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Inspiring Quilting: Elly's blog to boost your creative IQ

Archive for March, 2012

Storytellers at Art Quilt Elements 2012

Saturday, March 31st, 2012

Awed, Quivering, and Elevated, I took in the AQE show at its opening this evening.  Art Quilt Elements (formerly Art Quilts at the Sedgwick) is a biennial, juried show taking place at the Wayne Art Center, on Philly’s Main Line through May 13. And let me tell you, it is one of the crown jewels of not only Fiber Philadelphia 2012, but of the international fine art scene. Because after all, quilts of this caliber are just that: fine art.

And as with all great art, the story or narrative embedded in the work is a big part of what makes it so amazing. Almost every piece spoke to me, but there were three artists present who also spoke to me, graciously granting me permission to photograph them with their work and share it on my blog.

The most traditional of these art quilts was a most riotous, joyous riff on the American flag. In Colors Unfurled, aka If Betsy Ross Had My Stash, Maria Shell  celebrates diversity. “Each stripe tells a story, and each star represents a state,” she explains.

Another quilter gave a nod to tradition: whole cloth quilts, simple black and white contrast, the expected squarish format. But oh, does she ever throw in a curve. In Same But Not, Paula Kovarik is inspired by “yin and yang,  one line pathways, right brain, and left brain.” That one line pathway phrase is key: while Paula marked the semi-circles on white and black Kona cotton, the rest is pure, freehand doodling–with one continuous line of black thread on white, and one continuous line of white thread on black. The winding pathway, defined by the absence of quilting, certainly takes this viewer on a miraculous journey!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many years ago, I was privileged to show Susan Else’s Captured on Film, a masterful composition full of set-in seams and minute pieced sashing in the Rodale’s Successful Quilting Library volume, Innovative Piecing. I only wish I had been able to show it full page. Susan looks back on that as the time when, ho hum, she was still making flat quilts. Baby, get a look at her work now:

This piece (which shared the top juror’s award with Red Stones #2, the sheer Dianne Firth piece  you can glimpse in the background on the right) shows Susan’s continued mastery of technique–but taken now to exquisite heights, or rather, dimensions. Forever Yours illustrates such contradictory ideas as “love and death, tenderness and creepiness”…and also flat quilts vs. machine quilted fabric collage sewn over modified armature!

Huzzahs to Art Quilt Elements, for not imposing any sort of definition of what an art quilt is or requirements for the art quilt entries.

Kudos to the jurors, who whittled 800 or so entries down to 50 or so powerhouses of technique and composition, each with a compelling narrative.

And congrats to YOU, if you get the chance to see these extraordinary storytelling art quilts in the cloth. If not, consider ordering the catalog–a beautifully done chronicle of this, the 10th anniversary show, from www.wayneart.org. There, you’ll also get to see the work of the talented and accomplished committee members behind AQE, and also exemplary pieces of the fiber artists who have been jurors for this and the past AQE shows.

 

 

 

Aprons to Reflect Who You Are

Friday, March 30th, 2012

When I was growing up, aprons had a really bad rep.  They were the pitiful junior high school Home Ec project meant to be your maiden voyage into Sewing-Machine Land. I was fortunate to have a mother who sewed, and who had taught me the ropes back when I was in fourth grade.  I already knew how to insert zippers, make buttonholes, fit sleeves into armholes.  I had skirts, dresses, and jumpers to sew. I had no need for aprons.

From college on, I was a feminist set on making my mark, if not saving the world. Aprons symbolized “the little woman”–submission, domesticity, a denial of your strengths and talents.

In the ’90s, I certainly identified with Cynthia Myerberg’s tongue-in-cheek Kitschen Help series. She used the apron shape with all its demeaning meaning. And photo-transfers from 1950s advertisements that brainwashed women into believing that domestic life could be so joyful, as long as you had the right appliances.  Plus chains as the occasional neck strap. Cynthia’s aprons, which I originally saw at the juried exhibition Art Quilts At the Sedgewick (AQATS–now Art Quilt Elements–more on that show soon!), were the delicious attire of satire. [Check out more about the advent of art quilts in America in my book: American Quiltmaking: 1970-2000, available elsewhere on this site.]

