Redefined

Correction

I apologize, but I sent out an incorrect link in my last post. By mistake, I added a "www" in the URL. I have corrected the original blog post, but here's the correct link for any subscribers who tried to get there and couldn't.

http://wernerstudio.typepad.com/color

I know that many of you are experienced quilters and the information I am presenting now might be rather elementary, but I hope you will stick with me. Right now, I'm just laying the groundwork for the information I'll present later.

For those of you who have already visited my new blog and even subscribed, thank you!

Announcing my second blog

I invite you to visit my new blog, called Amazing Stuff about Color and Fabric. It is written more like a book than a blog, so please read the introduction that will explain it better. I still have some cosmetic changes to make, like a more interesting banner at the top of the page and a link back to my main blog (this one), but that will come with time.

http://wernerstudio.typepad.com/color

Once you get to the new blog, you can subscribe by using the Feedblitz icon in the righthand column. As I publish each new entry, the entire contents of that entry will be sent to your email, so you don't need to visit the blog all the time.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I am enjoying writing it!

My favorite quotes

I keep several quotes posted on the wall above my closet doorway in my studio, so I see them whenever I look up from my worktable.

The first quote is from Grandma, in the Family Circus cartoon.
"If you're afraid of making a mistake, you won't make anything."
I like this quote because it reminds me that it is easy to freeze up, thinking that evrything I make has to be absolutely perfect. I often learn a lot from my mistakes and sometimes the lack of perfection is what makes the artwork extra special.

The second quote is from Jean Cocteau, the writer and filmmaker. "How do you become a successful artist? Amaze me!" When I read this, it reminds me that it's difficult to gain recognition as an artist and my artwork needs to have the "wow factor" in order to make my work stand out.

The third quote, which is my favorite, comes from Jerry Garcia, the guitarist from The Grateful Dead rock band. I changed the quote a bit because the original was written from the standpoint of a band with multiple members. Here's my version. "You do not want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only one who does what you do." I do not make art quilts the same way that everyone else does and this reaffirms that I am on the right track.

What's your favorite art-related quote?

Creating a color run

I got tired of working on Evolved and put it away for the moment. It's such a time-consuming project that I have to stop working on it periodically and do something else for a while. Here's what I did this weekend.

Many of my projects are composed of long, skinny quilts that use color gradations along the length and I thought you might be interested in how I create them. This time, I cut 4-1/2" widths and 2" widths from each fabric. The narrower strips are typically used in my bindings.

This is what I call a color run. I usually begin by pulling hand dyed fabrics from my stash and placing them in the order I want them. I don't always use all the colors. If you notice, there is no purple represented here. Once I have created the "first draft" using hand dyes, I go into my stash of commercial fabrics and use them to fill in the gaps. The prints add a lot of interest and helps me to use up the ton of commercial fabric I own. I have to admit that I bought a few fabrics this weekend and it's been so long since I went into the local quilt shops that they barely remember me anymore. The face is familiar, but...

You might notice that I start and end with a black-background fabric. A closer inspection shows that the leftmost fabric is actually an extremely dark green and the one at the right is an extremely dark red. By taking the color run from dark to light and back to dark again, I can still make the colors flow into one another if I want to make the piece twice as long by joining the ends. I also make sure there is at least on white fabric somewhere in the run for sparkle, which can be seen here between the greens and blues. If I had wanted to, I could have taken the middle of the yellow section all the way to white, but chose not to

What do I plan to make with this? I'm not quite sure yet, but I have a couple of ideas. I just needed to get back to bright fabrics for a little while to feed my color addiction. No matter what I make, I know that it will look good, because if they look right on the design wall when displayed this way, then they look good if they are mixed up, too.

What's going on?

- My work was accepted into two Florida venues for the I-4 Corridor Exhibition. Tangled will be at the Comma Gallery in Orlando and Angled will be exhibited in the Rose Room Gallery at the Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach. I don't know the exact dates yet, but it will be sometime in June.

- My favorite contemporary art gallery asked if I would be interested in curating a quilt exhibition for them. Of course, I said yes. The artistic programs committee is meeting sometime this month and I'll have more information after that. The list of art quilters I want to invite keeps growing in my head. Thank goodness, it's a large (and wonderful) space!

- In the next week or so, I plan to launch another blog. When I began teaching traditional quilting years ago, I was asked to teach a workshop on color and fabric. I didn't choose fabrics using any of the common methods, so I analyzed what I did and came up with a new system that was easy to learn and produced a great quilt every time. At one point, I started writing a book, but never finished because I was no longer teaching or making traditional quilts. This blog will be a great place to record my ideas and it will read like the book I originally envisioned. I will cover both traditional quilting/commercial fabrics and art quilting/hand dyes/surface design work. Right now, I'm setting up the blog's structure and will start adding entries in the next couple of days. I'll let you know when it's ready for visitors.

- I've been working on Evolved recently and added a couple of items to Posted, the bulletin board. One of the items I added is a small artwork I created to be one of my contest prizes.

How to hold an Art Party

Every so often, I hold an Art Party for my family or friends. It's a lot of fun and is always successful, so I thought you might be interested in knowing how I do it. I'm a fiber artist, so many of these materials are already in my studio. If you prefer to work in other materials, I'll give you an alternative at the end.

