Saturday, September 4, 2010

Welcome to "Threads of Memory"

If you weren't able to come to last night's opening of Threads of Memory at Drury University's Pool Art Center Gallery, you missed a fantastic event.  If you're in the area, please do try to see the exhibition.  It will run through September 25, 2010. 

Just in case you can't make it in person, here is your own private guided tour!

Good Grief, Uncommon Threads' coffin quilt, is the centerpiece of the show.  We turned the quilt several times during the 3 hours of the opening so visitors could see both colorways of the quilt.  Check out our book (linked at right), Good Grief, a Celebration of Life and Art, to see more of this amazing quilt.

Contrast: Experiencing Serra, Nick and Carol Bormann's magnificent collaboration, was the first thing seen by our visitors as they entered the show.  It is a very large piece showcasing the talents of both the Bormanns.

Lily Kerns with her homages to pojagi (top to bottom) Almost Mondrian I, Handicap Access, and Almost Mondrian II.  The art sparked almost as much interest as Lily's Segway!

Carol Bormann's new series represented here by The Last Time I Saw Paris
and The Last Time I Saw Venice.  Carol does such a wonderful job of blending custom machine cross stitch with applique. 









Our far-away friend, Christine Marcum, sent her wonderful sheer and many layered piece, Blocked Memory.  This is Christine's impression of the ancient Korean art of pojagi, the same inspiration for Lily Kerns art, but very different in execution.







Lettie Blackburn's new piece, Last Stand, is larger than her usual work, and is stunning in color, scope and execution. Lettie's trees are a metaphor for life, here showing an old white pine, the lone survivor of a once-proud stand of trees. 


Bird's Eye View, (below) Donna Olson's vision of irrigation circles and riverbeds as seen from high above the earth, imagines the vistas Donna's familiar crow might see while in flight.
 



Petroglyphs, a mixed media piece by Donna Olson, reprises her love of ancient Native American rock paintings discovered and photographed on her travels though the Four Corners area of the American Southwest.







Two smaller, but infinitely intriguing pieces by Maureen Ashlock begged us to get a little closer and look a little longer.  So much going on!  Top is A Quiet Day- My Creative Comfort, and (below) is Forrest Glen - Pixies at Play with Project Runway

Daydream, by Diane Steffen, is a colorful beachy piece evoking Caribbean waters and warm sand. Beautiful fabrics in shades of aqua enhance the feeling.

"Elegant" is the only word to describe Diane Steffen's lovely Bali Night.   The vintage Oriental reed for weaving is the perfect choice to mount it on.  The serene colors and beautiful beading and threadwork bring to mind a warm tropical night. 

 
Susan Leslie Lumsden's emotional work is represented by her uber-huge Slipstream Adventure.  As always, Susan's incredibly saturated colors take the viewer's eye on an adventure of their own!
 
Dianna Callahan's trip to Greece and Turkey is evoked here in Turkish Touch.  Based on a photo Dianna took of a rug weaver at work, the colors and fabrics representing Oriental Rugs are endlessly fascinating.
 

Jambalaya, by Cathy Jeffery, represents the colors and mixtures often seen in Cajun cookery.  You can almost smell the peppers and onions!










CSI, also submitted by Cathy Jeffery, takes a light hearted "stab" at humor. Using her usual improvisational piecing and a background of bright yellow and red spatter, the chalk outline of the recently deceased makes one wonder what was the cause of death?


Cathy Jeffery's third piece in the show is her newest work, Vision.  Bright earthtones against a starry background are highlighted with a peacock feather and made so much more interesting with uneven edges. 













Newer UT member, Roberta Ranney, loves playing with dyes.  Pieces of her experimentations with indigo show up here in Reflections of Monte Carlo portraying perfectly the warm Mediterranean waters and the reflections in the windows of the charming houses.

Where in the world can you see the cool blue hues imagined and created by Roberta Ranney in Indigo Hill?  I think perhaps we'd have to travel to Scandinavia to see it - maybe Norway? Brrrr! Where does it take you?

