was my attempt at a pop up quilt, but I forgot that it wasn't really recognizable as a pop up once it was open and on display. Live and learn. I'd like to do a pop up again sometime, but I'd have to think about displaying the final result a little more.

Post Rock Country, Kansas is currently on display in the office of Governor Kathleen Sebelius (Topeka, Kansas). This is another great exhibit through Kansas Art Quilters and Linda Frost.

In June, I was privileged to be in a 4-person show at the Fiber Studio in Wichita, Kansas. I displayed four large works there, Forest Floor, Knitted, Erupted and Pinpointed. Thanks to Marilyn Grisham, the gallery owner, for including me.

Laced - Part 6 (the final chapter)

I finally finished Laced and I'm currently putting on the final touches, like the label. I was concerned about the weight and whether it would hang properly, but it is "only" seven pounds. On the back, I sewed a traditional hanging sleeve at the top and three D-rings down each of the back sides as extra support points in case they are needed.

There is a show deadline coming up in the middle of January, so I hope to have this professionally photographed  before then, along with a couple of other new works. My Boston photographer really earns his money, because my work is not easy to set up for the camera. Despite it all, he has never disappointed me and continues to produce fabulous pictures.

Today, I was feeling rather envious of the artists who slap some paint onto canvas and call themselves done. This was a lot of work and that's no lie. Creating artwork using this medium is like beating myself about the head and shoulders with a big, colorful, wet, skinny quilt.

Governor's Exhibit

I received these pictures today from Linda Frost, the Exhibition Chair for Kansas Art Quilters. My quilt, Post Rock Country, Kansas, was chosen to be featured on the first visible wall in the Kansas governor's outer office. It will be on display there until the end of April.