Arrival at the Rensing Center

(Above:  Me and my very filled cargo van just before pulling out of the driveway to go to the Rensing Center.)

It's been over a year since I dreamed up the idea of creating a spacious, soft enclosure out of my enormous stash of vintage household linens and lace.  I started calling the project The Cocoon.  I wrote a proposal, got a SC Arts Commission quarterly project grant to assist with the cost of the convention center piped booth assemblage, and secured a five-week art residency at the Rensing Center outside Pickens, South Carolina.   I've been talking about the project for months, but during the last couple of weeks, I started to get nervous!  Could I pull it off?  Could I really turn the foggy vision in my head into a reality, a safe place for future public art engagements?  A major fiber installation where people could share stories about embroidery and quilting done by past generations of women?  A location where someone could donate a doily, stitch on a button, learn to thread and needle and pull it through hanging yards of tablecloths and pillowcases?

 (Above:  "The Pottery", one of the Rensing Center's self-contained studio and living spaces ... named because it was formerly a ceramic studio.)

Thankfully, Ellen Kochansky, a noted fiber artist and Rensing Center executive director, believes in my ability to pull things off ... even giant projects that only exist on paper and haven't yet been tested!  So, last Sunday Steve and I hauled all the boxes of linen, the new pipe system, my sewing machine, and supplies for the next five weeks into the cargo van.  I drove out of our parking lot and off on this new adventure. 

 (Above:  The Pottery's kitchen.)

My home for the next five weeks is called "The Pottery".  It's down a short gravel drive off a meandering driveway.  It is a self-contained efficiency apartment and studio all rolled into one with sliding glass doors overlooking the woods.  It is secluded and beside a trail that leads to a hidden waterfall.  I have everything I need and time to work.

As soon as I arrived, I unloaded the van ...

... surveyed the space and moved all the furniture ...

...in order to finally set up the pipe system.  I hadn't anticipated one important thing.  The ceiling isn't eight feet except on one side of the big room.  No matter!  I was able to set up enough to get started.  I will certainly be able to work, step back and review, continue, and envision the space I'll be creating.  It is actually kind of exciting to know that I will work for five weeks, seeing sections at a time, and not see the finished product.  It is exciting because this means the final "unveiling" will be at a different time, something that can be arrange, publicized, and open to the public!  All in all, this is perfect!

I couldn't wait to get started sorting all the boxes into piles.  I also hung up a special donation, a satin wedding dress donated to my cause by Steven Chapp, an extremely accomplished printmaker who only lives in nearby Easley, South Carolina.  I haven't quite decided how this vision from the past is going to figure into The Cocoon, but I know that garment automatically infer a human element ... and wedding dresses infer a special day, a beautiful ideal, and this one perfectly belongs among all the table runners and formal damask napkins and other fine occasion textiles.  I am sure the gown will let me know how to use it!

 (Above:  The sofa covered in vintage garments.)

The wedding gown isn't the only garment.  While sorting, I was amazed at just how many pairs of bloomers, sleeping dresses, and especially infant clothing I actually had!

The collection of yoyos was much larger than I thought too!

Although this looks like a lot of crocheted doilies, it isn't quite as many as I had in 2012 when I made The Canopy while on another art residency in Galesburg, Illinois.

Nor is this stash of lace trim as plentiful as I had then.

Yet, I have never had as many gloves, baby bonnets, and lace collars!  Ever!

I have already learned that I can rip the elastic out of the late 1960s gloves ... which I like better!

I made piles of pillowcases, linen dish towels sporting printed calendars, tablecloths ...

  
... and quilt blocks, tops, and scraps.

On Monday I started stitching.  The first panel took forever and looked dreadful.  Well, maybe not "dreadful" but certainly not promising.  I thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew.  I had to stand back and think about my own concept.  I wanted LAYERS, not just a flat, pieced panel.  The plan was to EMBELLISH the larger pieces with the smaller ones.  So, I continued through Tuesday and this is how far I've gotten.  I am much happier, especially after I added some yoyos, gloves, and infants garments.  Putting doilies onto tablecloths and adding quilt tops (no matter how poorly constructed!) improved the dull, flat look for the first panel.  Color brightened the initial day!



