The second figure I tackled for Be Inspired (see original post dated July 11th) is Martin Luther King.  In polling of the four grades (5 through 8 ) King handily topped the list of inspiring figures from history, so he became the central figure on the first (of a projected three) “Americas” panels.

When dyeing the fabric for the earth/sea and sky backgrounds, I also did 2 1/2 yards of fabric in skin tones.  The patchy look on King’s face will smooth out once quilting in shades of browns and reds and some black is applied.  nyway, I’m thrilled that this actually LOOKS like King!

Here’s a picture of the full panel with Sacajawea and MLK:

Now back to tracing, transferring, cutting, fusing and making people.   I do wonder WHAT possessed me to volunteer to do a quilt with 39 or more people……….  (reminder to self:  next time smack self upside head and run the other way!).  Of course, the fact that things are working out has me happily amazed….

A few thousand years ago, the middle school principal here in Camden–Maria Libby–put out a call for artwork suggestions for the middle school (a little over a year ago it was).  Among other things, she needed something big for a long, LARGE wall in a hallway below the big gym in the 7th/8th grade end of the school.  My first idea, a seasonal series of panels about the area, was nixed as the kids had already painted something similar a few years before.  Then inspiration hit…what about panels of people who inspire the kids…people from across time, around the world, all disciplines!  So “Be Inspired” was born.  I’m still totally amazed that she loves the idea of textile art, especially on such a big scale…way cool!

This picture is the modest beginning:

I dyed the “earth/sea” fabric (about 12 yards! enough for all six large panels plus one smaller panel) as well as the sky fabric.  Each of the six panels will be 36 inches wide and about 50-56 inches long, with straight top, sides and undulating bottom edge.  The seventh panel goes over a door in the middle of the wall and will read “Be Inspired!”  or “Who Inspires You?”  Then on the door I’ll make a poster that is a “key” to all the figures and places depicted on the panels.  Overall, it will be 21 feet in length and about 4 1/2 feet tall!!!!

Next, after surveying the kids a year ago to find who inspires them most, Mrs. Libby and I selected a representative sampling of folks.  The rules were famous more than 20 years ago, no naughty folks.  In the end, we decided to make one exception:  to include Barack Obama, since as the first non-white President of the US, he will clearly be a historic figure; plus, his inclusion dates the construction of the quilt(s) to 2009 and forward, which is kinda cool.  By doing 20+ years ago, we avoided the sports or pop stars of the moment and confined it to truly historical figures.  Here’s the tentative list for all six panels:
Panel 1:

Asia and Africa:

1.  The Pyramid builders
2.  Mother Theresa
3.  Doctors (Medecins Sans Frontiers)
4.  Jane Goodall
5.  Gandhi
6.  Nelson Mandela
7.  Sir Edmund Hillary (might just do Everest w/ a small figure for that one)

Panels 2, 3 and 4:

The Americas

1.  Martin Luther King
2.  Abraham Lincoln
3.  Rosa Parks
4.  Jackie Robinson
5.  Harriet Tubman
6.  The astronauts
7.  John F. Kennedy
8.  Amelia Ehrhart (w/biplane for the Wright Bros)
9.  Thomas Jefferson
10.  Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
11.  The Incas / Machu Picchu
12.  Sacajawea
13.  Lucas / Spielberg / represented by R2d2 and 3CPO if they agree
14.  ?? Lucille Ball (may be a licensing / $$ / copyright problem)
15.  Obama
16.  Teachers

Panels 5 and 6:

1.  The Beatles
2.  Albert Einstein
3.  Beethoven
4.  Anne Frank
5.  Leonardo da Vinci’s vitruvian man
6.  The Cave Paintings
7.  Engineers (bridges, ships buildings)–Eiffel Tower?
8.  The Spanish and Portuguese explorers–ships
9.  Jacques Cousteau and/or the Calypso
10.  Shakespeare

This first panel includes Sacajawea, Martin Luther King (the clear leader in voting by the kids), Jackie Robinson, Barack Obama, teachers, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.  Chamberlain led the 20th Maine at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he and his troops played a pivotal role in the Union victory; he later became a governor and senator for Maine, president of Bowdoin college (in Brunswick, Maine).  So he’s our Maine representative…. Here’s the somewhat “iffy” looking beginning…with the tracings/drawings on paper, pinned to the background.  My first set of pin-ups were too small, so I enlarged them all on my all-in-one-printer until I thought they filled the quilt nicely.

At the top is the first person I made, Sacajawea.  There are no known images of her, so this is based on a sculpture (in Iowa? or was it Idaho?).  She looked a little lonely, so I added mountains.

