Redefined

Petah Coyne

On Wednesday, I drove down to Oklahoma City to hear an artist's talk by Petah Coyne, a very prominent contemporary artist from NYC. The talk was held at Untitled[ArtSpace], where they will be exhibiting Modern Materials, the art quilt exhibit I'm curating for next summer. Petah gave a delightful and insightful talk that made me realize that I don't necessarily think like some artists do.

When Petah was a younger artist, she had a compulsion for collecting dead fish and she used them to festoon the rafters of her NYC loft. After her husband developed an allergic sensitivity to them, she used the 5,000 fish to decorate other places instead. At one point, she discovered a charming home in Long Island and, in the middle of the night, strung lines through the trees outside the front door of the house, then hung a large number of the dead fish on the lines. She was so hurt the next day when the homeowner came outside and reacted negatively to the fish that decorated his front yard. To Petah, the fish were a great gift and she couldn't understand why the homeowner didn't love them the same way she did. As I have never collected dead fish or even decorated with one of them, I suspect that the left side of my brain must have a bigger hold on me than my artwork would suggest.

After the lecture, an extremely nice woman named Michi Susan took me out to dinner in The Paseo Art District, where she has a studio. She creates beautiful collaged artwork using paper. Not only did she pay for my food (I probably ate 95% of the calories between the two of us), but she also listened quite graciously to my incessant babbling. Afterward, we returned to the gallery and spent the night, along with Laura Warriner (the gallery founder) in the second floor bedrooms. What an amazing, art-filled place!

The next morning, we gathered up another woman and the four of us ate breakfast at a Guatamalan restaurant. The biggest surprise there was the way they prepared oatmeal. Imagine milk soup that has some oatmeal floating around in it. It was surpringly tasty, however.

After breakfast, we returned to the gallery and I had a planning session for Modern Materials with Laura, Jon Burris, (Executive Director), Jan Evans (Program Coordinator) and Autumn Daves (Development/PR Coordinator). We managed to get a lot done and, to help them with their work on the exhibit, I gave Jan and Autumn a couple of the cows that had wandered through the gallery model a while back. I hope that the cows bring them good luck and that the staff can save them from any future alien abductions.

New artwork

You may have seen them here before, but not since they've been professionally photographed. Here are my four newest artworks.

The first one is Miscalculated. I had this one dreamed up quite a while ago and the sketch for it is embarrassingly simple. I had intended for it to be a lot smaller than what it ended up being, which is 63" x 52", because I wanted to make this for an exhibit called A Sense of Humor. However, there was a very specific size range specified and I just couldn't make this fit those parameters. Oh well. After I posted this on my website, a friend wrote and made the comment that Miscalculated was a word that represented something singularly human, while many of my past works represented physical things. That made me realize that, for the past few years, it had been easier to deal with things than with emotions. I think I'm ready to change that.The second is Convoluted. When installed, it's about 15" h x 18" w x 18" d.,about the same size as Discombobulated. This is the fourth quilt of this type I've created and in some ways, I wish they would go away because they are a pain to arrange properly, but they have also become my signature, bread-and-butter pieces. I made this one particularly colorful and gave it a black binding in order to make the colors pop even more. The third is Picniced. Originally a joint project with two other people, I made new items to replace the ones they reclaimed after the exhibit was over. I am particularly proud of my BLT sandwich, which is entirely made of fiber materials, and my dill pickle, which is made of a lightweight modeling clay. My photographer happened to shoot it with the groundcloth propped up on the back of the backdrop so you could see the stream scene. Last week, I was looking at this picture and realized the genius of what he had done. I now plan to add a hanging sleeve at the stream end of the quilt and hang it low on the wall when it is displayed. That way, the picnicers can see the scene a lot better when they are eating their clay pickle and Tyvek bacon.
 

The last is Collapsed. I had this displayed in my solo exhibit last Fall, so it's not really a new piece. Leftovers from Collapsed went into Miscalculated and Convoluted, which is why the color schemes are almost the same. Although it's hard to see in this picture, there are six legs attached to the base. I suppose I could have used shorter legs, but I wanted this to be a freestanding work that didn't require a pedestal. It had to be tall enough so people wouldn't trip over it in an exhibit.

