More Paducah: Caryl Bryer Fallert

Caryl Bryer Fallert opened her studio to the public during the show. I love her work and it was incredibly neat to see her work space. It also made me think about quilting in a new way. The show in general exploded my thinking about quilting and fiberart. It, of course, gave me new ideas for quilts. Looking at quilts and anything to do with fabric and fiber always starts my mind racing ahead with things to try and ways to solve problems.

But being immersed in all things quilty encouraged me to take quilting and creativity in general more seriously. Fallert creates, teaches and lives her commitment to her art and she is a three-time prize winner but it was great to see lots of other folks, with maybe less exalted abilities also mange to make their way in the creative world.

Feather Study #30 by Caryl Bryer Fallert. Winner of 2009 AQS Machine Workmanship Award, Wall Quilt

Detail.

The back. Beautiful.

After Paducah

I had a wonderful time at the quilt show. I took many, many picture, spent time at the show everyday, explored the town and ate the most amazing piece of coconut creme pie. I also got a bit overwhelmed with quilts, ideas and inspiration. I overheard show goers around me exclaiming over the beauty and imagination on display and more than once expressing near-despair at ever approaching the level of accomplishment on display. I could certainly empathize with the feeling. On the other hand it was amazing to be immersed in all things quilty for 4 days.

Next year, or the next time I go to a big show, I will take a class. The quantity and quality of the classes looked amazing.

Pictures are being uploaded to my Flickr set here. More to come about the quilts and the show.

Paducah

Getting here was an epic journey. I opted to take the 4:30 pm flight into Memphis. Since there doesn't seem to be direct flights to Paducah the next leg of the journey was on a small propeller plane with worn leather seats. It was old and rattled like a SEPTA EL train! As we got on the plane the sun was going down. By the time we took off it was dark. The big plane had rolled through turbulance on the way across the country. We felt every air current on the small plane.

My seat companion was a wonderful distraction. Her name was Jane Kirkpatrick. She is an author and was visiting the quilt festival on a tour to promote her new book. Called Aurora, it is part of a series based on the life of Emma Wagner Giesy who helped found a Utopian community in the Pacific Northwest during the 1850s. Some of her quilts have survived.

Jane also has a pilot's license. She is multitalented and multifacted and it was delightful to meet her.

The third and final part of the trip was renting a car, getting lost several times, arriving at the wrong motel twice and eventually, finding my way to the room waiting for me. This morning I realized that the hotel is directly on the shore of the Ohio River. The river is enormously, hughly wide here. The land makes way for it so that you are aware by the flatness and the bogs that something is coming before you see it. Like saltmarshes signal the ocean. Working ships and barges float on it. They are far enough away that they look small.

The hour time difference helped me get to the show early.

I did take some pictures. Many did not come out well. I'll try again tomorrow. I wish I understood more about why some pictures work and some don't!

Getting Ready

It is the dreariest, most dour day here. So windy that even the little trees usually sheltered alongside the much taller buildings are whipping around. Dark enough that I have the lights on though it is only 2:30 in the afternoon (compact fluorescent of course, at least mostly...). The rain is audible nearly everywhere in the house.

It is not a good day to clean up the garden, something I thought I might do today, but it is a great day to spend in the sewing room with a cup of tea. My vacation week started Friday. I finally finished squaring up the first thing I've ever done that I would consider an art quilt. It was an adventure! It is now ready to be backed and quilted. Its small enough to be done on the machine.

That freed up the design wall so that I could start to take a look at the pieces for my Moon and Stars quilt.

Seeing it up inspired the creation of many more moons and stars. I've used up all of the applique backing I had.

Then I moved on to painting chipboard. I'm not sure what I'll use it for but it was fun to slather the color on the gray paper.

During breaks from sewing and coloring I worked on getting ready to go to Paducah! I leave tomorrow.

Chaos Continued...

I found another detail of Norika Ikeda tea-themed quilt and I could not resist posting it.

My Favorite Quilts: At the Edge of Chaos

I have some favorite quilts that I come back to for ideas, inspiration and sheer enjoyment over and over again. I really love this one. It is very busy with all things tea. How could I not love it? The artist is Norika Ikeda of Japan. I seem to have a weakness for Japanese-made quilts.

