Bennington Art Guild Gallery opening

The opening at the Gayle Garrison Gallery in the Bennington Arts Guild gallery on Friday night was wonderful! It was hot outside, and very warm inside, both from the weather and the friendly faces who came to support me and Josh Primmer. We had lots of compliments about how well Josh's pottery and my art quilts made for a cohesive exhibit. Josh and I both agreed that Ceil Petrucelli had a good idea when she invited us to exhibit together.

I love hearing what people say about my work, because they see things that I don't and it's always interesting to hear how it is viewed. "Evocative" was a word I heard from several people, and I liked that. The exhibit will be up until July 29, so if you're in the area, please stop by. There are lots of good restaurants in Bennington, and a great bakery around the corner from the gallery. Tempt you yet?

Bennington Arts Guild Gallery exhibit

I was honored to be invited to have an exhibit at the Bennington Arts Guild Gallery. The opening is this Friday, July 5, 2013 from 5 - 8 pm, and I will share the space with Joshua Primmer, a ceramics artist from Bennington, VT.

I've invited lots of friends and am hoping many will come and make it a party. The exhibit will be up until July 29 so there is plenty of time to see it if you can't make the opening. Bennington is a great little town to wander around and enjoy on a summer day.

Here's a sneak peak at a couple of the art quilts that will be exhibited:

detail of "Time Heals"

detail of "Before/After"

Dyeing to Discharge workshop by Carol Soderlund

Carol Soderlund teaches the best dyeing workshops in my not so humble opinion.  I was able to take her "Dyeing to Discharge" workshop at PRO Chemical and Dye in Fall River,  Massachusetts. I had been interested in learning discharge techniques but was concerned about the health affects. Carol is very knowledgeable about toxic affects, and emphasizes safety in every lesson.
We learned to discharge with bleach, thiox and deColourant, and to always wear a respirator while working with either chemical - whether inside or outside. With bleach, we wore masks while we were leaning over the buckets.  Bleach is always rinsed in water, and then an Anti-chlor solution rinse after that to stop the bleach from eating away at the fabric. When ironing thiox or DeColourant to discharge we always wore masks. Thickened Thiox and thiox with dye added (illumination) were used, and the effects were so inspiring!

Watching the bleach discharge and in anticipation of removing it at the right time.

Carol had us test about 12 colors of dyes and 6 blacks, and we sampled 27 different commercial fabrics for discharge. Our class produced some wonderful fabric by the end of the week. I'm posting a few photo's from the class. If you'd like to learn Discharging techniques, Carol is a thorough, organized and generous teacher, and sweet on top of all that! And PRO Chemical is an excellent place to take dye classes. It's what they do, and there is always an expert on the premises if there are any questions that the workshop instructor can't answer.


We had a great group of students who made lots of fabric. Here's some of our work pinned up for everyone to enjoy.

My fabrics

Fabulous Fabric and Fiber exhibit

The organizers of the Fabulous Fabric and Fiber show in New Marlborough invited area artists to enter work to be exhibited in the New Marlborough Village Meeting House Gallery. My work was accepted and I'm excited to be a part of a local exhibit and to meet more artists from the Berkshires. The opening is this Friday, June 14, from 5-7 pm. There will be the usual delicious offerings and wine, and a chance to see some very diverse fiber art, including art quilts, baskets, clothing and wonderful needlepoint.

My thanks to Pamela Johnson, another art quilter and SAQA member who made me aware of the show. We're going to enjoy the opening with our husbands, and then dinner afterwards at Pam's house. If I'm lucky, there will be enough daylight to see Pam's extensive garden.

The gallery is open on Friday, Saturday and Sundays from 11-4. It would be great to have some friends there to share the excitement!

Patty Hawkins' words of wisdom

Patty Hawkins' session on her artistic path was one of the break out sessions at the SAQA conference. Patty was full of energy and enthusiasm as she spoke about her "Art Odyssey". She gave some very good information as well as making us laugh, ooh and ahh.

Patty is a kind and generous woman. She gave us lots of information about how she worked. She emphasized that welcoming any newcomer to the art quilt community was important. Although she had been working in water color for 15 years, when she found art quilts, she knew that was how she wanted to work in the future. Patty said that when her work was first accepted to Quilt National and the American Craft Museum, it gave her a lot of confidence in her work.

Patty's work has been accepted into Quilt National seven times, and three times into Quilt Visions. Anyone who is that successful is full of experience and good methods!


