Cay Denise

You may wonder where in the world this self-portrait came from, after looking at the image! Honestly, it really did begin with a simplified abstract of facial elements. A photo of how it started is above also. That original panel was cut in quarters and reassembled, and then cut in slices and reassembled. After that, I fused pieces of fabric to it, heavily stitched it and embellished the piece with ribbon and buttons. The challenge directions were to create a self-portrait and the link to the Quilting Arts Magazine website was provided (because the magazine had a similar challenge about a year ago). A further caveat was that if we had already done that to try something new so I did and it is pretty bizarre, if I do say so myself!

Challenges for the Making: *Create a piece that has a patchwork of 5 different textures *Create a symbol alphabet and write a poem with it in fabric *Create a piece that looks like a taste (e.g. sweet, sour, creamy, etc.) *Create a quilted mask for your alter-ego *Imagine a single stone's existence and create a piece with scenes from it *Create a piece that can be easily taken apart *Bind a piece in a unique way that you've never seen anyone else do *Journal on a piece of fabric; cut up the words and reassemble them into a story Have fun if you try any one of these, and be sure to let me know!

I just hung a piece at home over the weekend (that was part of my recent exhibit). What became clear is that the piece needs more blank wall space around it than it has. Its power and intensity needs the dispersion/rest area (or negative space) that a wall provides. At the exhibit, this piece had a great deal of wall space and, in fact, fit quite well. But in its location at home, it almost looks overpowering, even though the wall is of sufficient size to provide a border for the piece (a minimum of 1' of wall space on each side). What this means to me is that one must be conscious of the intangible quality of the 'spirit of a piece' in order to find the most suitable display area(s). I remember a friend, after viewing some of my works, saying that they needed 'room to breathe'. The message was that each of them needed to be viewed with more space surrounding them because their energy extended beyond their binding. How does a person determine whether a piece n...

What an amazing sight to see elk in the neighborhood (on a mountainside that is...about 3 miles away)! They are slimmer and taller than our area deer with white behinds. There was a buck among them laying down, so his rack was in silhouette against the light blue sky. What a treat!

Linda and Laura Kemshall (mother and daughter) and Catherine Nicholis have now produced two editions of ' thr 3fold'. For those of you who may not know these names, they are online assessors of City and Guilds qualifications for the DesignMatters centre and they regularly exhibit with the group called ' SiX '. The publications they've co-authored contain numerous articles on techniques, inspiration, how a quilt develops (development diary) as well as other stuff. Each publication comes with a CD that goes more in depth on each article in the publication. So, if you want to see a technique demonstrated, it is likely to be on the CD. Overall, the publications are very informative and some of the pieces photographed are stunning! I did notice that some text is printed over background imagery and as a result is more difficult to read though (same with the gray font-colored text). The CD worked in my computer, but the videos have a tendency to not be in sync when pla...

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures." -- Henry Ward Beecher

Last night while looking at the piece from about 6' away, I had the weirdest experience. I saw it in 3D (especially from the white pieces that represent dance steps...inward)! I wasn't looking at the piece cross-eyed or with a stare, just looking at it in a regular way. Has that ever happened to anyone else with one of your pieces...you suddenly experience it with dimension?

OK...I think I actually got it this time...crafting a piece that has a sense of fire/heat not an actual image of fire. As part of this challenge, we were to do an exercise to come up with words that describe fire. One of the words that came to mind, for me, was dancing. So, this piece has abstracted waltz steps and a whirl by a couple while dancing. The background was pieced/fused and covered with orange organza. The step/whirl pieces were fused to the top, and then the piece was stitched (vertically in red and a spiral in blue metallic).

Challenge #16 was to create something that conveys ice and/or fire without actually looking like ice cubes or flames and to work from the imagination. I'm not particularly delighted with this piece, but it provided instant gratification which is something I need right now (since I haven't sewn for about 3 months). It probably looks more like an ice cube than a representation of the qualities of biting cold, translucence and slickness. I actually did not put a binding on this piece. That is unusual. But to complete it quickly, the binding was one thing I was willing to fore go, since I don't expect to ever display the piece.