Entry woes

You might think that after somebody has entered 100 shows or so, it wouldn't be such a big deal.  But yet again, it's entry time and I'm struggling.

This time it's for Fiberart International, a very prestigious show that comes around every three years and attracts artists from all over the world.  I was fortunate to be juried into the show once before, in 2010.  The next one, in 2013, unfortunately had the same entry deadline, give or take a week or two, as Quilt National, and the three quilts I had so tediously finished for QN constituted my entire artistic output for the year.  So I had nothing to enter in Fiberart International that year.

So this time I was determined to have an entry, and it is centered around the knots I've been tying for several months.  The entry deadline is midnight tonight. I finished the last piece on Friday and this weekend did the photography -- that shouldn't be too hard when the art is only a few inches tall, should it?  No struggling with big design walls or wrestling huge quilts into position.

But too small can be just as challenging as too large!  My point-and-shoot camera, usually utterly reliable for extreme closeups, refused to focus itself on the knots for detail shots.  Here's what my beautiful sculptures were looking like in the photos: a blur.

Fortunately I have a good friend who saved my life by using his much nicer camera to shoot gorgeous photos this afternoon.

Now the last hurdle: what to call these pieces.  The first ones that I made were called "Specimen", a name I liked because it was indeterminate as to the nature of the things depicted.  Are they animal, vegetable or mineral?  I'm not sure, and the name left it ambiguous.

So the obvious name for the series I'm entering in Fiberart International, in which the knotted bodies are emanating from old wooden spools, would be "Spool Specimens."  Oops.  Too close to disastrous connotations.

I still have several hours to come up with a good name.  I'm thinking, I'm thinking....

Photo suite 192 -- side walls

"My China trip starts"

I am leaving for China this afternoon. I will stay with my mother in Beijing for about 10 days. Then my China painting trip 2015 will start. I am looking forward to meeting my team and have a wonderful two weeks together, painting and sightseeing. Life is so dramatic.

I took this photo about two years ago with my 2013 team in Guilin. It seems like just yesterday. We had so much fun. I can' wait to see the beautiful places planned for this year. For all the friends who are following me on the Internet. I will keep you posted and share our trip with you.

Good save!

Several years ago I participated in a kind of round robin quilt design project organized by Terry Jarrard-Dimond.  After she sewed the finished composition together, I asked her if I could have the leftovers, because I just love sewing leftovers into quilts, especially leftovers from other people's projects.  I always think that the energy those others put into their work carries over and gives my work a new aura that I wouldn't get entirely on my own.

I sewed those leftovers into two separate quilt tops (see them here) and eventually quilted and finished one of the tops (see it here).  But the second top languished.  It ended up in my workshop box, being shlepped around to workshops around the country so people could see the back side of my fine line piecing.

Here it is on the wall when I taught at the Crow Barn last fall.

My students wondered why I had never finished it, and we talked about its compositional failures as an object lesson.  I said I didn't think the top half really matched the bottom half, and I didn't have enough of the blue and gray leftovers to really give those colors an adequate presence in the quilt.  I said I loved the yellow area at the top -- and then I blurted out "I really should cut this into two pieces!"

You have probably had such an experience yourself, where you are surprised to hear what comes out of your own mouth, and later realize that it was true.

So as the workshop went on, I took my seam ripper and opened the quilt top into two pieces.  Earlier this year I got both of them quilted and finished.

Fine line piecing has always reminded me of aerial landscapes, and these have names to reflect that.  I don't know if I would try to exhibit them as a pair, but that's a possibility.

Left Coast, 2015

Flyover State, 2015

It's taken almost five years to progress from leftovers to finished art, but I'm happy with these.  I've always believed that if you wait long enough, and keep your work within view, it will tell you what it wants to become.  And that's what happened here.

Sign of the week

Now this is what I call clever design -- the sign is a part of what it's describing.  In the London Underground.

"Demo at Huntsville 2015 2" --- Sold

The floral demo went well. I was happy that all workshop artists have benefited from those three days. Now the workshop is over, and I spent an additional day visit more of my old friends here. My art journey goes on. I hope I will like my students, practice and progress.

Sneak peek 2

Here's another sneak peek at my new book, "Pattern-Free Quilts: Riffs on the Rail Fence Block," just published earlier this month.

Traditionally, rail fence blocks, like those of most quilt patterns, are square.  But they don't have to be...

You could use rectangles, triangles, trapezoids, rhombuses or hexagons instead of squares.  Any of these shapes will fit together neatly, or "tessellate," to cover the entire surface of the quilt.  Here are a few quick sketches of how you might divide these shapes with rails.

As you can see from the sketches, there are a myriad of possibilities for planning a quilt with block/shapes composed of several strips or rails.  That's the point: lots of possibilities, so the quilt you design won't be like anybody else's.