The text includes the names of quilts (broken dishes, log cabin), correspondence, addresses and cancelled stamps. This detail shows the words and music to the Star Spangled Banner! I believe many of the cups and dishes here and all over the quilt are cut from printed fabric and appliqued

in layers. There are also tea-thing-shaped buttons scattered about. It is really a large scale, fabric collage. It approaches the edge of chaos but doesn't descend. I believe the theme holds it together.

More details.

The quilting is free-form and I believe done by machine. Here is some metallic quilting/embellishment.

On Point

This unusually-shaped quilt is called Remarkable Vantage Point. Its creator is Beth Shulman and it was part of a special exhibition at this year's Quilters' Heritage Celebration. The piece, a view down through tall tree at a forest floor, is a great marriage of shape and subject. It is 51 inches from point to point. The challenge was to oppose two 36 inch squares.

This detail highlights some of the thoughtful machine quilting. The artist filled each color area with unique texture, adding to the illusion of spearate trees and patches of rock, undergrowth and earth.

This somewhat blurry detail is worth showing for what looks like couched yarns and fibers, adding more mossy, leafy texture.
I believe hand-dyed fabrics were used and possibly some fabric with texture? Maybe upholstery chenille? The quilt, like all the quilts in this Milwaukee Art Quilters challenge, also includes some means of support for it's points. There is no information how this problem was solved but it looks great.

Ann Horton: Daughter's Gift

This 52 x 48 inch quilt generates quite a bit of viewing on my Flickr account. Based around two blocks hand-stitched by the artist's young teen daughter the piece incorporates thread-painting, digitized embroidery, machine quilting and hand beading. It is the artist's original design.

I think this is one of the original blocks that the quilt was built around.

Thread-painted bunnies. I would guess that the they were stitched on a separate piece of cloth and applied to the patchwork. Close inspection leads me to believe that the strawberries to the left of the bunnies may be the digitized machine embroidery.

Detail of some of the applique. This quilter uses the patterns in the fabric to create shadows and highlight and dimension in her work. The flower petals are a wonderful example. They are composed of three fabrics. The base petal fabric, in two shades, looks like it might be cotton with a pearlized finish or some metallic woven into it. The top petal is a two-tone damask. All fabrics with some degree of reflection and texture intrinsic to them. Really skillful and lovely.

Quilters Heritage Celebration

Work, recently, has taken on a frenetic quality. Some days I have hardly been able to get from one meeting to the next on time. But today I drove out of the city and into Lancaster county for the Quilter's Heritage Celebration. There was an intense April downpour as I left. I believe I even saw a bolt of lightening or two, but the countryside is freshening up. There were trees in bloom, maybe cherries?

As the trip moved from the super highways around the King of Prussia Mall, to the older divided four lane turnpike-type roads to the two-lane version of Route 3o that cuts across Amish farms I thought less about work and more about nothing at all. I began to see buggies. One tied outside of a Stop and Shop, one clopping along, closed up against the mist. My horizon moved out to where the damp empty fields rolled gently up to meet the sky.

This show is not in a convention center but at a large hotel on a golf course. I always park a ways down the highway and tromp in across the rough lawn that borders the course. I picked my way through the highest ground I could find and arrived. By then space had fully cleared in my head for things other than work worries.

I thought the show was a good one. Maybe not as large in terms of vendors as I have seen in the past but some great quilts. I saw this one near the end of the day and loved it.

Titled El Dia de los Muertos - A Colorful Afterlife by Kelly Hogan is was part of a special exhibit called Living Colors from the Association of Pacific Northwest Quilters. It was absolutely encrusted with embellishments: crystals, cording, beads, rick rack, pearls. bits of jewelry and ribbon-covered rings. If you can think of a kind of trim it is on there! All of the quilts in the exhibit were 24 x 36. I liked nearly all of them. It is a great size for an art quilt.

Quilt Show!

Friday is the Quilter's Heritage Show in Lancaster. I'm looking forward to it more than I would a visit to the spa...