Memory of Sicily, also submitted by Roberta Ranney, evokes a warmer climate, the ochers and siennas reminiscent of the island of Sicily. 


Emergence
Anticipation

Jubilation
Emmie Seaman's exhilarating threesome shows joy only a gardener can imagine.  Carrot seeds germinating under the watchful eye of the sun, springing to full grown splendor, then dancing with joyous abandon evidences the processes that often go unnoticed beneath the soil.

Two pieces by Merrilee Tieche hopefully can make you smell the salt air, wherever you are.  The first, Reflection, reminds one of sitting in the sand at sunset, gazing across the water at the island in the distance.  The second (below) Pacific Echoes, takes the viewer from the light filled waters nearer the sun, down to the darkest depths of the sea.


So there you have it for today.  There are a few photos that need to be taken over, and a whole section of the show yet to see, so look here for an update next week.  Thanks for visiting our show!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Threads of Memory

Uncommon Threads is having an exhibit at Pool Gallery, Drury University, Springfield, Mo opening this Friday, August 3 from 7 to 9. In addition to member's work, our Good Grief quilt will be on display. Donna Olson will be giving a talk on it and other funeral quilts at 6 PM, prior to the opening.




Monday, August 23, 2010

MEANDERINGS BY LILY KERNS

Fleece Scarf With Whisper Felting
Lily Kerns

Comfort Zones
Those words give you a warm protected feeling, don't they?  Workiing within your comfort zone is also the easiest way to make quilts.  You have a pattern and the directions.  You have the right fabrics and tools-and you have it almost made, right?  For a total beginner with no established quilt-making comfort zone, this much may well be an adventure in itself.  But once you get beyond the total beginner stage what you have learned soon becomes a comfort zone.  Working in this comfort zone means that you not only know how to do it, but that you pretty much know what the final result will be.

The art quilter, however, is an adventurer and mastered tasks hold less appeal.  She welcomes the challenge of uncertainty, of doing what she has never tried before, of not knowing exactly how things will turn out.

I encountered both of these scenarios recently in a weekend "Fiber University" sponsored by an alpaca owners and breeders association.  Although I teach a felting for quilters class at Quilt University, I have never taken a felting class. Figuring I could learn something, I registered for two classes (needle felting and wet felting.)

Hand needle felting is very simple and easy to learn.  You have one or more slender barbed needles which are poked up and down into a bed of wool or other fiber.  The barbs carry strands of fiber downward to tangle with other fibers, making a felted mat.  The thickness of this felted fabric depends on how thick your layer of fiber was to start with.

We were provided with a protective mat, a set of needles and an assortment of colored fibers, including of course, wonderfully soft alpaca.  We chose a large plastic cookie cutter as a template.  Fibers placed insode the cookie cutter were needled down into an underlying fabric to create a felted shape when the cookie cutter was removed.  The basic decision making involved was choosing fiber colors.  If you had a heart shape, then red fiber was an obvious choice.  Beginning felters needed to learn how much fiber to use, how to hold the needle and avoid breaking it.

If this simple process challenges your comfort zones, then hurrah for you!  However, I've done a good bit of experimenting with felting and the process of felting into cookie cutters is pretty well buried in my accumulation of comfort zones.  So I chose to start from scratch, with no pattern, no clearn idea of what I would do.

The scarf above started by choosing small amounts of colored fibers in light value to contrast with the dark fleece.  I felted thin wisps of these in a spray pattern from the lower left corner.  An enticing bag of colorful wool curls suggested flowers, so small bits of these were felted in place.  From there on it was a matter of listening to the fiber and design and adding whatever seemed to be needed.

This intuitive approach to design is not the easiest way.  It challenges your comfort zone with every new decision.  It is the essence of creativity, of discovery, of risk-taking.  It is the hall mark of the creative art quilter.

