Earlier this year, four of us (Deborah was in Texas) were able to drop in and say hi to Natasha Kempers-Cullen (one of the early leading art quilters, been in Quilt National, website here), whom Kate, Hannah and Deborah know… I blogged about it here.  After that visit, we talked about how fun it would be to do a day workshop when Deborah said she would be able to come visit!  Our schedule and Natasha’s fortunately overlapped on just the right day, so on Monday, Sept. 8, we trooped on over to Natasha’s studio at her house.   Our supply list included a square sketchbook / notebook, and art pencils, pens, pastels, watercolors, whatever.  I brought my Prismacolors, some Aquarelle / watercolor pencils, a waterbrush, a few fine-point sharpies (and went to Target afterwards to buy a whole set….ahem!), some old magazines and papers for collaging, and a lovely Canson square notebook.

Natasha has some seriously cool books in her library, including these:

I LOVED the artwork in this last one…good eye candy….

We worked quietly at first…which is of course hard for me.  I enjoy the camaraderie, but our first assignment was to take a half  hour and draw a mandala starting with a free-hand-drawn circle in the center.  Here’s my effort…so-so.  The center is OK, but I clearly rushed to fill in the outside.  Bleah. I don’t work well when rushed.

I liked my second one, a collaged piece, better.  Natasha had a selection of small “centers” from which we could choose one.  I deliberately chose one in colors and texture I don’t normally work with.   Here’s how it looks:

I think the green overwhelms (at least it wasn’t where I wanted to go with this one), but it’s not too bad… I really like the shrimp soup bowl I cut into quarter-wedges….Due to the papers I had on hand, it became more of my Caribbean colors and less of the earthy thing I had intended when picking the center….no gardening magazines around, so no good supply of leaf greens and browns!

Then my words mandala:

So for flexibility my words and phrases are:

(handwritten)

• as water flows around the rock
• the tree that does not bend will break
• as the wind blows as the rivers run
• be open to change, be spontaneous, live

(from magazines)

• folding
• wild
• resurfacing
• clarity, smoothness and luminosity
• explore
• unconventional
• conversations that never end
• of wisdom and knowledge
• convertible
• a rare combination
• rejuvenation

Hmmmm….

Natasha usually works with longer workshops, not one-day classes, so she had to abbreviate some of our projects, but gave us ideas to do for homework and exploration.  Then she had us pick a word…she has these angel cards with words like Freedom, Adventure, Flexibility, etc.   We had to write the word in the center of the page, then cut other words from magazines that interpreted the angel-card-word.  I got flexibility.  Hmmmm. So I used some very “expanded” definitions of flexibility!  Here’s that page:

Here’s Kate’s–seriously improved with color wedges

:

And I’m not sure who did this one…. ladies….help me out here–if I guess correctly from the handwriting, this is Deborah’s:

Our final project was a group exercise, with Natasha participating.  She gave each of us a large square of paper (about 20 or 21 inches).  We were each to begin with the center and draw something in our style and/or colors that interprets Friendship.  Then every 5 minutes we switched off the papers, doing two full rounds on each piece.  I think in the exercise book from which Natasha was working, they suggest 7 minutes or ten, but Kate needed to be home in time to meet her first grader at the bus, so we did the up-tempo version LOL!   at each round you pass your paper to the left, and then continue in the vein of the piece you receive.  The longer the process went on, the more freed up we became, working REALLY quickly to try to fill in and make the imagery or colors we wanted.  I was REALLY glad to have my watercolor pencils… I’d quickly scribble in color into a shape, then use my waterbrush to moisten and intensify the color.

I’m NOT good at translating abstract concepts into specific imagery, or at things like this.  Once I got the first part over, tho, it was easy to simply do a round that was a riff on what someone had done before….   For friendship, I fell back on a tried but true:  I made a circle with an acorn in the center, from which five trees (us, duh) grow.  Here we are working madly, towards the end.  This first shot is of Kate, Hannah and Deborah’s table:

And here’s the table I shared with Kathy and Natasha:

And here is what we had at the end…we all signed all of them…fun!  This one was Deborah’s; she began with the mug, heart, home, and hand:

Hannah’s:

Natasha’s—she began with the hands, Deborah added the arms, torso and chin, so I felt I had to add the skirt… it went from there!

