The carding strap was the object that I really focused on in the workshop –
for its lovely spiral shape and lines. Earlier this week I cut some stencils of the spiral shapes, and today did some fabric and thread samples, some of which I photographed. I added a couple of the cut and paste exercises I did in class, and assembled these into a collage to show the variety of possibilities I have been thinking about so far.
Early last month while visiting our daughter in northern Colorado, I enjoyed a gallery hopping day in Denver with friend Regina Benson of whom more in another post, as her latest textile exhibition was one of those I visited.
It really was a pleasure to see a collection of recent work at Spark Gallery, Denver, by Lisa Call titled Endless Horizon: 14000 feet to Sea Level I have long admired Lisa’s quilted textile art since first encountering Structures #11 in Quilt National 2003. Since then the output of this prolific artist has grown, developing signature elements which many have tried to copy. These elements however go far deeper than her technique of heavily machine quilting improvisational pieced designs using hand dyed fabrics. The rest comes from her approach to design and working in series, which can be explored by visiting her comprehensive website www.lisacall.com
This group of 12″ x 12″ pieces, lifted from Lisa’s own blogpost, is of one group of works subtitled ‘Changing Perspective|Seeing Forever’ and really, for me this group sums up the theme of the whole exhibition. Lisa’s life has undergone much change in the past year, with new perspectives coming from travel and a new personal relationship that influenced her to leave her home in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies to live in New Zealand’s North Island. There, one is never far from ocean views and influence of the surrounding sea. Gazing out to sea or at a line of distant mountaintops is a meaningful experience in either location. These life changes are reflected in new and strong expressions of landscape colour, even in such small works achieving a sense of looking through vast distance to the horizon, something new in Lisa Call’s art.
There were other, larger, pieces in the 40″ – 20″ range, mostly vertical panels, presenting groups of related sets of abstract compositions in colours observed in several particular named NZ locations. It was interesting to see her hand painted small landscape studies from which she developed the works. I think the act of actually sketching and painting them brought her deeper knowledge of her subject from which she was able to conceive and execute these successful pieces.
I’ve just set up a photography date next wednesday with my photographer here, Eduardo Baldizan, who has photographed all my work done here, and is great to work with.
Unusually for me, the bindings and sleeves of three are already properly finished. Many’s the time I’ve hastily basted these things in place at the last minute for photography – you can’t tell from the front, and I am by nature a bit of a last minute wonder.
And as usual, there’s the lure of a last minute pressure buzz – I have several days to attempt the next one that I’ve been mulling over while I make # 6, and think I’ll make a dash for it, beginning in just a few minutes. If its a wet weekend, as expected, I’ve got bags of time … the entry deadline’s not for another week yet!
Many years ago, I found inspiration in volcanic activity which resulted in two quilts with design lines reflecting the ballooning and layering of molten lava emerging under the sea, and both carrying the title ‘Pahoehoe’ as this particular resulting landform is known by earth scientists. (with apologies for the quality of 20-year old technology photos)
Pahoehoe #1, 1995, 80cm H x 70cm W is irregular shaped and photographed against a black background.
Pahoehoe #2 1997 is 12cmH x 13cm W and hangs against a sand coloured wall in our home in Australia. I do need to photoshop this pic and remove the blue-ish background, because those patches of blue in the middle of the quilt are actually faced holes, openings. I should have named it ‘Tricky’, perhaps.
Browsing around Pinterest, as one is want to do with saturday morning coffee, I was thrilled to find this beautiful silk wall hanging on the artist Petra Voegle’s blog site It was interesting to see that we’d found inspiration in the same natural force process.
Titled “Pele” (from her Hawaiian Symbols series) 48″ x 17″ (c) Petra Voegtle. She writes about the significance of Pele, the god, not the soccer playing legend – so click the link and go visit this lovely site. (which has lain dormant for some time, however) There are some intriguing detail shots if you follow the link below the pic on her page. She calls her process ‘silk carving’ but from her description, for my quilter readers she’s talking about a whole cloth quilt. It’s stunning, perfectly capturing the drag and flow of the lava’s movement out across the landscape.
After all the fabric auditioning, consideration of scale of the units for this piece, there was a satisfying moment doing the first seam of a new project – all keen piecers of fabric know that feeling! And, even though I was certain that the block/gold pin spot fabric will be an important part of this particular quilt, to test that theory I took the time to consider another option –
– and now think for this work I must make a choice. It’s either the horizontal lines will all be black/gold spot, or the rock units will be striped with other rock unit fabric. And while I’m considering that, I’ll have a spot of lunch and a total change of activity, outside, as it’s a beautiful day.
I’ve just bought a new gold paint for the hand made dots I plan to put on the work I’m just finishing. Samples are so important – so I tested it of course on a scrap of the background fabric – set with the iron, and it is really permanent. I also bought a couple of cheap paint brushes and cut the ends off to use to make round dots….. and I especially like the fine ones on the RHS. Fiddling with samples always suggests more than one idea, and I like the gold brush strokes against the black – there’s some real potential there….
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