The hard part is funding.  The school and schoolkids raised enough to cover about one panel (I’m paid, as well as material costs), but the local quilt guild, The Pine Tree Quilt Guild turned down my request for funding (apparently the fact that I’m to be paid is a problem, tho that wasn’t clear in the guidelines… I said I’d use the funds only for materials, but I guess it just didn’t fit the criteria…however, the sweet soul who chairs the panel deciding what fit felt so strongly about the project, she sent a PERSONAL check / donation!!!!!! Thank you!).  Anyway, I’m hoping that once this first piece is done, we’ll be able to generate interest and donations to cover the rest of the project.

Postings here will be scarce for a couple days, as I said I’d have this quilt DONE to enter in Maine Quilts…. it must be delivered on July 21, and as of this moment I am still making the fusible appliques.  EEEEEEK!  Gotta go quilt!

The ways of jurors for big quilt shows mystify me……this year I entered Koi:

and Fields of Gold:

In the annual World of Beauty contest at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. The good news is that after FIVE years of “sorry but….” letters (I got in the first time I applied and never since), I am in AGAIN!!!! HOORAY…

What baffles me is that I consider Koi, a 40×60-ish quilt, two sided, lots of good technique, great quilting, imposing, yet it was “declined” (OK…let’s be blunt: rejected! For the second year in a row!) and the lovely but small (about 16×20) Fields of Gold, which began as a 9×12 journal-type quilt as an illustration/project for my book, has been accepted! I will admit, I ADORE the wheat in the quilting (even if I did do it myself…), which is my favorite part of the quilt along with Lisa Walton’s fabric (visit her website Dyed and Gone to Heaven) which really made the piece. But still… whazzup?

At least Koi got in to Paducah (if my faltering memory serves me correctly) and then got featured to my great surprise in QuiltMania, in a photo spread on the AQS show. Weird. Don’t get me wrong… I’m thrilled the drought is over and that as I teach there for the first time this year, I will have a quilt in the juried show. Still, I’m happily baffled.

Maybe I’ll be able to use Koi as my teacher’s quilt LOL!

Addendum:  Suzanne Sanger and Terry Grant both had very astute observations (see the comments)….  that there have been other koi quilts by other people, but nothing like Fields of Gold…… I think they are on to something…..

In early May, Virginia Spiegel brough her multi-year campaign to raise funds for cancer research through her FiberArt for a Cause to a close with a final Collage Mania sale.  I was lucky to nab two of my favorite collages by North Carolina artist Grace Howes!   I selected them as gifts for my husband for his birthday.  One reads Faith, the other Trust…because I trust him implicity and completely, and because I have faith in him.   Happy Birthday Dear!

The collages themselves are 8 by 10 inches, and are mounted on stretcher bars covered with batting and batik (11 by 13 inches if I remember correctly).  Interestingly, despite the clear similarities in the two pieces, it was difficult to find a single fabric to use that played nicely with both collages.  In the end, I chose a black with wheat/rust/ochre from my stash. I sure hope Grace likes what I’ve done!  You can visit her web site at Red Barn Studios...

Thanks Grace for donating these wonderful collages! We’re so happy to have them in our home.

Hand on mug

One of the next exercises in The New Drawing on the Right Hand Side of the Brain is to draw your own hand using the “window.” (more on this in a sec)  PS–pictures in this post are (well…should be…) clickable for a slightly larger view.

The drawing above is one I worked on about six weeks ago (and haven’t had time to do much drawing since!).  I didn’t look at my old workbook prior to doing this exercise, which wanted you to hold something in your hand.   What a hoot… here’s the first attempt from 2003 (eeks it was THAT long ago?):

The Window is a piece of plastic with cross-hairs on it.  You make a cardboard frame to make it rigid, then look through it to divide the object being drawn into quadrants.   Doing this helps train the eye to see the foreshortened object, in this case hands.

Here is a picture of a foreshortened hand done using the window this year.  I left the wash-off pen markings on the clear plastic window, on the left side, for you to see how placing your hand underneath allows you to just trace the outlines–presto, one of the hardest thing to do (foreshortening) made easy!:

And here is the same exercise from 2004 ish–I used a different background technique in 2009 than this one just to see how it would look.  I like the dark background better I think…..

Basically, I think I just need to draw more….Here is one last exercise (I’m doing more of them this time as I KNOW I need the practice):

I like the cross-hatched (with eraser) background on this.  My hand is in the “figa” …with thumb tucked between the fingers.  I did this naturally as a toddler; we lived in Spain at the time and it is considered good fortune if one naturally makes the figa.  I hope so!