Kate’s:

Kathy’s:

And finally mine:

Then we all split to the winds, kids, families and real life

Our Frayed Edges merriment continued…. starting with mojitos by Kate, made with mint fresh from her garden (as an aside… I may be the only person on the planet who has managed to kill mint….  we got some, but it was in a planter left outside in winter…a large planter, but nonetheless it was too cold, besides which our garden is too shady even for mint, tho we get a bumper crop of moss and mushrooms).  Here’s mine:

And all of us toasting:

I’d never had a mojito before, but I do think I should like to have another, especially in such fine company! Kathy and Kate do seem to be enjoying dinner (a potluck affair, as we didn’t want to muck up the kitchen in someone else’s house!)

Then it was time to swap! we had decided quite some time earlier to do another trade, like our 5×8 memo pad covers.  This time we used a pattern from Jake Finch’s Fast Fun and East Book Cover Art Book:

Here are five journals / sketchbook covers, with pencil pockets inside…. life overtook Hannah, so she ended up not making one, but Deborah had made a couple so she generously gave Hannah one, so now we all five have one.   From left to right these were made by me (lime and aqua), Deborah (painted cloth), Kate (rust-dyed and discharged fabric, with watch parts to be added), Deborah (trademark embroidery!), Kathy (trademark luminous blues!):

I was SO lucky to receive Kate’s!   I love it!

And in Parte Tres, I’ll share our Mandala workshop!

This month was extra special:  Deborah came to visit from Texas!!!!!  So all five of us were together AND we got to have a sleepover AND we did a day workshop (on Monday) on Mandalas with Natasha Kempers-Cullen…Yippeee!  Here we are in the late afternoon…thanks to Kate’s hubby Andy for doing photographer duty…at one point he had five cameras dangling from neck and wrists!

Back row:  Sarah Smith, Kathy Daniels, Deborah Boschert

Seated in front:  Kate Cutko, Hannah Beattie

We were going to bunk over at Kate’s house like we did last year, but Kate had a brilliant idea that made it better for everyone (including her kids who had to get up and go to school Monday morning:  she asked her generous neighbors, who let lots of friends use their summer house, if we could too…so we did!  The house is at the very end of Browns Point, and juts into Merrymeeting Bay (isn’t that the most wonderful name?  Merrymeeting?  I love it….).  Kate showed us one of the secrets of the point…a bald eagle’s nest (look for the tangle of sticks on the branch at lower left):

As we gathered at the house, we took something to sip and something to munch on and went to sit under the trees, near the marsh and we heard this keening overhead.  We had apparently caused the two eagles some concern, so they took off from the nest, circled around the tip of the point, and settled in to some upper branches on a pine RIGHT OVER where we had our chairs!

Kathy’s birthday is at the end of August, so we celebrated and shared gifts…here’s Kath looking delighted at Kate’s gift:  rust-dyed fabrics, plus more fabric and some very rusty nails to do her own rust-dyeing….only art quilters can truly appreciate how wonderful LOL!

While we sat and talked, Hannah relaxed:

And Deborah helped Kate shuck some corn (which she picked from her garden THAT afternoon….YUM):

while I snapped pictures.

Deborah brought gifties as did Hannah…. but I was having so much fun relaxing at that point I forgot to take pictures…. you can see pics of the wonderful journal books Deborah made on her blog, here.

After our group photo, Kate took us to a spot where flotsam and jetsam…AND old shards of glass and pottery gather… Hannah found an old bottle (which of course I forgot to take a photo!).  This is a photo of the bay:

and walking down to the access path:

That’s Kate’s daughter on her back, a neighbor on the far right, and Kate’s son leading the troupe.

I’m always looking for patterns…for quilting, for design….so I got a nice shot of the water:

I’ll be back tomorrow with the evening fun, and the next day with our Mandala workshop!