This is how the back looks.  Actually, it's not really "the back"; it's the exterior!  After a day of doubt, I've returned to excitement! I can already say with confidence that this project is going to be a success ... after about a million stitches!  I can and will do it!

 Further below are plenty of detail images.  Please take a look!  Scroll down!


(Above:  A ring of old, rusty keys and two sheets of antique buttons.)

As much as I have to do ... because I have enough pipe system to create a space measuring 20' x 20' ... I will not tax myself completely!  I will have fun, walk to the waterfalls, looks at the stars, and go to the nearby Pickens County flea market on Wednesday mornings!  Today I scored a ring full of rust keys and two sheets of very nice antique buttons.


(Above:  Gallery 80808/Vista Studios last Saturday night.)

There's one more thing I'd like to share!  On Saturday evening, right before leaving for the Rensing Center, I returned to Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, my first studio ... from 2002 - 2016. I learned to "be an artist" in this studio and almost everything I ever made happened on the small patch of dark blue paint in the photo above. I moved out two years ago, just before the landlords closed off the large exhibition area that had been over the back wall of my studio.  The landlords started a gradual transition for their warehouse.  By this year, the remaining artists had to move out.  Most went to a new, more expensive complex called Stormwater.  My mentor, Stephen Chesley and Carl Larson ... who occupied my space after I left ... got permission to use the space and showcase the last piece of art they made in  together using the leftover wall and floor paint.  The permission was for one-night-only ... last Saturday.  So, I went to visit my "old haunt", my sacred space, and soak up the atmosphere.

Please note, the landlords are about the most wonderful, supportive people ever.  Gallery 80808/Vista Studios existed with low rent for nearly thirty years.  Early on, the area had been a little sketchy but more recently it turned into a bustling urban setting full of restaurants, hotels, bars, and very little parking.  It was time for the landlords to make changes and start the process of cashing in our their warehouse investment.

I didn't know what to expect after all the studio partitions were removed.  I hoped for a little mental clarity and I got it!  It was amazing to see just how tiny my little space was.  Change is necessary for growth.  I started making art in that space ... seventeen years ago.  Where will I be in seventeen years? There's no way to deny "mid-career"!



I took a photo of my own feet in the exact place I used to stand.  That was then.  Now I'm ready for the future, the next phase of my studio practice, and for working on giant sized projects that couldn't have been done in the past.  I'm on a new adventure ... onward and upward!

Now ... details of the major fiber installation on which I'm working!  Scroll down!  Check back!  I'll be blogging regularly from the Rensing Center where my new life is already underway!

I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Fridays", a site for sharing fiber arts.

Lucy Stone, a work in progress

 (Above:  Lucy Stone, a work in progress.  Click on any image to enlarge.)

Some time last fall, Sandra Sider and Pam Weeks, both very well known curators who have worked tirelessly to put quilts and art quilts into museums and in front of the public's eyes, sent me a wonderful invitation.  They asked me to create a work for their exhibition, Deeds Not Words: The Power of Persistence, Celebrating 100 Years of Women's Suffrage.

Of course I said YES, YES, YES!  The show will premiere at the National Quilt Museum during Quilt Week in 2020 and there is a publication underway.  I'm excited!  The first thing was to select one of the suffragettes.  It didn't take me long to land on Lucy Stone. 

(Above:  The Library of Congress, copyright free, image of Lucy Stone's original daguerreotype transferred to fabric and basted to recycled black packaging felt with two, distressed gold frames.)

Why Lucy Stone?  Well, I knew I wanted to create a hinged work that referenced antique daguerreotypes.  Last Christmas while visiting Santa Fe, I saw Betty Hahn's Soft Daguerreotypes from 1973.  I'd never heard of Betty Hahn at the time.  I had no idea she was a famous photographer specializing in alternative processes who often used embroidery and other fiber techniques.  I didn't know about her many solo shows and inclusion in various Smithsonian exhibits or the multiple NEA grants and fellowships.  I didn't know the Museum of Modern Art has one of her works or that feminism was a driving force.  I didn't know that Betty Hahn's work delivers " a powerful message in regards to women and embroidery," one that "pushes the audience to acknowledge the work of women not as craft or tradition, but as a meticulous, creative, and unique."

