Carolyn Crump

Greetings,
I saw some awesome works by one of my favorite textile artist Carolyn Crump and I was just bowled over by what I saw. I've been in love with her work for years and now she has gone to another level. I hope that you will review and enjoy. You can find out more about this work and the works of Susan Else who is also one of my favs and Yoshimi Kihara who is new to me, but she's on my list now. Textiles Resource Guide by Gwen Magee is the one who supplied this info and you can check out more. To see more of Carolyn's work do check out Just Lookin'. Carolyn you are awesome and thanks too you and Gwen for keeping us enlighten.

I also forgot to post the new postcard for the exhibit of Mermaids & Merwomen in black Folklore at the Florence Museum of Art, Since and History in Florence, SC the exhibit is up until May3rd. There is still time if you are in that area. The image on the postcard is by Tresa Vega and is titled Madre de Agua. Enjoy.

Metallic-V/Piece of the week.

Greetings All,

This past weekend I spent painting fabric for a new piece. I even enjoyed waiting to see what the color would look like after completely drying and no I was not sitting watching paint dry. I do understand more why some of my friends paint whole-cloth pieces. I used Setacolor's transparent Raw Sienna as the base color (left). Plaid's Antique Gold Metallic acrylic and Lumiere's Super Copper (center), Halo Blue-Gold (right), and Pearl Violet (bottom). I painted with a brush, paper towel, plastic, and my fingers. I love the affect and the back is even more impressive to me than the front. My piece is abstract in it's composition because of how it's going to be constructed. The cloth measure 53 inches square and that's the largest size I've painted thus far. Now I'm off to paint some paper that I want to add to the cloth and I'll post more later.

IQF

Greetings All,

This past weekend was the IQF here in Chicago and I'm still in awe of some of what I saw. I've waited a few days to see how people were responding before I post. I don't want to offend anyone by posting pictures of some of the pieces that I like. I'm always amazed when I look at the pictures that I've taken and sometimes I wonder why I took some of them. They are favorites both old and new. The artists are Deborah Sylvester, Leslie Gabrielse, Inge Mardal and Steen Hougs too name a few.

Masters: Art Quilts:Major Works by Leading Artists" is the current exhibit of SAQA and it's just awesome. You can pre-order the book on their website and it's due out in early May although they had copies at the festival. The master artists included are: B. J. Adams, Pamela Allen, Eszter Bornemisza, Elizabeth Brimelow, Pauline Burbidge, Cher Cartwright, Hollis Chatelain, Kyoung Ae Cho, Jette Clover, Jane Burch Cochran, Linda Colsh, Judith Content, Michael A. Cummings, Chiaki Dosho, Noriko Endo, Nancy Erickson, Caryl Bryer Fallert, Jeanette Gilks, Jenny Hearn, Inge Mardal & Steen Hougs, Inge Hueber, Wendy Huhn, Michael James, M. Joan Lintault, John Lefelhocz, Terrie Hancock Mangat, Katie Pasquini Masopust, Therese May, Carolyn Mazloomi, Miriam Nathan-Roberts, Velda Newman, Clare Plug, Yvonne Porcella, Jane Sassaman, Deidre Scherer, Joan Schulze, Susan Shie, Ann Woringer, Charlotte Yde and Ita Ziv.

I met one of my favorites textile artist, Linda Witte Henke. I like liturgical art and vestments and Linda some of this type of work. Do check out her website. Other SAQA member I spent time with were Clarian Ferrono, Frieda Anderson, and Laura Wasilowski trying to learn as much as I could in a short period of time. Thank you ladies for sharing your knowledge.

Riverwalk Quilting Guild

Greetings,
Sorry I've not been posting lately, but I've been busy with other things. I did my 3rd trunk-show/lecture this week for the "Riverwalk Quilting Guild" in Naperville, IL and it went very well. I like doing them even tho they make me so very nervous when I start and then bam! Something happens and I just take off with a blast. They where very touch by my piece called Lost/Found (below) and I found myself chocking up telling about how it came about. I look forward to my next engagement. I have some new pieces on the table and I do hope to get one finished soon. The exhibit at the Harold Washington library in downtown Chicago seems to be going well also. I've gotten some good feed back. So if you are in the area it's up until the end of this month. My exhibit is on the 8th floor and I have several small works on the 2nd floor in the children's library.

