Redefined

Re-resurfacing

In my last post, I said that I had reached a point of overload and was withdrawing from several art-related obligations. I evaluated what I could reasonably handle and let go of the part that wasn't allowing me to move on.

First, I resigned from a fiber art group I had just joined. I had only been a member for several days but hey, that's longer than some of Britney Spears' marriages.

Second, I resigned as regional co-representative for Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA). After six months or so on the job, I realized that I couldn't give it the time and care the position deserved. Unfortunately, it left my co-representative in the lurch, which is something I truly regret. She's struggling with her own time commitments.

Third, I've decided to enter far fewer juried art quilt shows in the future. My main goal at this point is to step further into the mainstream art world, where my work is a better fit. I want to spend my limited time locating solo exhibits and galleries. As hard as it is to discontinue some of my ties to the art quilt community, I feel it's time to leave a lot of it behind. In many ways, this is how I felt when I left traditional quilting. If I was enjoying success, why take the leap into the unknown? Because it's right for me to do so.

At the same time that I was doing this art-related housecleaning, my husband was finishing his remodeling of one of the bedrooms. Being no dummy, I immediately took the opportunity to move a lot of my finished work from the basement up to the bedroom closet. It seemed ridiculous that I have been taking my art out of the furnace room and shipping it off to museums. My work deserved better treatment than that.

Of course, moving stuff around the house is never that easy. You can't just move one thing, you have to move everything. I was finding a lot of detritus I knew existed, but had purposely hidden from view. What am I supposed to do with three boxes of player piano rolls and a box full of record albums? As it turned out, I kept the rolls, but got rid of the LPs. By the time I was done a week later, I had completed a serious reorganization of three major rooms and two large closets. I also moved a bunch of furniture around to accomodate the table for my new sewing machine.

With all of this happening at one time, I was able to step back and reevaluate what I was doing on many levels. While I was packing and labeling things for storage, I also took down a lot of the artwork from my studio walls. The majority of those pieces were framed collages that do not reflect my current style of art and do not make me proud. Since I had no emotional attachment to them, they are now gone. I'd rather look at blank spots on my walls until I have better things to fill them.

If you hadn't guessed, there is a general moving, shaking and purging going on in my career and my life, but this is a positive thing for me. As part of my move into the general art world, I've registered for a sculpture conference, to be held in Michigan next October. I'm looking forward to meeting a new crowd of people.

I promise my next blog post will be funnier and have more pictures. These serious and text-heavy posts are beginning to bore me. I need a major jolt of color to get my motor running again!

Resurfacing

I know it's been a while since I posted. I've done a lot of thinking about where I'm headed with my art. This started recently when a fiber art group invited me to join them. After about a week, I realized that I wasn't actually creating my artwork anymore. The group was the final straw that took up the last of my "arting" time. I made the decision that I would withdraw from most of the activities that were keeping me from the work I really should be doing, so I sent my "thank you, but I'm not staying" email to the group a few days ago. I also plan to withdraw from a couple of other commitments that are either taking too much of my time or making me feel guilty because I'm not doing them. They are all related to art quilting, which also goes along with my plan to move more into the general art world.

I must be rebelling against my responsibilities, because I've spent the past few days sewing the seams on my latest artwork. I've been sewing the color run together and I know what I'm going to do with it, but I'm not telling yet.

Last week, I bought a new sewing machine, which is something I thought I'd never do because I have such a good one already. However, after struggling to quilt several of my last projects, I realized my Bernina 1260 wasn't sufficient for all my needs. I intend to keep the Bernina for sewing seams and use the Janome 6600 for machine quilting. Of course, this means I need to rearrange my studio to accomodate another sewing table. If everything goes normally for me, there'll be a cascade effect throughout the entire house and nothing will remain untouched by the time I'm done. The Organizator strikes again.

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In loving memory of Preston Wesley Werner
May 8, 1990 - November 7, 2005
Happy 18th birthday, bud!