(Above:  Betty Hahn's Soft Daguerreotypes, 1973 at the Santa Fe Art Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico.)

It is almost embarrassing to admit this but my first thought was, "I can do better than this!"  Maybe I thought this simply because I was already envisioning my piece for Deeds Not Words as a giant daguerreotype, one that really is hinged.  After all, I'm also a picture framer and an installation artist.  Presentation figures prominently in even my initial approach to art-making.

 (Daguerreotype of woman and child in folding, hinged case.)

So ... what's a daguerreotype?  This early photographic process employed an iodine-sensitized silver plate and mercury vapor to create a very fragile, mirror-like surface with extremely accurate and sharp details. Because the plates were so vulnerable to damage, most were presented in special folding cases, often with velvet liners and ornate clasps.  The process was named for its inventor, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre.  The daguerreotype was the first publicly available photographic process and pretty much the only one used for personal portraiture from 1840 - 1860.  The Library of Congress owns seven featuring Lucy Stone.  These images are high resolution and copyright free.  I selected the one I liked best.  After careful sizing, I ordered my image from Spoonflower.  The size was determined by the fact that the finished piece is required to measure no more than 22" in width when closed.  That's the constraints of the exhibition's shipping containers. 

I basted the fabric image to my normal batting ... recycled black packaging felt.  Simple free-motion stitching outlined much of the figure.  Then the real work began.  Using a metallic pewter/silver sewing thread, I seed stitched the entire oval background.  To me, this reflective thread mimics the look of early photographic processes. It took days to get the surface so densely stitched.

 I knew that stitching the background so densely would slightly shrink that area ... making the un-stitched areas slightly bulged.  That area was Lucy Stone's face ... but I had a plan from the start!

I opened a hole through the felt and stuffed the inside of Lucy's head with three ovals of felt, each one cut slightly smaller than the one on which it sat.  This is a technique known as trapunto.  The word comes from the Italian language and means "to quilt".  Trapunto is a traditional stuffing technique and quite effective.

Lucy Stone's face just slightly projects away from the densely stitched surface.  I like that!

Because the Library of Congress scan from the original daguerreotype didn't give me a strong oval line, I cut a mat on my oval cutter and drew a pencil line.

Next, I fished out all sorts of beads from vintage and costume jewelry I've collected from auctions.  The beads are almost all exactly the same size but they vary slightly in shades of off-white.  I like this because they don't look perfect and new.  I strung them on button hole thread and carefully couched them onto the pencil line.  I also stitched through each one individually.  These beads are very firmly in place!

Another purchase from Bill Mishoe's auction was a vast collection of buttons.  Some were still in boxes by the gross.  At the time I bought them, I almost got rid of the gold buttons.  I couldn't imagine having a use for them.  Thank goodness I kept them!

The buttons became the spandrels surrounding the oval image.
 

Some buttons were stitched on top of others.  There are LOTS of buttons on this piece!  That's just my style!

Yesterday I was able to position the portrait into one of the two frames.  It looks wonderful!

Yet, I know that the weight of the buttons could easily pull the fabric out of shape.  It could sag over time.  To prevent this, I stitched through the acid-free foam-centered board and piece ... a lot!  No area will now be carrying too much weight.  I'm already working on the rest of the piece but will have to delay finishing it.  Why?  Well, I'm going to the Rensing Center outside of Pickens, South Carolina tomorrow.  I'll be there for a five-week art residency during which time I'll be working on a major installation.  I'll be blogging from there too.

Before I sign off with this post, however, I'd like to clarify one important thing!  I did NOT select Lucy Stone just because I found a high resolution, copyright free image of an original daguerreotype.  All the early suffragettes had such images made and most are available through the Library of Congress.  I did not select her because she was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree (though I very much like that fact!)  I selected Lucy Stone because she refused to give up her surname upon marriage and because she and her husband Henry wrote their own, egalitarian wedding vows and penned a famous protest against patriarchal laws and customs governing marriage.  Lucy Stone stood against all inequalities.  She was an abolitionist, a great public orator, and was part of the 19th-century "triumvirate" of women's suffrage and feminism along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The more I read about Lucy Stone, the more I knew I wanted to stitch her portrait more than any other suffragist's picture!