Thanks to Deirdre Abbotts, I’ve been awarded the the

First the Rules:

1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.  It’s right up on top

2. Link to the person you received your award from.

You can find Dierdre at Deirdre’s Sloppy Studios

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4. Put links of those blogs on yours.

1. A perennial favorite is my friend Marie’s blog…her photography is just ONE of the many things she does wonderfully! Being a good friend is another one!
2. Dijanne Cevaal’s work and blog never cease to inspire me!
3. Elin Waterston has been exploring stamp-making this year on Love.Will.Logic, her blog….. I’ll admit to being just a tad jealous of the time she has to make things!
4. Blue Moon River is Susan Brubaker Knapp’s blog; I met her not too long ago online, and we’ve had a fun time writing back and forth.  I can see her background in graphic design in her work, and not only enjoy it but learn from her work!
5. Planet Textile Threads isn’t really one person’s blog, but a whole bunch of people (in the interest of complete disclosure, me included).  I love being able to travel the world in one blog, with so many points of view.
6. Judy Coates Perez makes wholecloth quilts…she paints, then she quilts.  They are amazing, there’s never a dud, and you can see them here.
7. Even though she was also on Deirdre’s list, I’m also going to name my friend Lisa Walton, in Sydney, Australia!  Her blog is here.  I LOVE that we can live half a world apart, meet on the internet, then meet in Houston (at Quilt Festival of course), and get to be good friends despite not being near each other in person.

5. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you have nominated.

I’m off to do that now.  Hope you enjoy these blogs as much as I do!

And then  I’m off to work…. I’ve been really busy quilting lately, then hope to be really busy working on the manuscript and samples for my oft-delayed book.  This weekend, tho, will be spectacular.  On Saturday Deborah flies in from Texas!   She is staying with Kate, and on Sunday we will all get to have a sleepover at Kate’s neighbor’s empty (summer) house, then go to a workshop with Natasha Kemper-Cullen on Monday.  Get ready for good eye candy… this is going to be SUCH a treat!

On a warm summer Sunday, I made my way from the Tsongas Arena, site of the Lowell Quilt Festival, to the Whistler Museum of Art.  The museum is normally closed on Sundays, but the gallery with the art quilt exhibit was open (the rest of the museum wasn’t…rats!) for quilt lovers to stop and savor the work.  This wall is what greeted you… I enjoyed the interlaced sheer panels and the shadows cast on the wall.  If my photos are in order, this piece is called Microdctyom Stechellianum by Nancy Crasco. (Note:  photos in this post are clickable for a larger view.)

January Blooms by B. Sullivan, above,  is one of the most eye-catching pieces in the show.  The weekend I saw the exhibit, local floral arrangers had constructed pieces to go with the artwork…what a cool idea!   A detail photo reveals the modest and effective use of beads to enhance the floral print fabric:

Hibiscus is another piece playing with color overlays and sheer fabrics; this piece by Margaret Anderson won the Whistler Award (one of two awards given when I was there…the viewer’s choice was still underway).

One of my favorite pieces (and the one that got MY viewer’s choice vote!) was Wen Redmond’s Winter Tree.  She has printed photos onto fabric.  The center panel–the darkest, small part in the center– is sheer, and the surface piece is affixed to stretcher bars.  A second printed photo is behind, attached to the back side of the presser bars, so you get this cool window / show-through effect.  Wen had an article a winter or two ago in Quilting Arts magazine that I believe discussed this process, but I didn’t quite “get” it then…It’s hard to see the depth in photos. I’ll have to go back and look for the article now that I’ve seen one of these pieces in the real:

Bozena  Wojtaszek of Poland received a Juror’s Choice for her piece, My Way.  In my quest for art quilts with effective beading, this one is definitely a good one…. I’ve only seen one of Bozena’s pieces in the cloth before; I’m so glad she went to the expense to send this all the way from Poland to be in this exhibit!

a corner detail:

and a detail from the center…. I love the fabrics, the threadwork, the beads….

And one last piece, The Good Earth by Nancy Schlegel, shows how effective large stitching and beads can be in creating texture:

Hope you enjoyed the tour!