(Ah, now there's an idea. I could stretch a long, skinny quilt across the entrance to my next exhibit right at ankle level and call it Tripped. I could even set up a camera to watch the people stumble and make it into a video artwork, too. But before I do that, I'd better see if my finances could stand the inevitable lawsuits from disgruntled exhibit goers.)

Cyber Fyber

Sweet Marguerite
Last week, I travelled to South Carolina and spent a couple of days visiting my 92 year old mother. She doesn't look her age, but I'm not surprised because she's always looked like she was 15 years younger than she really was. Oh, I just love the whole idea of "inherited traits".

My mother is deep in the throes of Alzheimers and there are some days that doesn't speak at all, but some of her personality is still leaking out around the edges. Just as I was getting ready to leave, I reminded her who I was and told her I loved her, but was about to go. Very slowly, she said, "I would like to live... the rest of my life... in the land of Jill". I love you too, Mom.

Cyber Fyber
After leaving the nursing home, I drove to Columbia, SC and attended the opening of Cyber Fyber, a very interesting exhibit of fiber art that was curated by Susan Lenz. Her whole idea was to demonstrate the connections that she has made with other artists on the internet and the influences they have had on her art and her life. In one part of the exhibit, there were small artworks the size of postcards and trading cards, mounted by the hundreds upon the walls. They were created by artists from all over the world. In the side room, there were larger artworks made by 19 international artists who Susan had invited. Here is a picture of my artwork, Transformed, in the show.

I walked into Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, where the exhibit was installed, about 5 minutes before the reception officially opened. I recognized Susan from pictures I had seen of her, so I went over and introduced myself to her. From then on, she made me feel like a rock star.

Susan is an absolute ball of fire and I kept expecting to see sparks flying off her fingertips. Here she is in the middle of the picture, along with her mother and sister, Linda and Sonya. What a great family! They obviously love each other a lot and support each other.

Here's another picture of Susan with Stephen Chesley, a painter who has a studio there.  He's helped Susan quite a lot with her career. Interestingly, Steve and I are only 5 months apart in age and our fathers worked in the same building in New York City, probably at the same time. How strange is that?

I was so impressed with the way that Susan curated this exhibit. It had a central theme that went far beyond "aren't these pretty quilts" and she created 12 different blogs to document everything going on. Here is the main one. She even has a blog filled with videos of the reception and exhibit. In the blog for the invited artists, I love her description of the installation of my work.

Another wonderful thing that Susan did was to recruit Cindi Boiter, a professional writer, to produce and distribute press releases. They both did a wonderful job and the show has been reviewed in a number of publications, such as undefined, an excellent arts journal for South Carolina. See p. 30 for the start of the article and P. 31, column 2 for the writeup about me.

The day after the reception, Susan planned a Fiber Day at the gallery. Four local vendors came in to demonstrate new materials and machines. The big hit was the Embellisher, which does needle felting. Susan also gave a demonstration of how she makes her own work.

All in all, I had a wonderful time and was so impressed with Susan's organizational abilities. She is a great curator and I hope she has the strength and energy to do something like this again someday. I was truly honored to be a part of it.

Behind every great photographer...

I am glad to have found a great photographer because there is no one in Wichita who is able to produce the same high quality of work. His name is Gordon S. Bernstein and his studio is in Melrose, MA, which is so far away from me that I've only met him once. It's very scary to send my work away to be photographed when I don't have any control over the final product, especially when much of my work is installation art. However, Gordon has always had a top notch stylist and studio assistant working by his side who specializes in the fiber arts. I am sad to report that the stylist, Arnebet, passed away recently after a long illness. The one time I was at the studio, I had the opportunity to meet him and this post is written in his memory.

Arnebet was a real macho guy who loved the clothing models who came into the studio and the girls loved him, too. As you can see, he was often caught making out with them when he was not required to be on the set. You can tell he's not gay by where he's looking.