I'll blog about this piece again in July when I've returned from Pickens and can turn my attention to finishing it!  Can't wait!

Work Made at QSDS

 (Above:  Detail of Lancet Window CCXIII.  Click on any image to enlarge.)

Last week I was fortunate enough to conduct both a 5-day and a 2-day workshop on my unique melting technique while at QSDS (Quilt and Surface Design Symposium) in Columbus, Ohio.  It was a wonderful experience, especially since the everyone has 24/7 access to the classrooms on the Columbus College of Art and Design campus.  As a result, I got plenty of new work constructed, stitched and melted.  Since coming home, I finished framing them.

(Above, from left to right: Small In Boxes CCCXIX, CCCXX, and CCCXXI.  Each is approximately 14" x 10 1/2" unframed and 19" x 15" framed.  Each is $235.)

Before each session at QSDS, there's an evening for instructors to share their work or inspiration with through a Power Point presentation.  Both times I talked about Friedensreich Hundertwasser, his concepts of individuality, and the fact that my work is meant as an aerial view to an imaginary Hundertwasser city.  I shared images from my October 2009 trip to Vienna and the Hundertwasserhaus.  Everyone loved the story.  This wasn't my first trip to see Hundertwasser's building, but it was the trip for which I had images!  At the time, I was already creating my In Box series.  The trip just reinforced my love of architecture even though I had no idea that I'd still be making pieces nine years later.  Thank goodness, I still love making them!  Three more were created while in Columbus.
  

 (Above:  Four "Relics".  Each one is just $100.)

When conducting one of my HOT workshops, I never start out with the In Box series.  To make one of these pieces, participants must have at least some ability to free-motion stitch.  So instead, I start out making these "relics".  People can stitch by hand, machine, both, or neither.  The process is fool-proof and I make it a point to finish each and every demonstration.  While creating these pieces, I cut, fuse, melt grooves in the polyester velvet with a soldering iron, stitch by hand, stitch by machine, and add beads.  These little gems allow me to show various ideas without touching a participant's work.  They also help me explain that my workshop isn't suppose to add to anyone's pil of UFOs. (Unfinished objects).  By framing and selling them, I'm trying to impress people that my workshop is about making ART, not making samples or just trying out potential ideas.  I think it is important to "work like an artist" while teaching.

 (Above:  Lancet Window CCXIII. Inventory # 4296. Framed 31" x 11". $395.)

Even though I generally come away from every workshop with at least one or two "Relics", it was wonderful to return from Ohio with five pieces, including two Lancet Windows!  I had plenty of custom-picture framing to do when I got home, but at least some of it was my own!

 (Above:  Detail of Lancet Window CCXII.)

This week has been busy.  It is always busy after I'm away for a week, but this week is also hectic because I'm preparing to leave again.  On Sunday afternoon I'll be pulling into the driveway at the Rensing Center just outside Pickens, South Carolina.  This art residency program is a two-and-a-half hour drive into the rural, rolling hills near Clemson University.  I'll be there for five weeks working on a major installation, The Cocoon.  I got a South Carolina Arts Commission grant to assist with some of the costs involved and plan to blog at least once a week on the progress of this project.  I've been so excited about it ... but as Sunday approaches, I'm getting a little nervous.  This project is going to be super large and not like anything I've ever done before! 

(Above:  Lancet Window CCXII.  Inventory # 4295. Framed: 31" x 11". $395.)

I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Fridays", a site for sharing fiber artworks. 

QSDSN (Quilt and Surface Design Symposium)

(Above:  Composite of photos taken last week during HOTTER, my five-day workshop at QSDS.  Click on any image to enlarge.)

For a year I've been excited by the opportunity to teach both a two-day HOT workshop and an expanded, five-day HOTTER workshop for QSDS (Quilt and Surface Design Symposium) on the Columbus College of Art and Design campus in Ohio.  It's a really prestigious organization that advertises in national magazines and will celebrate its THIRTIETH year anniversary next year.  It's an honor to be on the faculty but it was also a "homecoming". 

(Above:  Composite photo taken during a lunch hour ... showing the spacious classroom from several angles and two examples of participants' works.)