The first thing she recommended for advice on design was to "Simplify, Exaggerate and Repeat". If you look at her work you can see exactly how she does that to make work rich in depth and feeling. She creates her fabrics using screenprinting, dye and shibori methods. Her aspen trees are repeated in different sizes, and the leaves and other elements are also simple, but repeated to great affect. The Red Tori Gates piece uses the red gate, repeated over and over in a simple, but striking composition.  Patty was inspired to make a series of quilts after her visit to Japan. She was awarded the trip when she won the Quilts Japan prize in 2006 from Quilt Visions.

Patty recommended that the artist play to a theme that you are passionate about, and listen to others suggestions. We've all heard suggestions from others and thought they weren't useful. Patty said she might not like what she hears, but she tries them out anyway, and finds her friends are often right, and the piece is improved through their feedback.

Putting lights and darks next to each other was another tip she gave, as well as adding a tiny bit of complementary color to lead the eye around the composition. Patty does fused collages, and often uses tulle over parts of them. Sometimes she sews shapes on the tulle, and then cuts some of them out, creating a negative shape.

After having an hour with Patty, I would love to take a workshop with her. She is so talented, friendly and giving. Please visit her website and enjoy her work!

Enjoying time with SAQA colleagues

The SAQA conference in Santa Fe was jam packed with information, inspiration, networking and good times. This year there were 3 break out sessions, with enough time between the sessions to network, and catch up with friends. We had a banquet with a key note speaker, a cocktail party with a silent auction, and lots of meals and laughs.

The conference is a high light of every year for me. I don't live near many SAQA members, so I don't get an intense experience on a monthly basis. Attending the conference helps me feel I'm with people who love what I love - and they also happen to be very friendly and kind to each other.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to post about some of the things I learned and/or experienced at the conference in Santa Fe. For now, I'd like to say thank you to the organizers! Here's a photo that shows some of them:

L-R Bill Reker (SAQA shipping expert), Deb Cashatt (a huge volunteer and organizer of the auction at the conference), Kris Sazaki (vice president of SAQA and a Pixelady with Deb Cashatt), Martha Sielman (executive director and writer), Sandra Sider (behind Martha and present President of SAQA), Mary Pal (special exhibitions coordinator), Leni Wiener (exhibition committee chair) and Linda Beach (board member). Desiree Vaughn isn't it the photo, but she was the main conference organizer and had everything running smoothly.

The keynote speaker for the banquet on Saturday night was Geoffrey Gorman. He was smart, knowledgable and funny. Just the right mix of quirk and sincerity. He makes wonderful animals out of found objects and has a lot of experience in the art world. Geoffrey has been an artist, artist representative and had many other roles in and out of the art world. One of the things he said that stayed with me was "Our lives are transforming all the time, and so is our work". A good reminder that we don't have to keep producing the same thing - our art can grow and change as we do.

He described himself as an aggressive marketer of his own work, and always expresses to potential collectors that he's doing the best work he's ever done. He recommended that we know our work, its premise, and our market.

Geoffrey has some video's on YouTube that give you a quick look at his work, and give a sense of his humor and perspective on life. Take a look when you get a chance - his animals are full of life.

His work is in 6 galleries around the country, including the Jane Sauer Gallery in Santa Fe. Judith Content, one of my favorite fiber artists also has an exhibit there, and spoke to us on Saturday afternoon. I'll save that for another post!

First acceptance of 2013!

I wanted to start 2013 off with lots of energy and plans so I've entered 3 exhibits in the past two months. I'm still waiting to hear from one, but did have 2 quilts accepted to the Connecticut SAQA region show "Local Color". The show will premiere on May 4, 2013 at the Western CT State University, and then travel to at least 2 other venues. I'm honored to be a part of this show because the CT region has some excellent art quilters, so I'm sure it will be a beautiful show.

Although I live in Massachusetts, Connecticut is my second region, and I try to attend a meeting at least once a year. It's a very active SAQA group with informative meetings and friendly artists.

Blowin' Glass c.2013

Blowin' Glass is one of the quilts that was accepted. It is made of fabric that I made using shibori techniques. They reminded me of blown glass and so I arranged them as if they were a still life on a table.

Blowin' Glass detail c.2013

The other piece that was accepted is "Melting", which premiered at the Taiwan International Quilt show last year. You can see it here. I'm grateful that I was invited to enter this juried show, and look forward to going to see the exhibit in May. Thanks to the organizers and the SAQA CT reps -
Kate Themel, Diane Wright and Catherine Whall Smith, for all their hard work!