Carol Wiebe creates art from this studio: textile, paper, mixed media, poetry
My second video about making Cracked Paper Quilts is now ready to view.
This time, the paper top that was created in the first video becomes the top layer of my quilt sandwich. Then I begin to sew the dickens out of it.
You can also view it by going to Cracked Paper Quilts 2: Stitching the Paper Sandwich on Vimeo.
I’ve been working on this piece for quite some time: I had hoped to finish it for show at Greenwood Quiltery. However, it was one of those pieces that offers an array of challenges. I totally ruined the bottom section, and had to cut it off and begin again. I’m actually glad I did, because I like this one better than the original! You may recognize the new bottom, except for the heart that appeared on it (a Beryl Taylor influence, no doubt). If you read the words that accompany the piece, you will see why the heart is important (read right across the spaces). This piece has handmade tassels as well: it just seemed the proper thing to do for the subject matter.
Intuition
Chaska Peacock has a very perceptive discussion of “human” angels, at Art Alchemy Studio, called Beings of Light.
Remember English class: the theme of finding your soul mate, your other half, better half, kindred spirit, true love. Do you believe in this concept? Is there someone out there who is the one?
After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one . . . Aristophanes’ speech from Plato’s Symposium
Doodad: a decorative embellishment; trinket; bauble: an art quilt covered with doodads.
I’m going to start out with a less than remarkable doodle. Sometimes doodles really have zing! and you blink, shake your head and say, “Wow! How did this come out of that ho-hum meeting? ” Other times, I simply save them out of habit, or curiosity as to how I can fiddle with them and make something else.
The first pic is my original doodle. Then I fix it up, make it straight, refine a little in Photoshop Elements. I repeat the doodle for a full sheet of pattern.
All right, so maybe it’s not a craze. I have no idea how many people are actually doing it. The ATC phenomenon seems to have reached epic proportions, and the Inchies have now hit the scene. So far, I’ve had little desire to do either, but one never knows in what form the muse will inspire next; which brings me to the work of Jane Davila, a fiber and mixed media artist, and her partner Elin Waterston. They have a new book out called Art Quilt Workbook, which Amazon describes as follows
“Part quiltmaking workbook, part business guide, Art Quilt Workbook shows how to take quilting in a creative new direction through art–then sell the quilts at craft fairs and other venues.”
“A creative new direction through art” could mean just about anything, but when you behold Jane and Elin’s work, they both manage to do a superb job in a very small format. I decided to attempt some small quilts: around the 8.5 x 11 inch size. That’s the real estate of one sheet of computer paper.
When I was taking University classes, I loved writing papers. It was always a joy for me: the research, the finding or filling out of a thesis, the fine tuning of what I had learned and the challenge to express it in an interesting and compelling way (And yes, I confess, I did suffer some mockery for my exuberance, in general, and this penchant, specifically). However, when I was working on my MLIS (Masters of Library and Information Science–now THERE’S a mouthful) we were, ironically I thought, asked to write a ream of papers that could be no longer than 2 pages ( a mere 600 words)! This proved to be much more difficult than producing , say, 40 pages. I typically excavated a fair amount of material from the library stacks, and enjoyed including ALL of it. (Yes, I do know what “succint” means. Sometimes quantity can be quality.)
That aside was my attempt to explain my trepidation about small quilts, which is, in some ways, hilarious, because my art work is seldom anywhere near a bed quilt size. But this art business is all about extending one’s toes beyond the usual stomping territory. So here goes . . . with hopes for a pirouette or two.
One more thing: I am reading Foolsgold, by Susan G. Wooldridge. Her intro, right off the bat, delivers a zing that makes every cell sing: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” –Harold Thurman Whitman.
(WIKIPEDIA: For some unexplained reason, the [above] quote is widely and incorrectly attributed on the Internet to Harold Thurman Whitman. The actual author of this quote is Dr. Howard Thurman. Harold Thurman Whitman is purely fictional.)
Chocolate Confessions, a commissioned piece, was a sweet assignment. It afforded me the opportunity to express someone’s chocolate obsession. Hmmm, that would be a fairly rare condition, don’t you think?
The subject of this piece, Wendi Hiebert, confesses that she is a chocoholic. She is much more than that: she is quite a theobroma connoisseur, having attended tastings and seminars, in North America and abroad, concerning this aromatic confection. Wendi writes a weekly food and recipe column for The Record in Kitchener, Ontario, and is especially happy when she can include chocolate as an ingredient in one of her recipes.
She has chocolate every day, so I thought it fitting to fashion a chocolate mandala sun, sending its dark rays to warm her days and her palate.
The rays also innumerate the many ways chocolate manifests itself in her life (expressed in her own handwriting), including her miniature poodle, a much-beloved pet named Cocoa.
On the back of the quilt, I put this statement: Both confessions and confections can assuage the soul. Many of us can attest to this, and you can happily substitute any other sweet which happens to be your own little personal addiction. But chocolate does reign supreme. A simple search string–chocolate quotes–will reveal at least 3 million! (And that includes collections, not just singular quotes.) Here’s one that sounds like a plan:
Put “eat chocolate” at the top of your list of things to do today.
That way, at least you’ll get one thing done.
Quilting Arts Magazine had a self portrait challenge quite some time ago. I did not complete a piece for that challenge–I generally have a compelling, inner artistic agenda that trumps such challenges–but it obviously entered my consciousness. I recently finished “Dare.” Dare to love, dare to love yourself, your self.
Eckhart Tolle, an author who has offered me many insights and realizations, has this to say about love in his book The Power of Now:
Love is a state of being. Your love is not outside: it is deep within you. You can never lose it, it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form. In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love. (Tolle, 1997, pp. 130-131)
“Tender” is a mixed media art quilt.
“Tender is my heart” is a line from one of the couple’s favorite songs.
Dragonfly, or “Tonbo” in Japanese, represents new beginnings, good fortune and long marriage.
The angel is one of my son’s drawings.
On a recent webwalk, I serendipitously discovered the work of Michelle Caplan. I was mesmerized! This, I thought, is something I want to do. My youngest son and his wife were about to celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary, so I created a mixed media quilt portrait (I think I’m going to have to tweak that name. It doesn’t exactly roll off your tongue). Anyway, I painted a little house in the bottom corner, because they had been looking for a place of their own for months, and 3 days after I completed the quilt they put an offer down on the home they are living in now. My neighbor came over and quipped, ”I’m bringing over an old lottery ticket and some money for you to make me an art piece out of. There’s some magic in what you do!” That also proved prophetic–his wife soon commissioned me to do a portrait collage, using her passion for chocolate as a theme. I’m working on that piece right now.
I am putting this up with little comment or explanation of technique, simply because I need to see something new on this blog! And if I don’t put it there, who will? No-one, obviously. Perhaps I need a ghost writer.
This piece was created to celebrate a very fruitful poetry session with my friend Margi. And yes, I did use the American “savor” rather than the British/Canadian “savour.” Come to think of it, I could have used saver or even saviour! Words are such wonderful play things!
Fecundity
26.5” x 14”
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