I was born in Columbus, Ohio.  I met my husband Steve during an Ohio State football game in 1977, my second week in college.  I graduated from OSU in 1980 and got married a year later in the same little Lutheran Church in which I was baptized, a congregation still conducting German services at the time.  Steve and I lived near the Anheuser-Busch brewing facility until he finished his PhD in 1986 ... which is when we moved to South Carolina.  Since that time, we've been back to Columbus on only very rare occasions.  The last time was seven years ago.  Much has changed!

Because I never considered a studio art degree, I never thought about attending a real art school. I was quite excited to be inside such a wonderful facility ... especially as an instructor!  It was a dream-come-true!  The five-day workshop was before last weekend's two-day experience.  Whether a longer or a shorter workshop, everyone went home with multiple, finished pieces.  HOT and HOTTER explore heat-activated techniques for contemporary stitching ... and boy did we stitch!  We stitched by machine ....

... and by hand ...

... and with sequins and beads!

Of course, "heat activated" definitely means we put my vintage irons to good use.  The old models get hotter than newer ones.  They also don't turn off when idle.  The nice lady, Robin Hartmann, in the photo above has been a Facebook friend for years.  I was thrilled to finally meet her and a little intimidated to learn her past fiber experiences include costuming for Jim Henson and the Muppets as well as for the movie Shawshank Redemption.  WOW!

In addition to really HOT irons, I bring assorted soldering irons and an industrial heat gun.  We had a separate room with an exhaust fan and respirators (though for really quick "melts" some people didn't bother with the masks!)  Everything about the CCAD campus, dorms, cafeteria, security staff, and especially the QSDS staff was AMAZING!

The program really attracts a wide range of people ... from mixed media artists to both beginner and advanced art quilters.  The lady above actually teaches at the Dairy Barn in Athens, Ohio, the location where Quilt National is held.  Now that is a bit intimidating! Yet, every participant really was there to learn something and I really did have something to share, something to teach, something worthwhile no matter where along the creative path each participant was! 

Another great thing about QSDS and being in a proper art college is the fact that every classroom had temporary walls on which work could be pinned. It was really grand to see so many pieces behind each person's work place!

This participant was particularly helpful.  She's a full-time professor at CCAD!  Her work was amazing and we had several great conversations about our distinctly different approaches to fiber arts.  She's usually working on a computer, designing fabric and creating accessories using laser printing!

I was also honored to have one nice woman stay with me for all seven days!  She took the five-day workshop and continued as an "independent student" during the two-day event! 

On the first day of the two-day workshop, one of my vintage irons ceased to operate.  Sadly (as it has been the one I've been using in my studio at home), I threw it in the garbage.  I didn't know that Diane Herbort, one of the hard-working QSDS staffers, fished it out and turned it into a hilarious piece of artwork on its own pedestal in the exhibition space for instructors' works.

(Above: The Treachery of Images also known as "Ceci n'est pas une pipe.", French for "This is not a pipe" by René Magritte.)

On the face of the "dead" iron, Diane carefully wrote "Rest in Peace", referencing my Grave Rubbing Art Quilt series and continuing fascination with epitaphs. For the label, she referenced  René Magritte's 1928-29 famous painting that includes the words "This is not a pipe" in French.  René Magritte said, "The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture 'This is a pipe', I'd have been lying!"

Diane titled the work:  Ce N'est Pas Un Fer a Repasser (This Is Not an Iron). 

Even more hilarious is the fact that another QSDS staff person wanted to keep the altered iron.  So, the label sported a red dot!

(Above:  Diane Herbort and E nest Pas Un Fer a Repasser.)

The week ended very, very well too.  Steve managed to find an $80 one-way airline ticket late on Friday night.  He visited all our college haunts, surprised old friends, took me to dinner one night, helped me load the class equipment and supplies into our cargo van, and drove me back to South Carolina.
 

As the first weekend was also Memorial Day, I went to Greenlawn Cemetery on my way into town and left three little wrapped wooden thread spools on my grandparents' grave.

The three little spools feature thumbnail reproductions from Grandma's photos albums.  I thought much about their lives as immigrants to the USA after WWII, German Village, and the fact that I'm already on next year's roster for QSDS 2019 for a five-day workshop called "Second Life", an experience that focuses on personal legacy and turning antique and vintage textiles into new expressions of memory that might speak to coming generations.  Can't wait to return!