Voices in Cloth: The show goes up

Linda, Dana, and I arrived at the Oakland Convention Center this morning at 8:30 AM and this is what the room looked like.



Our biennial guild show is a "pipe and drape" show that begins with ironing muslins that hang behind the quilts.


Meanwhile, the forest of pipes are assembled into rows. We were in charge of row E. I forgot to take a picture at 3:30 when we finished hanging the last quilts. I'll try to remember to take some when I return to see the show this weekend.

The ladders stand ready for hanging the quilts.

Voices in Cloth

Bee Happy
Raffle Quilt by Jean Smith

My guild, the East Bay Heritage Quilters, an organization of over 500 quilters, is centered in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. We have monthly meetings in Kensington and every two years we present an Extraordinary Quilt Show, Voices in Cloth. This year the show will be April 10 & 11 at the Oakland Convention Center.

These are the two opportunity quilts made by members of our guild. Two lucky raffle ticket holders will win these quilts next Sunday.

L'Attitude Bleu

Raffle Quilt by Karin Lusnak

VIC is a non-juried show. There will be over 200 quilts made by EBHQ members. There will also be wearable art, quilting demonstrations, and great vendors. This will also be a fantastic opportunity to acquire fiber art from our silent auction of quilts and garments.

April 10-11, 2010
Oakland Convention Center
Saturday:10-5
Sunday:10-4

At the last possible minute, I decided to sew together the first 49 faces from my project as my entry to the show.

Emily Richardson at EBHQ

This is a WIP from cloth I painted in a workshop with Emily Richardson. She was the speaker for our June meeting at my guild, East Bay Heritage Quilters . The picture looks a little wonky. I got a new camera that I am trying to figure out. This is one of the first pictures. More soon if I ever figure it out.

I was first attracted to the layers of color in Richardson's work. I experience an exquisite ethereality in many of her pieces. We saw her work, Until the Day, last week in Athens, Ohio at Quilt National. It was so exciting that she was scheduled to speak and teach this week for our guild. Doing the EBHQ workshop afforded the opportunity for close inspection of her work. I was enchanted by the lines she creates both in her applique technique and her quilting line.

My friend Chris at Reap As You Sew posted some great pictures of cloth she made during a class. She also briefly describes the materials we used.

EBHQ Workshop with Susan Shie

It’s really hot here again. The pool has been marvelous in the morning. All of the kids are back in school. This might be the first September that no one in our family has returned to school or teaching.

I did a wonderful two-day EBHQ workshop with Susan Shie last weekend. We used brushes, fabric paint, and markers to create a personal response to a theme. We attempted to find that artist from our childhood who expressed herself with abandon, never judging whether the marks were right or wrong.

One of my favorite ideas was what Susan calls Library Time. For awhile I had tried to do morning writing a la Julia Cameron. My understanding of what Susan proposes is that Library Time is a kind of warm-up for the real work. It is a time to “settle in” by writing or drawing in your sketch book. For about 10 minutes, I tried to record ideas and colors as they flowed from my thoughts about the theme. I did not try to make writings that were “good” nor did I feel a need to go back and re-read what I wrote. For me, it was a sort of positive quieting of the inner critic and a sort of personal cheerleading session all in one.

Susan’s diary paintings contain extensive writings, filling up her paintings with texture. Initially, I had no interest in doing work like this but making a personal diary painting was a very joyous experience. What I was unable or unwilling to draw could be filled out with words.

Of course one of the most fabulous things about EBHQ workshops is the up-close and in-person time with the artist and her art. Susan’s art, in particular, is meant to be experienced not as a photo, but in the cloth.

Quilt Content

Les Poules Jolies
33" x 45"

These chickens have been in the works for almost two years. Memorial Day weekend of 2006, my friends Alice, Pat, Janine, and I had a girls’ art adventure in Mendocino. We stayed at the Mar Vista Cottages, at Anchor Bay, near Gualala. It is a very special place: the cottages were built in the thirties; they have kitchens, woodstoves, and porches with deck chairs; there is a large garden and guests are encouraged to pick herbs and flowers; and best of all, there are hens and fresh eggs every morning. I took many photos of the Mar Vista hens and made a small study but couldn’t seem to get going on a larger piece that would be more appropriate for Voices in Cloth, the biennial show of my guild, the East Bay Heritage Quilters (EBHQ) . I was still putting stitches in it on the morning it was to be delivered to the show, the first weekend in April.

The show was fabulous. I helped with set-up on the day before the show opened and had a wonderful time working with a great group of volunteers. As the show went up I was very inspired by the marvelous quilts from guild members. I went to the show on Saturday, April 12, where I finally met Del Thomas.

Blue Vase

Well, so much for staying focused. I spent Saturday with Yvonne Porcella ! Well, not exactly. I shared her with 20 of my closest EBHQ friends. Yvonne was the guest speaker for the January 28 meeting of the East Bay Heritage Quilters. She taught a class on Saturday on her methods of making quilts using fusible web and machine applique. This is the still life I did. On Monday she taught a wearable art class. I would have loved to make the jacket that she is taught on Monday but I am staying focused on quilts.

I didn’t get a lot done in Saturday's class. I find it hard to work with all of the distractions. I had been feeling bad that I was taking a class and starting another project instead of working on my big-ish piece. But instead, I decided that the class was a kind of warm-up exercise. I had been a little stuck for whatever reason. I am now putting "take a class" in my bag of tricks for getting over bumps. Of course I totally didn't plan it that way.

I really wanted to meet Yvonne and spend time in her class. For me, she is one of the founding mothers of the studio art quilt phenomenon. Her vibrant colors are not unusual today but they were when she began in the 70s. And how about those amazing kimonos!

Journal Quilt Week 3 of 2008

I thought about not making something last week because I am trying to get something done for my guild show. The East Bay Heritage Quilters have a show every two years. Every member may exhibit one quilt and one piece of wearable art. It’s an amazing guild. It’s a wonderful show. I’m not even at the point of having some pictures of the work in progress.

On Friday, while cleaning up my work space, I found a piece of fabric that I made in an EBHQ workshop with Kerr Grabowski. I cut it up and started quilting my tree shapes. This fabric was screen printed with thickened dyes, using Kerr’s deconstructed screen printing techniques. I had intended to do more hand stitching on this piece but I decided to take a look at it first. I mis-positioned it on the scanner bed and got this image. I’m going to leave it for now and get back to my EBHQ project.

Trying to stay focused

I always think I should have a photo to go with a blog post, so I haven’t been blogging much. I am trying to stay focused on my weekly journal project and I am working on a large-ish piece (about 36 x 48) for the 2008 EBHQ show, Voices in Cloth. The show is a little later this year, April 12 and 13, but it is still at the Oakland Convention Center. Here’s a picture of one of the Opportunity Quilts for 2009. This one is by Judy Jensen. Read more about it here