Old quilts never die, they just get passed around

Last week, when I attended the Kansas Art Commission artist fellowships reception, I met Roger Shimomura, the world-reknowned painter who received the Master Fellowship in Fine Arts. He told me that he was going to send me an old quilt that he purchased at an auction 25 years ago in Lawrence, KS when he was teaching at the University of Kansas. The quilt had been in a box ever since and I think he wanted to find it a good home. I haven't done anything with traditional quilts in about ten years, but I knew more people in the field than he did, so I told him to send it along and I'd figure out what to do with it.

I received the quilt today and discovered it was made from wool fabric and hand pieced. Lines of herringbone embroidery stitches highlight the stitching lines and the outside edge. The blocks are 10" square. However, you can also see that the quilt is in poor condition and the insides are showing. Blue ticking fabric is peeping through the biggest holes, so I suspect that the quiltmaker used an old coverlet inside as batting. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this quilt dates back to the 1800s.

Since I am not an expert on old wool quilts, I called Sara Reimer Farley, a well-known quilt historian who lives here in Wichita. She will be coming over on Thursday to see it in person. If she wants the quilt, she can take it home with her. A quilt like this is a little piece of history and belongs in the right hands.

Fellowship awards ceremony

You are getting two long posts today because yesterday, I traveled to Topeka to receive my Mid-Career Artists Fellowship (Fine Art) from the Kansas Arts Commission. They held a wonderful reception for the recipients and I want to tell you about some of the interesting people who I talked to. There were many others and I hope that I don't hurt their feelings by not including them, but I have to stop the list somewhere before everyone falls asleep, like in a college class right after lunch.

- One of my State Senators, Les Donovan, was there with his wife, Cissy, to hand me my award. I was honored that they took the time to be there for me, as I was the only fellowship winner from the Wichita area. I was so impressed by their graciousness and intelligence.

- Pauline Verbeek-Cowart, who received the Masters Fellowship in Fine Craft, is a tremendously talented weaver who teaches at the Kansas City Art Institute. Many people know her from the Surface Design Association. Talking to her came at a good time for me, because of a question I had regarding SDA and the fiber art exhibits associated with their biennial conference. She was the perfect person to ask and I had an opportunity to get to know her at the same time. That was almost worth the trip all by itself.

- Melissa Gregory, who works in the office of Governor Kathleen Sebelius. I have a quilt hanging on the wall in the governor's office right now and Melissa knew exactly which one it was. Coincidentally, she "long distance" commutes from Wichita and her Wichita house is one that my husband and I had looked at when we were buying a home almost 20 years ago. We distinctly remember that house and have even talked about it a few times since.

- Barbara Nelson, who co-owns the Strecker-Nelson Gallery in Manhattan (Kansas), probably the most respected contemporary art gallery in the state. Her husband and gallery co-owner, Jay, was on the selection panel for the awards. Barbara and I first met in 2001, when she was kind enough to host a meeting of Kansas Art Quilters. I was president of KAQ at the time. I'd love to get to know Barbara better, as I remember her gallery/home as being jaw-droppingly amazing, which says a lot about the insides of a person.

- John Divine, a commissioner on the KAC board. He chaired the selection panel for the visual arts awards this year, which is the first time I'd seen him in about 25 years. We used to work for the same branch office for IBM, but he was based in a city 90 minutes drive from me and I only saw him occasionally during that time. In fact, I was surprised he remembered me at all, but I guess Jill Rumoshosky isn't a name you hear every day.

- Roger Shimomura, who received the Masters Fellowship in Fine Art, is a world renowned painter. In 2000, when I received a Mini-Fellowship from the KAC, I attended the selection meeting and one of the panel members made a comment that changed the course of my art tremendously. It took me years to figure out what that comment meant, but I eventually did. When I told Roger about this, he did not recall whether he had served on that panel because he's served on so many over the years, but thought the comment was something he would be likely to say. Whether he has any memory of that moment in time, I do remember it and that's what counts. You never know the impact that your life has on other people, do you?

Taking a break from creativity

I haven't posted any entries for the past two weeks or so and, during that time, I also put away the in-progress projects in my studio. I just didn't feel much like being creative for a while. However, I wasn't exactly sitting around, as I've been looking at art, reading about art and doing a lot of hand dyeing, but I haven't been creating or writing anything. Last night, I had a great idea for a new project and the ol' juices began flowing again. Looking back, I think I needed a mental vacation from being creative. CPAs get vacations, why don't we?