To buy the book, click on the thumbnail picture in the sidebar at right, or HERE.

Book in Progress..

I'm working on my portrait book; it'll come out through Design Studio Press next year.

Photo suite 191 -- pipe dreams

“Demo at Huntsville 2015 1"

I am so happy coming back to Huntsville Alabama. I have spent 7 years here about 20 years ago. I left Huntsville as a rocket scientist. Now I am back as an artist. The city is the same and also changed greatly. I want to thank Huntsville Museum of Art for organizing this workshop, and thank all the artists coming from all over for painting with me. This is my first demonstration.

Signs of the week

"Demo at Bolivar 2015 2"

Click here to Purchase

My second demo at Bolivar was a plein air one. I used this painting to show how I manage the perspectives. The painting shows the quietness of a small town. However in real life, this intersection was quite busy. Big semi-trucks make wide turns right in front of my easel. They seem coming right at me. I really don't understand why these big monsters are called "semi".

BTW both of my demos at Bolivar are still available.

Julian Bond

I was sorry to hear of the too-early death of Julian Bond, one of the most prominent civil rights leaders of the last century, who went from heading the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to serving in the Georgia Legislature for many years.

A couple of years ago he was the guest speaker on our cruise to the Amazon.  It was a privilege to spend a couple of hours with him in an intimate setting as he reminisced about his crusading days.

A couple of days later we were taking a bus excursion on the very hilly island of Grenada, driving way too close to the precipitous edge of narrow winding roads, when we saw this dog sleeping on a roof.  This has nothing to do with Julian Bond but it makes me smile.

Sneak peek 1

Here's another sneak peek at my new book, "Pattern-Free Quilts: Riffs on the Rail Fence Block," just published earlier this month.

The traditional rail fence block consists of three or four parts -- call them strips, stripes, rails, whatever you like -- that make up a block.  Usually there's relatively high contrast between the colors of the rails.  Traditionally, when the quilt is assembled, every other block is given a quarter turn to make an overall checkerboard or weave structure.

Sometimes one of the rails is given a dominant color allowing you to deploy the blocks in patterns.  If one of the side rails steps forward because of high value contrast, you can get a zigzag pattern across the quilt.  Or, by arranging the blocks differently, you can get pinwheels.

If the middle rail steps forward because of value contrast, you'll get a different effect -- and over-and-under basketweave pattern.

As you can see from this brief excerpt, there are lots of design variations possible just using the traditional rail fence layout.  But this is just the start; next we're going to start changing the rails, the blocks and the way the blocks are assembled.

To buy the book, click on the thumbnail picture in the sidebar at right, or HERE.

Dancer

Watercolor on arches cold press watercolor paper.
Hope you're having a great weekend!

Photo suite 190 -- Japanese supermarket

One of the highlights of my recent trip to Japan was a trip to the supermarket -- nothing fancy, like the food court at Takashimaya, the upscale department store I visited in Kyoto five years ago, just an ordinary grocery store in a small city in the hinterlands.  See more of my supermarket photos from Japan and Russia on my food blog, here.

"Demo at Bolivar 2015 1"

I am now at a small town in Tennessee call Boliver. I want to thank Deborah Turner Brasfield for organizing my workshop  here, and thanks to artists from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Georgia for coming and painting with me. This workshop is a landscape one. I did this demo from a photo I took last year from Jeckyll Island, GA.

Mending project 6

I've been writing about the mending project at Kentucky Museum of Art + Craft, and promised to keep you posted about my ambivalent feelings.  On the one hand, I am delighted with the concept that mending can be art, and intrigued by being able to participate in a Work Of Art by an honest-to-pete Famous Artist.  On the other, I am disappointed that the project has never really gotten off the ground, and have my own suspicions about why it hasn't (in a nutshell, poor planning plus poor execution).

I've worked two shifts since almost a month off for various travels, and when I returned there weren't all that many more garments on the pile than when I left.  Remember, the project has been going since the last week in April!

One day I kept busy by sewing flowers onto the hems of girls' dresses, which is always fun because they are so easily impressed.  With one little girl we talked about how old you have to be to learn to sew (I told her I learned hand-stitching when I was about five, and sewing machine when I was seven) and she allowed that maybe she would try to do it when she got old enough.

The second day I was working during a poetry slam held in the downstairs gallery.  The museum representative spoke briefly to invite people to check out the art show while they were there, and specifically mentioned the mending.  At intermission, one young woman bounded up the stairs and plonked down in the chair, taking off her much-worn flannel shirt as she approached.  She explained that she had lost both wrist buttons some time ago and had sewed the cuffs shut, but hadn't done a very good job of it and could I re-fix them.

So during the second half of the event, I mended her cuffs while listening to poetry from below.