Friday, July 23, 2010

My lilies in fabric by Maureen Ashlock

My inspiration is a picture of my lilies starting to bloom each July on stalk with 10 to 13 blooms.

Lilies painted with fabric paint on muslin.  Background over painted with thin mixture of turquoise and white pearl paint.

Design machine  thread painted  with metallics layered over thin batting.  Hand embroidered french knots on petals.

"Romance of Starlight Express"  23" x 19". 
Background hand beaded with matching mint colored seed beads.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Kudos by Dianna Callahan

"A Little Girl's Fantasy"
Dianna Callahan
themed juried exhibit - "Childhood in its Landscape"
Good Girl Art Gallery, Springfield, MO
April 2 - April 24, 2010

"Ruby's Red Socks"
Dianna Callahan
themed juried exhibit - "Vanishing Ozarks, Wooden Barns and Mills"
Harlin Museum, West Plains, MO
June 16 - July 9, 2010

"Lady at Rest"
Dianna Callahan
themed juried exhibit - "From Fine Art to Fiber:  Reinterpreting the Masters"
Whistler House Museum of Art, Lowell, Massachusetts
August 4 - September 4, 2010

Lily Kerns debuted a new class at QuiltUniversity.com in February.  “Whisper Felting”  takes the traditional craft of making felt and transforms it into a whisper-thin embellishment technique for quilters.  The first class filled immediately and an over flow class begins June 17.  It will be offered again in the fall.

Jewelery-Art+Deco
Carol Borman
Last spring Carol Bormann was selected to have her work included in an international traveling art quilt exhibit. The Jewelry Quilt Project exhibition is May 13-24, 2010 in Luberon (Provence) at the Saint Michel l’Observatoire. The Jewelry Quilt Project was previously exhibited in Japan --Yokohama (November) and Tokyo (December), and Bihorel (Normandy), France.

Susan Leslie Lumsden
I got a best of show for my "Sweeping Changes" quilt in Boonville at the Missouri Life Festival.

Susan Leslie Lumsden
In April I got third place at the Fantastic Fibers in Paducah at the Yeiser Art Center.-- "Live Water"

Susan Leslie Lumsden
I had "Energy of Hope" accepted into Missouri Fiber Artists' Fiber: 2010

Susan Leslie Lumsden
I had "Slipstream Adventure" accepted into Art Quilts:Elements in Wayne, PA


 Diane Steffen
"High Heel Daze" was juried into the Celebrate Spring show at IQF - Chicago (April 16 - 18). It will also travel and be displayed at IQF - Long Beach (July 23 - 25) and IQF - Houston (Nov. 4 - 7)

"One Sentence" by Christine Marcum was shown at the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons exhibit entitled "Wounded in Action" in February in New Orleans. Christine won Best in Show.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Flavors of the Season

One of our favorite galleries, Waverly House in Springfield, MO, sent out a call for entries for their Spring show themed "Flavors of the Season".  89 entries were received in all manner of media. Of theses 34 were selected by the three jurors. Six of those were art quilts created by Uncommon Threads members. Proud? You bet!
Do You Like Butter by Lettie Blackburn
Wine Time by Roberta Ranney
Celebration by Emmie Seaman
Passion by Emmie Seaman - Juror's Choice

Summer Winds by Merrilee Tieche
Early Bird by Merrilee Tieche

Thursday, April 22, 2010

ROUND BOBBIN EXPO EXHIBIT

The members of Uncommon Threads and Quilt Odyssey recently were asked to display art quilts at the Round Bobbin Quilting and Sewing Expo Exhibit in Springfield, Missouri. In April  the thirty four art quilts submitted by fourteen artists varied in subject matter and technique. Piecing, fabric collage, appliqué, painting, stamping, colored pencil, beading, free-motion embroidery, and quilting were often combined to create pieces illustrating natural elements, social and cultural issues, and abstract designs. These two- and three-dimensional pieces were received very favorably by those attending the expo.Featured below are selected pieces by the ten Uncommon Threads artists and the four members representing the Quilt Odyssey group.