But just when you thought we’d all string aprons up by their, well, apron strings, flash forward to the new milennium.  Vintage aprons suddenly have panache.  They’re collected–I couldn’t resist buying a few sweet ones at flea markets myself! They’re oohed and aahed over at the quilt guild show ‘n tell, worn when hosting coffee klutches with your quilting friends, hung as charming valances in retro kitchens.  Young women in Modern Quilt Guilds make them up in contemporary fabrics and wear them everywhere, layered like tunics or back-wrap dresses over tank tops and skinny pants. Very cute–if you’re young.

Well, ladies, tonight I saw the humble apron rise on up in respectability–way past cute.  Launching the Fiber Philadelphia 2012 weekend events was my very own synagogue, Congregation Rodeph Shalom. There, we were treated to a spectacular one-person show, The New Sacred: Ritual Textiles by Rachel Kanter.  Rachel is a young, innovative fiber artist, yet she seems incredibly secure in her traditional family roles as grand-daughter, daughter, sister, wife, mom of 3 young children. But it’s her Judaism that pervades her life and her art. Once she decided she wanted a tallit–prayer shawl–for herself, she set out to create a uniquely feminine one. On her website RachelKanter.com and in person, Rachel explains that her inspiration is the four cornered robes worn by priests in biblical times. However, in using vintage apron patterns from the 20th century for her designs, she finds “a means of connecting her story as a woman with her story as a Jew.”

My favorite piece in the exhibit was this apron/tallit with stitches outlining the demarkations on patterns for darts, shortening and lengthening the shape. Like all the ritual aprons, it has the knotted fringes common to every tallit, with a knot or twist for each of the 613 commandments in the Torah.

Called God’s Aspect, it’s made of sheer fabric, so that God’s image may be glimpsed in the wearer herself. (Rachel’s preaching to the choir on this one: for me, God is definitely female!)

Other aprons depicted the environs of Jewish female farmers. Huh? Who knew they existed in America today? Nice to see that environmental and ethical concerns color their lives, as they color these pieces. Especially nice that one of the farms is a wind farm!  (See the  pole and blades of the wind mill on the natural linen apron.)

Rachel’s art in this exhibit extended to wimpels and mikvehs, themes of binding together, of renewal, of family and community. I snapped the artist in front of one of her ritual tablecloths (below). She elevates the kitchen table to altar-status by appliques of cherished family objects, imbued with food, feasts, conversation, and memory.

She accomplishes the same thing with the lowly apron, don’t you think? Still, you wouldn’t wear these out in public, let alone to a worship service. Progressive Judaism relegates “Sunday Best” –or in our case, Sabbath Best–for the High Holidays.  Rachel herself admits that she doesn’t wear these tallit-aprons, at home or in synagogue. She’s successful as an artist, and her work is widely exhibited. Wouldn’t do to get them stained. So these aprons will remain as ritual objects…the new sacred.

Rachel Kanter, in front of her Mikdash Me’At, a ritual tablecloth in the exhibit.

 

Let me introduce myself!

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

Skinny Quilts & Table Runners I and IICountry Living’s Country Quilts…the Rodale’s Successful Quilting Library series: just a few of the quilt books to my credit. I can brag without shame, because all of my books bring you the diverse talents of best-loved quilt designers and quilt teachers, as well as my own work. So while I’m an author, an editor, a book producer, and a quilter, I’m most proud of my roles as ringleader, scout, and coach.

I love entertaining quilt guilds with trunk shows that include a broad spectrum of quilts: vintage and contemporary, out-of-the-ordinary and downright daring– plus my own wacky and eclectic work. And my workshops–they’re more like play-dates, where quilters of every skill and confidence level design their own one-of-a-kind originals under my guidance and what-if encouragement.

But hey, no need to leave home! HERE is where I will share short cuts and how-to’s, review must-see shows and must-read books, and throw out new ideas to jumpstart your creativity.

Beyond the quilt world, I am a Sunday school art teacher, social action and community service volunteer, a cook who specializes in brunch, and an urban gardener; married to a marketer who keeps me savvy; mother of an environmental engineer who keeps me green. You can bet that all these aspects of my life will add color and texture to this blog, inspiring quilting of my own, and hopefully yours!