"Yellow Rose Study 081215"

I did this rose study from life, but also referenced to one of the paintings that Richard Schmid did. The rose part is easy, but the whole abstract composition I am still having problems. Perhaps you have seen quite a few my rose paintings, do you feel that the compositions I used are rather similar and they are not rich enough? I admire Richard Schmid for many years, especially for his designs

I was asking my readers in my previous post. Do you prefer low key or high key paintings. By checking my Instagram, I got almost twice as many "likes" in comparison with my earlier low key painting. The result is obvious: Most people like high key. However, I am relatively weak in doing high key paintings. So more effort and time are needed.

Sign of the week

I guess everybody needs a mirror to check their coiffures before they dash off the subway and into the office.

“Movement of Colors"

This one is a pure high key painting. I have been working in this realm for a while now, but have not really get the effect I really crazy about. So I will keep trying. This one is just another experiment. I know I like my low key paintings because they show much more drama of light effect. However high key does not show the dramatic spot light effect as well as low key. So why bother going this way. If you are high key painter, would you let me know why you like doing high key? I really need more inspiration to keep going this way.

Book giveaway

Winner of the free copy of my new book is Penny Schine Gold.  Thanks to everybody who came, read, and commented!

Wedding jitters

Last weekend was great -- our son got married and a good time was had by all.  But on Wednesday night, as we all were getting packed to hit the road, the mood was a bit tense.  The groom called me up to say that he was mystified -- all four pockets on the new suit coat, just home from the store, were false!  (How long has it been since this man bought a new suit?)

No, they're just sewed shut, bring them over and I will apply the seam ripper.

It so happened that earlier that day I had applied the seam ripper to another new jacket for the father of the groom, so I thought I was all warmed up and ready to rip. But that garment was user-friendly -- the stitches holding the pockets shut were relatively long, sewed in contrast color thread, and came out easily.  This coat was apparently sewed by somebody in a bad mood, who set her stitch length to tiny and her tension to tight.

It's the bottom seam, between lining and suiting, right under my thumbnail, that has to be ripped.  But it took lots of pulling and probing and cussing to get that first stitch identified and cut.

Did I mention that there were four pockets on this coat?  I pulled and probed and cussed for a long time -- and then -- KLONG.  I realized that on one of the pockets I had ripped the wrong seam, the one holding the top of the pocket bag to the body of the coat.

I had to painstakingly re-stitch the seam by hand, trying to take tiny firm stitches that would withstand the long-term stress of a loaded pocket.  Fortunately the holes from the original seam were prominent enough that I could tell exactly where to stitch.

When the seam was finally closed back I had that adrenaline poisoning that you get after a near-death experience.  And I had to wonder -- how do ordinary schlunks without seam rippers buy suits these days?  What if they rip the wrong seam and don't have mothers who can stitch it up again?  And what if all of the above occurs in a hotel room the morning of the wedding?  Perhaps that's why the occasional groom doesn't show up as expected.

And continuing that train of thought, why don't they sew pockets shut with red thread, and why don't they use chain stitch so you could just pull a thread end and open the seam without using sharp implements?  But that would be too easy.

P.S.  All's well that ends well.

Office Window

Back in the day I would paint the view out of my office window at Dreamworks.
This was done while we were working on Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron (acrylic). I did something like 70 of these.

"An Alley"

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When you feel absolutely NOT motivated to paint, what do you do? After came back from the extremely beautiful Yellowstone National Park, I have spent two solid days on the phone trying to make an insurance company to pay my bill. I was amazed how the insurance industry expands your probability of running into a disaster from 0.001% (can be even less) directly into 100%. (I personally believe that being profitable by taking advantage of other people's misfortune is what we call "Evil").

With the above mindset, I painted the above painting. If you are not motivated to paint and you don't want the insurance company to ruin your career, you simply go to your easel, pick up a brush, and start to paint anything. You may throw away all you have learned: composition, value, all that crxp. You can see the painting I posted here is mainly about dumpster and trash cans.

Photo suite 189 -- still more cars with names

Signs of the week

I've ridden public transportation in many of the great cities of the world, and as a visitor, have spent lots of time checking out the information displays.  You don't want to miss your stop or end up on the wrong train, so systems that tell you what's ahead are much appreciated.

Although Paris and London, my two most recent great-city-transportation experiences, have good maps and markings, I have to give points to Tokyo for their in-car displays.  These are all digital, appearing in sequence on a screen above each door.

First of all, they number the stations on the line, a useful practice I don't believe I've ever seen elsewhere.  Here we are nearing the end, approaching Inaricho station G-17.  We'll be there in one minute; three minutes to the next, and five minutes to the last.

The display toggles between Japanese and English.

The doors open on this side.

We're in car 3, which is going to stop just a bit before the exit, so we'll turn right when we hit the platform.

It'll take some doing to louse up this train ride.