Several nice things have happened since I last posted. First, I received official notification that I was awarded a 2008 Mid-Career Artist Fellowship from the Kansas Arts Commission. Of course, I splashed the news all over my website right away, but if I missed mentioning it on a page or two, please let me know and I'll correct the problem. On March 10th, there will be a reception for all the fellowship recipients at the state capital in Topeka where I will receive my check. With the price of gas these days, that might not even cover my travel expenses!

Second, I've been asked to jury a Studio Art Quilt Associates regional exhibition. I'll post more about it when everything is finalized.

Third, I followed a link to an unknown blog and was delighted to find that it was written by Susan Lenz. In the past, she's left some very insightful and completely accurate comments on my blog telling me how wonderful my work is and feeding my ego to an unhealthy degree. On the blog I discovered, Susan explained that she is curating an invitational exhibit to be held at a Columbia, South Carolina gallery next January. When I scrolled down, I was surprised to learn I was on her wish list for artists for this exhibit. You can read more about the general exhibition here. Of course, I accepted her invitation and I'm honored that she thought of me.

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!

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.

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.

Post Rock Country, Kansas

In previous posts, I admitted to having a sordid, yet colorful past as a traditional quilter. Life seems to go in cycles and for some reason, that past has been coming back to haunt me recently. Not only did I just complete a project that harkens back to my "picture quilt" days, but I'm also teaching with and exhibiting some of older quilts. Perhaps I needed to see where I've been in order to appreciate where I'm going.

This is a quilt called Post Rock Country, Kansas, finished in 2000 after about a year's worth of work. Unfortunately, this was back before I had a professional photographer, so the picture isn't very good. However, it is large and quite three dimensional. The spiral at the top is actually a separate quilt, which you can see it in the detail picture. I have to admit that I changed some things about this quilt two years later, after this picture was taken. Most notably, I added a farm out in the field, changed and improved the tall grasses at the bottom and added quilte a bit of shading, especially to the fence posts and field.

The barbed wire started as six different weights of white cotton yarn. I painted the yarn black, then tied knots in it, changing to smaller yarn as the fence went off into the distance.The eagle was threadpainted (entirely stitched by machine) and it was such a large image that it took me eight days to finish. The larger butterflies and other details were created the same way.

I entered this quilt into two large shows that year (Paducah and Houston) and it wasn't accepted into either one. After that, I thought this quilt would stay on my living room wall for the rest of its life, but twas not to be.

First, this artwork was juried into Encrustations, a 2002 North Carolina exhibit for embellished quilts and that show was chosen to be a special exhibit at the Houston show later that year. Ha! Take that, you shortsighted Houston jurors from 2000, it was shown there anyway! I am dancing on your heads.

In 2005, this quilt was juried into an annual exhibit in Ohio. The theme was "Rural Roots and Mysteries" and it won Best of Show. I wasn't creating this kind of artwork anymore, but I was still very pleased that this work was getting recognition. The eagle had landed.

Ready for the big news? Several days ago, the exhibitions chair for Kansas Art Quilters  received a request from the Kansas governor's office asking for ten quilts to display on their walls. Post Rock Country, Kansas is one of the quilts that was chosen for that honor. It will be on display there from December 5th through the end of April, 2008. The funny thing is that I always felt this quilt should be displayed in the governor's office and it's almost surreal to know that it will truly be there. Key the Twilight Zone music, please.

Getting a little chili out there?

I know this is an artist's blog, but artists don't need to starve. Here's a recipe I developed for a really delicious and healthy bison chili that costs about $1.50 per serving, including everything. I make it in large quantities, then freeze it into one or two person servings. On a cold evening, this is a great meal.

