San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles - '21 Quilt National Exhibit through April 16th!

It was a delight to attend an in-person book talk by Peggy Orenstein, author of 'Unraveling'. The book is about her during the pandemic to learn how to make yarn -- that included shearing a sheep, carding and spinning the wool, and dying the wool with natural ingredients (e.g. flowers, bark, etc.). When done, she would knit a sweater with the colored yarns from all this work. It was good discussion. I was interested in the talk because of having been asked to illustrate a friend's poem that involves sheep shearing, carding wool, and knitting. Now I have resources to check into as I learn about the process.

Aside from the book talk, the entry fee included admission to the current museum exhibit which is a portion of the 2021 Quilt National pieces that are on tour. There were some great pieces in it! The exhibit is up through April 16th, and if you haven't seen it already--I recommend it.

These are images of just a few of the quilts on display. I've chosen an abstract quilt, a piece entirely done with buttons and beads, and another made with toilet paper tubes (that tickled my funny bone). The quality of Quilt National pieces are consistently high-end with extraordinary artistry from unique or avant garde concepts to materials, narrative and workmanship. So, anytime you see Quilt National in the title, the show is worth seeing!

Comments

Introducing 'Kaleidoclown'

For fun, I've drawn one of my own photos (yes, I was dressed in a clown outfit) and added a wild and crazy background to accompany it for today's practice effort. As part of sketching the piece, it was split into four sections with two opposing diagonal lines. In terms of color choices, I've worked with color gradations for some shape sections. Can you believe, there are five major shapes in this effort? There really are -- circles, squares, trapezoids, triangles and spirals. I think the substrate is Biengfang Watercolor Paper (140 lb.). The materials used were Ohuhu markers, Micron 01 pigment ink pen, some red Stickles glitter glue for the nose, and a white Posca pen (for white dots on the face and to highlight eyes) and a yellow one (for yellow dots in the center of the flowers on the hat). There was no intention in working on this piece other than to have fun...and based on how it looks, I'd say well done!. One thing I learned is that blending with the Ohuhus i

New Project in Progress

I'm working on a new project with multiple layers and shapes of different colored organzas. It is an interpretation of lighting on an ice rink...from a show I recently saw. There is a lot more stitching to do, but I like how its coming along. I'm learning organzas are not easy to work with especially when you layer them and have overlaid edges. The fabric also tends to ravel easily. This post also linked to http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com .

Announcing new book - The Soliloquies of A Wayfaring Trio!

I'm so delighted with my new book -- that I designed, wrote and illustrated, and is now in print thanks to Blurb! 'The Soliloquies of A Wayfaring Trio' was a months-long effort this year. I had no plan to create a book when I started reading unpacked journals from years ago. Those journals -- started in 1979 -- was at a time when life was about to serve-up some dramatic changes including a solo move from the Midwest to the Pacific Coast. I wasn't writing poetry then. In fact, I had never written poetry before, and it was only through those journals that I started writing creatively. In 1981, that creative writing began with prose (one to four sentences in length). While taking a 10-month journey to Europe (1982-3), poetry in free verse form started showing up. An edited version of one of the poems written during that trip appears in the latest book and is titled 'A Day at Nea Kameni' (a location in Greece). Thereafter, and in looking back, new poems s

Cay Denise

Search This Blog