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Archive for the ‘SAQA’ Category

Exploring Layers – Oregon SAQA Exhibit

Monday, May 11th, 2015

saqajill-chris

I promised some Facebook friends that I would post photos of the SAQA Oregon Exploring Layers show. I sat the gallery on Saturday and had time to take photos. Above is Jill Hoddick’s South Rim, Grand Canyon and one of Chris Brown’s charming horse sculptures, View from Rowena Crest.

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Paulette Landers does exquisite layered abstract pieces that look like paintings: I Once Saw a Tree.

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This is Sheila Finzer’s You are Unique.saqacarol

Carol Heist is a wonderful surface designer. She works such magic with textiles: Fractured Green.

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This is Swept Away by Sara Miller.

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This is Sahalie Falls by Amanda Miller. She has used a lovely combination of machine quilting, hand stitching and couched threads in this. This piece sold at an earlier show.

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Layers of Influence by Karen Bates.

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Another horse from Chris: One Who Looks Back.

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Mary Arnold’s Strata. This was facing the window of the gallery so I had to take an angled photo.

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Food Value by Betty Daggett – this was also in the window.

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Santa Fe Fences – Sculpted by Time, Sand, Sun. This piece sold here at our last venue. Bravo, Diane Born!!

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Mary Goodson’s painted piece, From Water to Ice. This also sold at our current exhibit space.

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Laura Jaszkowski’s Rift Valley. saqabeard

Aspen Lea by Catherine Beard. I love this, of course. Surprised it has not sold.

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On the left is Rejuvenation by Jean Wells and on the right, Polychromatic Pool by Betty Gientke.

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Awakenings by Mary Stiewig.explorlayers3

On the left, another piece by Paulette Landers, Ancient Memories and on the right, Rivets 2 by Sidnee Snell.

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This is the second piece made by my friend Suzy Bates –Riches to Rags – the first one sold at our very first venue.

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Here is a second piece by Sidnee – Sliced Not Diced.

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Canyon de Chelley, 1973 by Anne Daughty.

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Pathways by Georgia French.

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Cascade by Nancy Bryant.

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Summer Harvest by Amanda Miller.

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This is Diane English’s After the Fire II.

I didn’t post a photo of Walking with Scooter and Mr C – you have seen it often enough.

I have been busy since I last posted. I made it through my first art quilt workshop at Trinity. I had a lovely Mother’s day with my girls.

I have also been working on my Master Class May assignment. More about that tomorrow!

Moving Outside With The Fiber Rebels

Wednesday, April 29th, 2015

Bettyjeangrasses

It has been a week since I posted, but honestly, I have been very busy! I finished up my four seasons piece for the Moving Outside exhibit. I created an 18 by 24 inch plastic sign for the exhibit and started plans for my workshop that I am doing at Trinity next month.

We installed the exhibit this morning and it really looks great. Up above is the piece by Betty Daggett and Jean Wells. They were inspired by a Chihuly installation, titled Call of the Wind.

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This is  Ephemeral, a lovely piece by Carol Heist.

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I just love this horse by Chris Brown. It is fashioned from telephone wire and fabric bits. Click it to see it larger.

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This is a piece by Janet Hiller from Eugene. She repurposed a quilt that she had made and had friends and family write messages on it. It is titled, An Old Story.

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Barbara Friedson created these shoes with words and symbols, titled, Walk in My Shoes.

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We all had fun helping Laura Jaszkowski lace bomb this tree. It is titled, Fragments. The streamers have childhood memories written on them.

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Diane Born made this installation titled, The Spiral of Life.

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Here is my piece. I wish I had taken a photo from farther away. I promise I will. We have steel rods inserted between each panel and at the ends. I awoke every night for the past two weeks, worrying about whether this installation would work. With the help of Mr C, it seems quite stable. Here is a detail shot of the winter panel so that you can see how I added some paint marks. I also coated the panels on both sides with Golden matte medium and I am hoping it will hold up to the inevitable rain.

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Here is the sign that I made.

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And here is the flyer I made to have at the SAQA conference. Hoping some people come by to see the exhibit.

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Tomorrow, the conference starts and I have to be their by noon to wear my expert badge to help folks find their way around the hotel and Portland. I will be spending the next few days there. I will be at our exhibit on Saturday afternoon so if you live around Portland, come by and say Hi!

Oops! Missing in Action

Sunday, April 19th, 2015

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This may be a record for me! Seventeen days since my last post. I don’t have any exciting reason. I got a really nasty sinus infection with the worst vertigo. Ended up in bed for a few days. Then, this past week, I had a hectic schedule. On Monday, Mr C and I helped to hang the SAQA Oregon Exploring Layers show at the AIR Gallery in Pioneer Place, downtown Portland. It will be there through May 17th. The Gallery is open Thursday – Sunday, noon to 6 pm. That is Walking with Scooter and Mr C hanging at the show.

On Tuesday, I got caught up with some SDA work. On Wednesday, I joined a large group of SAQA members for a docent tour at the Portland Art Museum of Italian Style, a comprehensive look at Italian fashion from the end of the Second World War to the present day.  It was fantastic. I had lunch with friends and then took the street car back home.

On Wednesday night, I went to Trinity for the latest art short course. This month, we are screen printing. I could, of course, teach this class, but it is fun to be a participant. We used torn and cut paper to make our designs. First, I cut craft paper into rectangles in a pattern. by folding and cutting.

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Then, I cut circles in freezer paper.

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Her is my first print from the rectangles.

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Then, I printed magenta circles.

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We printed on paper. I am quite happy with this.