One of the great advantages of working with Arnebet was his meticulous attention to detail. In the first picture, he is carefully arranging scarves made by Lisa Micheels and in the second picture, he is checking the proper positioning for my own artwork, Unmatched. Apparently, he tried dialing Misti's phone number that's written inside the matchbook cover but only got a busy signal.

Always a stickler for perfection, Arnebet would work tirelessly with the models, demonstrating the pose he wanted them to take. He was very secure in his masculinity so this did not bother him a bit. In the second picture, he is showing Sam how to keep her back straight and her ears at the correct angle. From what I understand, she was never able to get the ear part quite right.

Often described as being cute as a bunny, Arnebet was so dedicated to his craft that he was frequently willing to work for nothing more than raisins. He will be sorely missed.

What happened to my 2008 New Years resolutions?

1. Send my cat to an eating disorder clinic for her bulemia.

At the end of May, Katya spiraled into self-destruction and had to be treated by the vet for damage to her esophagus resulting from sticking her claw down her throat. We turned to professional help and ended up being featured on an episode of the TV show Intervention. At that time, Katya agreed to rehab. She spent eight weeks at the Idaho Center for Feline Regurgitation and seemed to be getting better, but she had a relapse in October that required another rehab stint. Since then, she has earned a coin for being barf-free for one month and has gained 6 ounces. We have hope that she will continue her recovery.

2. Write another blog entry that becomes as successful as Top Ten Reasons for Becoming an Artist. Maybe I should write one called Top Ten Reasons for NOT Becoming an Artist, but I don't think it would deter anyone from becoming one. Lack of money usually does that after a few years anyway.

A couple of my posts have become quite popular. They are How I make my fiber sculptures and How I make my quilts 3D.  Why I wrote those posts, I have no idea. After all, I'm just teaching other people how to be my competition. I really must have my head examined.

3. Finally get an entry accepted into Quilt National, damn it.

I thought I entered some of my best work into QN this year, consisting of Splashed, Dispensed and Laced. Unfortunately, I didn't get accepted into the show. I didn't get into Visions either. Damn it.

4. Transform my body into Carmen Electra's, but without her taste in husbands.

What can I say? Personal trainers take one look at me and run away in horror.

5. Add a couple of rooms to my studio, including a wet studio for painting and dyeing, plus a large, climate-controlled storage room for the finished work that's piling up. However, adding extra rooms might be a problem since my studio is in the basement. Maybe I could dig a secret tunnel through the wall using a sharpened spoon and carve out a few underground caverns.

To save some digging, I created a small tunnel over to the neighbor's basement and have secretly occupied their laundry room. My husband created a false wall to fool them into thinking that they only have two rooms down there, not three. Their clothes are getting a little stinky, though.

6. Take down all the traditional quilts displayed in my house. I made them almost 15 years ago, when I first started quilting. I think I can do better now. I've just been too lazy to make something to replace them.

Um, is it the end of the year yet? Do I still have time to do this?

7. Reconnect with all the people I should have sent replies to months and months ago. Yes, I dropped off the face of the earth, but that's no excuse not to send a friendly email every now and then from my current location, wherever that is.

I have a few people who I owe emails, but for the most part, I've caught up.

8. Get dressed earlier in the day.

Define "dressed".

9. Be  discovered by a Big Name gallery owner or museum curator. I want to be the hottest ticket on the block, right after Jeff Koons and Grandma Moses. Offers for solo shows will rain down upon my shoulders and I will need to hire several cute young men to assist me with my paperwork. My work will sell for millions of dollars.

Every bit of this happened exactly the way I planned and it was done by June. At that time, I revised this goal to include being Master of the Art World. I'm now up to five young male assistants and I'm not really sure how much paperwork several of them actually do.

10. Did I mention Carmen Elektra's figure? Change that to Halle Berry's. Same caveat about the husbands, though.

Did you know that "quilting" is also known as "reverse aerobics"?