Women's History Month/Piece of the Week

Greetings All,

On Wednesday I spent the morning installing my latest new small pieces along with 16 others at the "Harold Washington Library" for Women History Month and some. I know that this is the middle of the month, but the staff at the library would not allow me to install until the insurance was all in place. I'm not the only one that this happen to from what I understand it happen to all the artist that are participating in this exhibit throughout the city. I have 3 small works in a display case in the children's library on the second floor. Tall Grass (below left) and Dance Granny Dance (below right)are the latest creation and Sax-II (below center) is from a previous series of works that are apart of my "Smooth Jazz Clip-art". They were inspired by children's books, In The Tall, Tall, Grass by Denise Fleming, Our Granny, by Margaret Wild and Julie Vivas, and Jazz on a Saturday Night by Leo & Diane Dillon. I chose these books not only for there stories, but because of there illustrations. I have loved illustrations all of my life. I can remember spending hours looking at the illustrations as a child and falling in love with them. My works can be see at Harold Washington Library on the Visual Arts Floor (8th) and in the Thomas Hughes Children's Library (2nd floor) at the same location until the end of April.

I also stopped by the Chicago Cultural Center to check out the Poetic Dialogue exhibit. My young friend LaShawnda Crowe Storm and her collaborator M. Eliza Hamilton Abegunde part in this exhibit. I was most impress with their work and look forward to seeing others.. The Poetic Dialogue Project, curated by artist Beth Shadur, is an ongoing project of collaboration between contemporary artists and poets, who have created new works of art by responding to the muse of each other’s works. This exhibit will run until April 5, 2009 in the Sidney Yates Gallery at Chicago Cultural Center, 78 East Washington Street, Chicago 2009.

Cultural Connections

Greetings All,

I got a nice comment about some pieces that I sold to a client last year. She stopped by by booth at the Cultural Connections and told me how much she love the pieces and how her guests responded when they see them. She email me a picture yesterday and they do look good on her pale green wall. They are from my "Weddgie" series and they are mounted on plexi-glass so that the wall color shows thru. Thank you Margo Haynes for the commission, sale, and photo. I love a happy client.

I did make a small purchase at the Cultural Connections. I bought some note cards from artist Angela Williams of Studio W Art + Design. Angela dose watercolors and mix-media collages. I love her work and plan to check her out in June at the Hyde Park Art Fair in Chicago, IL at 57th Street and Kimbark, June 6th & 7th, 2009.

Cultural Connections and the piece of the week.

Greetings All,

The piece of the week is my first machine felted creation completed with the use of Erica Graff's Baby Lock??? felting machine. This was a different kind of experience for me and a challenging one because I wanted to treat this machine like a regular sewing machine and I broke two needles. That I didn't like, but I do like the simple little piece that I created. I used hand dyed cotton batting and wool roving that was created and supplied by Judy Coates Perze. I painted a Crescent matte board and sowed the piece to it. I added some of the scraps from squaring up the piece to the matte board and I also sewed some of Sonji Hunt's wonderful hand painted fabric scraps to the felted piece. So thanks to all my friends that contributed to this small work and it's a good thing to have friends.

I went out vending this weekend and sales were down, but I did come home with some goodies and had a good time. I have another Najee Dorsey to my collection and I just love it. Najee is a young artist from Georgia that I met last year along with his wife. He creates these wonderful mix-media collages. The piece that I got this weekend is called "A People United" (below). I'm still riding high from the past presidental election and this piece reminds me of that and my youth. I was born in 1950 and still remember those times. My daughter asked will I ever forget and I told her I hope not. Najee got in exchange a king-size bed quilt and "Mother Wind" (right) we both were very please with our acquisitions.I also did a little booth sitting for Nii-Oti Zambezi and in exchange I got a bone/silver earring. I also found out that Nito is a fabulous painter (below). He has works that feeds the body inside and out. Do check out the links to all the websites.