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Artist's Bison Chili
from Jill Rumoshosky Werner

4 lbs. ground bison, browned
2 large or 3 medium sized onions, coarsely chopped
2 12-oz. cans tomato paste
4 large green peppers, cleaned and coarsely cut into pieces
3 15-oz. cans red kidney beans, drained
4 16-oz. cans peeled whole tomatoes
3/4 cup chili powder (yes, that much!)
2 tsp. dried, minced garlic
2 Tbs. cumin (ground cominos)
3 10-oz. cans diced tomatoes and green chilis
Shredded cheddar cheese, Fritos chips and chopped onion for garnish

Throw it all into a large pot, cook till the onions are cooked through, stirring frequently. Cool, ladle into containers and freeze. Microwave it when you're ready to serve. Serve with the cheese, chips and onion.

Notes:
- You probably don't need to add salt, as there is salt in the canned tomatos and that seems sufficient.
- The diced tomatoes with green chilis come in varying degrees of heat. I usually make mine at least half "mild".
- This a a very solid meal and it doesn't take much to fill you up. Don't overdo the portion size. A heaping ladle per serving is enough.
- I used homegrown, canned tomatoes instead of the canned variety in my last batch and it was the tastiest yet. I threw in a couple of small cans of green chilis, too
- You can use dark or light chili powder. I've even mixed them half and half.
- Keep some chopped onion and a bag of shredded cheese in the refrigerator, plus a bag of Fritos in the cupboard, so you can enjoy this any time you want.
- This is a very forgiving recipe. You can adjust the amount of each ingredient according to your taste.
- Get someone else to chop the onions for you and open all the cans. Apologize to them later.

Kansas Art Quilters

I drove over 5 hours round trip on Saturday to attend the annual Kansas Art Quilters (KAQ) meeting. Nineteen people showed up, which is not bad attendance for a group in our situation. For those of you who do not know, Kansas is right in the middle of the United States and covers a very large area, about four times the size of Slovakia. Driving from city to city can involve many hours of driving time, so not all members are able to attend. Despite its name, the group is actually a national one, with 65 members from 14 states. At one time, we even had a member from Norway.

A large part of our national success has been due to the efforts of Linda Frost, the outgoing chair of the Exhibitions Committee, who did an amazing job of finding us excellent exhibit venues for a number of years. Here's a picture from one of our recent opening receptions at the Sabatini Gallery in Topeka.

At the end of 2000, I attended a Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. SAQA is the international organization for artists who work with quilts as their medium. During a break, I found myself talking to three other Kansans, including Charlotte Herr, Phil D. Jones and Linda Frost. At one point, I made a comment that I'd always thought the quilt artists in Kansas should get together and have an exhibit. Light bulbs went off over our heads and we decided to form a group. The next day, we met at lunchtime and made plans.

Each of us knew another art quilter or two, so we started passing the word along that we were going to have our first meeting in January, 2001. Phil said we'd probably end up with 10-12 people sitting around a living room. I collected names and contacted people who might be interested, based on tips given to me. To our great surprise, we had 40 people turn up at the first meeting.

KAQ has grown and changed a lot over the years. I was the first president and now I'm the communications coordinator, maintaining the website. What hasn't changed is the talent in the group. Linda and I are the two founding members still left, but many, many other people have also stepped up to make KAQ work. Thanks to everyone who has done so, including the outgoing board members.

Jamming

Years ago, my niece walked my in-laws' house and the first thing she asked was, "Grandma, do you have any of Jill's jellies?".

I've been quiet lately because I've been indulging one of my other passions, making jams and fruit butters. Most of the time, I use low-sugar recipes so that you taste the fruit, not the sugar. I think half of my friends and family hang around because they're hoping for freebies (and they usually get them).

The tree next to our driveway produces so many crabapples each year that we suck them up using the shop vacuum. I do a preliminary processing of the fruit, then can up the puree into quart jars. I still had a lot of puree stored from previous years, so this time I converted the last 32 quarts that I had in storage into crabapple butter. What you see in the picture is most of the result of three days of work, totaling 11 jars of homegrown tomatoes (in the lower left) and 147 jars of crabapple butter. In the past few days, I've also made batches of plum jam, peach jam, pomegranate jelly and white grape/peach jelly. If we don't give too many away, I'm hoping that will last us a while.

Tomorrow, I will put everything away and go back to arting. I promise.