The whole process takes about 3-4 hours from start to finish, so plan accordingly. Materials you need:
- An inexpensive painting canvas for each person. The type I use has the canvas glued onto a cardboard and is primed (gessoed) for use by either acrylic or oil. A good size is 11" x 14".
- Acrylic paints. You don't need to buy more than a few colors. If you can find an inexpensive set meant for students, that works well.
- Cheap paintbrushes, disposable cups for water, disposable plates (I use the styrofoam kind)
- Wonder-Under fusible web (regular strength). Buy several yards at the fabric store. This stuff is nothing more than a web of glue, sprayed onto a release paper.
- Small amounts of interesting novelty yarns. If the yarn is sparkly, has "eyelashes" or texture, all the better.
- Colored glitter is nice, if you have it.
- An iron, protected surface to iron on (like an ironing board) and parchment paper (available in the plastic wrap aisle at the grocery store).
- Inexpensice mats and frames.

1. Set up a painting table. Each person squirts some paint on the disposable plate. You can use several colors and paint them onto the canvas in a mottled pattern. You may want to water down the paint just a little, if it's too thick. Tell them to cover the canvas in any way they want, with any colors they want. I suggest that you do not leave large blobs of paint, because the canvases need to dry in a reasonable period of time. Don't obsess about this stage because the paint will mostly be covered with other stuff by the time you're done.
2. Cut the Wonder-Under (W-U) into large pieces. Water down some acrylic paint and paint the glue (textured) side that has the webbing on it. It's better if you paint in the lengthwise grain of the paper. Metallic paint works really well. The paper will crinkle as it dries, then you will be able to peel the Wonder-Under off the backing paper. You can do this step ahead of time and have it ready.
3. This is the bast part... go out to lunch or dinner together! While you are gone, the painted canvases and Wonder-Under will dry.
4. When you return, heat the iron and show everyone what to do. First, tear off pieces of the W-U webbing (without paper!) and lay them on the painted canvas. You don't want to cover the entire surface. Place a piece of parchment paper underneath and another one over everything to protect the ironing surface and the iron. Iron on top of the parchment (press down, don't wiggle it, no steam), which will melt the painted W-U onto the surface of the canvas. Let it cool, then gently peel the parchment away.
5. Decorate the surface any way you want with bits and pieces of yarns, ribbons and other materials. Use glitter very sparingly. Cover with parchment paper and iron everything down. The W-U is glue, so it will all stick.
6. Continue this process until you have the canvas the way you want it. You can layer on more W-U, if you want. Actually, the acrylic paint will soften with the heat of the iron and small items will stick to it, too.
7. I like to take a fan brush and accent over the top with a little metallic acrylic paint. Use sparingly!
8. Mat and frame each piece.

I am always amazed at how beautiful each artwork is when completed. I've never seen an ugly one yet! If you do not want to use yarns and W-U, then paint the canvas as described. Instead of W-U and fiber materials, use specialty papers, torn into pieces and paste them down using acrylic matte medium, which acts as a glue. No iron is needed. You can paint over the top of the papers, in order to create interesting layers.

Have fun!

Becoming a "Real Artist"

Years ago, I read a science fiction story by Bob Shaw, called "Light of Other Days", that introduced me to the concept of slow glass. The glass was supposedly engineered to slow the light passing through it, so what appeared on the other side of the glass was, in essence, a view of the past. The slow glass could be made in various "time thicknesses" (I made up that term, but it describes the effect). I often think of people as slow glass, especially children. You put something into them and it might not come back out again for many years. One reason that you can usually tell work of young art students is that the slow glass isn't very thick yet. The experiences haven't built up inside them sufficiently to provide the depth that you see in the work of more mature artists.

Much of the time now, I feel like very thick slow glass. All the thoughts, feelings and sights that have passed through me are now reappearing on the other side and you can see them in my work. I see the Art Deco and Victorian influences from my New York childhood. I see science and technology, a remnant from my former professions. I see the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life.

Being self-taught, there are times I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of artists who have their MFA degrees. They know how to do everything from charcoal drawings to massive bronze sculptures. They can critique an artwork while blindfolded, even with both hands tied behind their backs. They are fluent in Artspeak and know how to dress in an appropriately creative manner every day. I already have a Masters degree (in audiology) and have no desire to go back to school again for that length of time, so I have to ask myself whether an MFA would improve my art over and above what I'm already doing. No, it wouldn't, because I don't want to have my work graded by someone else. This is my journey and I'm the only one who can tell if it's right.

In 1999, I made a very conscious decision to leave traditional quilting and explore art quilting. That description worked for a few years, but then it dawned on me that it wasn't the quilting part that was important anymore, but the expression of ideas. The quilting became the vehicle for that expression because I already knew the techniques and it was a very versatile medium. It was about that time that I began to think of myself as an artist. Not as a quilter or as an art quilter, but as an artist. This is how I feel inside of me now. I look at the world differently than I did before.

I suppose I could be doing something else with my life that would be more profitable, but my art continues to emerge from me at the strangest times. That slow glass is finally revealing everything what's been inside, but it's coming out all mixed together. It doesn't really matter whether I have a fine arts degree or not, because this is what I've become. I think I'm finally a Real Artist.