Squares of Sand and good news!

(Above: Squares of Sand, set of nine fiber pieces. Each is 11" x 11". Hand and free-motion machine embroidery on recycled painter's drop cloth. The photos were taken using the floor at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios as a background. I generally shoot my artwork while it is hung on the gallery's white walls ... but there wouldn't be enough contrast. Thus, I attached my tripod horizontally to the top of a ladder and shot against the floor! Click on image to enlarge.)

Over the weekend I finished a set of nine pieces based on abstractions of sand on Key West beaches. They are headed to an August solo show at Frame of Mind, a fancy eyeglass shop on Columbia's Main Street that is also a popular alternative art space. The show is called Sun and Sand. My intention was to pour clear epoxy over the surface ... but I got scared!


(Above: Squares of Sand IX. Click on image to enlarge.)

I need this work! There are walls to fill! I can't risk ruining it with a hair-brained idea! So I've started two other, similar pieces and hope to experiment with them next weekend. If it works, I can always pour epoxy over these nine later!


(Above: Squares of Sand V. Click on image to enlarge. There are two more examples at the end of this blog post.)

Each piece is stitched to a piece of acid-free mat board which is glued to a "strainer". There's a wire for hanging attached to the strainer. (A strainer is simply a wooden frame that doesn't really function as a frame. It is very similar to a "stretcher bar" for oil or acrylic paintings ... except that "stretcher bars" are cut and joined for small wooden slats/"tightening keys" to fit into the inner corners and thereby expand the outer dimensions while increasing the canvas' tautness. A strainer doesn't have this feature; it is in a fixed, permanent position. I built my strainers from the frames that used to house my Decision Portrait Series. Forty portraits are going to Quilt, Inc.'s big international quilt festival this November. The others are going into storage. The frames are now being "recycled".


(Above: Dolls, a series of photos from Edinburgh's Children Museum. Click on image to enlarge.)

The Decision Portrait frames were also recycled for these 35 images of dolls. I took them in Edinburgh's Children Museum. It will be the first time I've ever displayed my photographs as "straight photographs" ... as "art"! They will surround the giant canopy made from vintage and antique doilies and household linens that I'll be creating in my upcoming August art residency at the Galesburg Civic Arts Center, Galesburg, Illinois. (Yes ... this means I'll miss my own show opening at Frame of Mind. My husband Steve gets to "be me" for the evening!) Steve is currently in England watching our elder son dance. I'm stuck at Mouse House ... but at least some of the work has been framing my own photography!


(Above: Held Together By a Thread. Antique quilt fragments, recycled felt batting, vintage tablecloth backing, hand stitching. 24" x 24". Click on image to enlarge.)

I also got some very good news this weekend. Held Together By a Thread was accepted into the SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) juried exhibition I'm Not Crazy. Juror Sue Reno (whose work I very much admire) selected only twenty art quilts from a field of 128 created by 86 different artists. The show is being curated by Kathy Nida who blogged about the acceptances with a full list of the artists and quilts HERE. The traveling exhibit will be shown from August 2012 until May 2012 at Mancuso Quilt shows. I'm honored to be part of this.


(Above: Squares of Sand II. Below Squares of Sand I. Click on either image to enlarge.)