Love my Tattoo by Maureen Ashock , UT   

Media: fabric collage, machine appliqué, beading, water color crayons on cotton/nylon netting; free motion quilting with monofilament and metallic threads. This tattooed fish is not your average “Joe”. May we all be content in our surroundings knowing we are all originals.
                                                                                                                   
Penetrating Planes by Carol Bormann, UT

Media: appliqué on cotton, machine quilting. Created for a challenge to interpret  luminosity, the artist depicts shafts of color passing through planes that increase in opacity through layering.

 Elvis’ Fan Club by Eleanor Bronnenberg, QO  

Media: piecing, appliqué, quilting; cotton with glow in the dark embellishments. Having lived in Japan, the artist witnessed Japanese young adults impersonating Elvis for weekend entertainment in the Harajuku section of Tokyo. Elvis never performed in Japan, but the Elvis Presley Fan Club –Tokyo currently has about 3000 members. The pieced mini-blocks represent an “audience of fans”.

Ruby’s Red Socks by Dianna Callahan, UT

Media: Oil stick on fabric; drawing, appliqué, machine quilting.
The artist’s mother is sitting in front of the neighbor’s barn. She often walked around outside in her stocking feet looking for four leaf clovers.


 Shirt Waist by Judith Ferguson, QO

Media: fabrics (mixed) on muslin base over 3D form. Using her term “deconstructed/reconstructed fabric”, the artist describes her randomly cut and reassembled fabric into a shirt form and basted onto a muslin foundation stretched over batting and a torso mannequin.

CSI by Cathy Jeffery, UT

Media: painting, appliqué, machine quilting on mixed fabrics. The artist’s inspiration came from reading and watching TV stories about crime in the streets.

                    
Log Cabin Building Blocks by Donna Olson, UT

 Media: piecing of cotton fabric, machine quilting.  The artist’s foundation is in traditional quilting and this is included as an integral part of her designs. 

 Peacock in Color by Cher Piché, QO

Media: free motion machine embroidery (thread painting) on cotton, colored pencils, quilting. The artist’s original drawing was created using a long arm machine, then colored to enhance the stitching.

Iris and Friends by Roberta Ranney, UT  
 
Media: appliqué, machine embroidery on cotton, quilting. The big blue iris is surrounded by her more colorful friends but she is still the star. This work celebrates the rich colors of nature.
                                                                         
                                                                     
Star Gazer by Emmie Seaman, UT            

 Media: machine appliqué, quilting; cotton. Photograph of the artist’s garden flowers is translated into fabric. The artist likes to portray her flowers as small quilts.

Focused by Lucy Silliman, UT
      
Media: aper piecing of cotton and hand-dyed cotton, machine quilting. Triangles diminishing in size and graded in color draw the eye inward to focus at their converging point.
                                                                        
 Journey by Diane Steffen, UT

Media: piecing, quilting on cotton, silk dupioni embellished with metallic thread, glass and wood beads. Australian fabric inspired this piece. Movement and contrast are created with the use of glass vs. wooden beads, dupioni vs. silk fabrics and quilted curved lines vs. a straight grid pattern. The varying paths represent the journey through life with various contrasts we experience.
                               
   Organic III by Vivian Terbeek, QO

Media: collage; raw silk, polyester and satin; ribbons, yarns and beads; free-motion machine embroidery. A non-representational study of motion and color. Throughout the organic form the eye moves without chaotic, jarring motions, and color soothes the viewer’s senses resting on the one bold color. Who ever thought of orange as a place to rest your eyes?
                                                                               
Maggie’s Nest by Merrilee Tieche

Media: appliqué using silk, synthetic sheers and cotton; quilting. Like the magpie, I bring home shiny things to my nest – love bright colors and clear skies

Obviously it was as much fun to hang the exhibit as it was work!