H2O! catalog and Week Seven for my installation-in-progress

SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) is an international organization with an important mission: to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development, documentation, and publications.

Obviously, I support this mission.  I'm proudly a peer-reviewed, professional level member.  Yet, I'm mostly impressed with SAQA's exhibitions and catalogs.  Last year my cotton installation managed to get juried into the SAQA exhibit Stories of Migration: Contemporary Artists Interpret Diaspora at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC.  (Click HERE for a blog post.)  This year my Flood Clothesline is touring the country in the SAQA H2O! exhibition.  There were only 34 works accepted from a field of 521 entries!

Both these important shows have gorgeous catalogs.  Both catalogs include the submitted jurying photos ... which in my case, means pictures taken during "Marked By the Water", a Jasper Project held at the Tapps Art Center.  I am undoubtedly indebted to Cindi Boiter, editor of Jasper Magazine, for making these opportunities available.  Thank you, Cindi!

The Flood Clothesline is now hanging at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky.  I will get a chance to see in while en route from my July national park art residency at Homestead National Monument in Nebraska.  From Kentucky, the show travels to the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA (July 11, 2018 - Sept. 23, 2018); the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, AZ (Dec. 1, 2018 - Feb. 10, 2019); and the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles in California )April 19, 2019 - July 14, 2019).

(Above:  Installation-in-Progress, Week Seven.)

This week I changed the arrangement of circles/orbs in my installation-in-progress.  Okay, I know it looks much the same as it did last week.  There's a reason for that!  I am in the progress of sealing each orb with gel medium and pouring epoxy over them.  I can only do approximately 16 - 17 at a time.  Why?  Well, that's the number of orbs that can be covered with two quarts of epoxy and the number of orbs that can dry on my work table!

So this week, there are simply more orbs covered in epoxy.  By next week, almost all will be covered.

It is difficult to capture the shiny, reflective surface of the epoxy in photographs but the results do make a difference!

Also, the blocks of wood glued to the back of each orb and used as hanging devices are significantly better than the t-pins I was using.

The blocks of wood vary in depth ... which allows really cool shadowing on the wall.  I'm very much liking the progress of this installation.  It is on public view at CMFA (Columbia Music Festival Association), 914 Pulaski Street here in Columbia.  Hours are weekdays from 10 - 6.  The installation will be part of my solo show at Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury, North Carolina.  That show is called In Stitches and will hang from September 9, 2017 through January 3, 2018.  I am truly in debt to CMFA for the opportunity to figure out this installation for the entire, 24' long back wall!