On Thursday, I got my neglected hair cut an colored. I felt so much better. Mr C and I took the street car downtown to a symphony concert. It was a one hour free concert for donors, educators and other community folks. It was at 6 pm and and then we stopped at one of the breweries for supper.

On Friday, I got lots of errands done. I found some steel rods to use for my 3-D construction and have started work. Hopefully, I can share some progress tomorrow. I also produced the Constant Contact newsetter for Columbia FiberArts Guild and got it sent Friday night. Whew!

On Saturday, I met a friend at 8:30 in the morning and we drove down to Silverton for our Oregon Critique group meeting. This was the beautiful view of the Silver Lake reservoir from Carol’s deck. So pretty and peaceful.

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Our critic was an artist from Salem. I thought she was a bit too complimentary of our work. Didn’t really get much out of it. I did enjoy seeing the work the others have done.

Betty and I left, Silverton and then went to Pioneer Place to set up for the opening reception of the exhibit. Hung out there until 9 pm, when Mr C came and picked me up. Today, I have been trying to recover from the week and to get caught up on SDA work! Here is a shot from the show. It looks great.

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So, now we are all caught up. I hope I can get back to my regular blogging schedule again.

Peacefully Piecing

Monday, March 23rd, 2015

skinnyline piecing

I am doing it. I am piecing these skinny lines. I went round and round with input from EB about what fabric to use for the background of this. I just couldn’t make myself comfortable with the commercial fabric. Just not me. EB felt the gray had-dye had too much texture which would fight with the lines. So, after STASH meeting on Thursday, I stopped at the studio and picked up some PFD cotton and ecru and a black procion dye. I carefully mixed dye and tried to get as even a coverage as I could in large plastic bags in my utility room.

The ecru was the winner. The gray which I tried with diluted black was too lavender. I have been able to complete 4 pieces of the puzzle. I sometimes have to unsew and try again, expecially where I have the crossed lines. EB has suggested that I quilt each piece separately and then put them together. I think that is a great idea. This will end up being 24 by 42 so that I can enter it in the High Fiber Diet neutral show, which has specific sizes.

Last Wednesday was our local SAQA meeting. We had a presentation by Paula Benjaminson, a SAQA member who spent many years in Africa. She showed some of her fabrics and quilts made from African fabrics. I loved this dress.

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Fabric detail:

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Here is lovely piece of mudcloth.

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And this printed fabric.

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I have been busy with meetings and other things. My knee is getting better.

Oh, the best news is that Jayme got her first choice for her pediatric residency – Stanford Children’s hospital. This means they will stay in the Bay area. Mark can keep his job, but they will move out of San Francisco and closer to Palo Alto so that Jayme will not have as much of a commute.

Paige’s 3rd birthday party is coming up. She had a party this past week-end. We had to miss it, but her other Grandma sent me some photos. Here she is chomping on a cupcake!

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Oops! I Forgot to Blog…

Sunday, January 25th, 2015

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It has been a busy week! I had a SAQA meeting on Wednesday and lots of SDA work. Here is an update on the drawing class. We had our last session this week and he showed us how to draw the whole body and show different postures. Drawing a skellie first can help you get the right angles on the body parts. For instance, the above drawing was taken from this skellie.

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Did you know that the perfect proportioned body is 8 heads tall, but most of us are 7 – 7 1/2. The torso is two heads, the pelic area is one head and the legs are 4 heads. So you can take a piece of paper and divide it into 8 portions to draw your pefect human specimen. The photo’s perspective is off because the drawing was on the table.

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Another interesting fact is that an infant is 3 heads tall. Many paintings of babies have the head too small. As a child grows, the number of heads change. We also practiced other figure positions. This one is supposed to be standing on his right foot.

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Here is another figure that I did.

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I doubt that I will be doing a lot of figure drawing, but I so enjoyed this process.  It has made me look at figures in paintings with a whole new eye. Next week, we start reduction printing. I am going to assist the teacher. I hope I get to participate, too.

I was able to get to the studio one day and made a lot of progress getting the fabric stash under control. I also painted some silk samples. I think I am going to paint silk for my solo show instead of dyeing. I worry about the cool weather and getting the depth of color that I want. I used Jacquard’s Dynaflow paint on silk charmeuse and silk/cotton blend. I decided that I like the heavier weight charmeuse best. It is on the second fabric, below.

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So, today, I ordered 15 yards of silk charmeuse from Dharma and copious amounts of Dynaflow paint. I can’t wait until it gets here.

Thursday was Mr C’s 75th birthday. On Friday night we went out with Jack and Steph to a marvelous French restaurant in our neighborhood where we had a most excellent meal. Then we had birthday cheesecake back at The Congdo with M & M. It is always fun to catch up with these two and hear how well they are doing in school and life.

My new glasses came in early and I must say, they have really made a difference. So  happy to be done with the eye strain and headaches. Who knew?? LOL

Yesterday, Terry Grant and I drove south about an hour and so to see the Stitches in Bloom show at the Oregon Garden. We both had work in the show. It was an interesting show with art quilts and traditional quilts sharing the same crowded space. There were quite a few vendors selling quilt fabric and notions. We had a nice lunch at the resort restaurant and then listened to a lecture by Cynthia Corbin from the Seattle area. I so love her work. Click here for a look at her website, if you are not familiar with her work. She has great sense of humor, too. I am looking forward to her workshop with the guild in March.

Here is a blurry photo of my leaf quilt at the show.

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It was a beautiful day to drive through the bucolic Oregon countryside. We saw Mt. Hood showing itself in all different directions.

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My goal for tomorrow is to do some more work in the studio and quilt my January EB piece.