Wordless Wednesday

Happy Halloween!

Storm King Art Center, Part 2

Yesterday I blogged about some of the sculptures inside the building and today I will show you some of what Storm King is most famous for, their huge outdoor works of art.

This one is right outside of the building and I was immediately reminded of The Bean in Chicago's Millennium Park and sure enough it is by the same artist, Anish Kapoor.  You see yourself and your surroundings upside down because of curve of the metal.

One of several Calder's stabiles

Here you can get a sense of the scale.

Free Ride Home by Kenneth Snelson has only three legs on the ground, yet is perfectly balanced.

It was a very hazy day, but the first sculpture by Menashe Kadishman in the foreground is one large rectangular cube with a smaller one suspended from it, amazing when you consider the size of it. It is fittingly titled "Suspended"

I love the way the color of this work is matched by the color of the tree. I think it's by Alexander Liberman.

Storm King Art Center

 Today I took a trip with eleven other Woman Club members to the Storm King Art Center in the beautiful Hudson Highlands of New York State.  There are over 500 acres of rolling hills, meadows, and woodlands that provide a background for over 100 post World War 11 sculptures by internationally famous artists.  There is also a small indoor gallery with changing exhibits. I will show you just a few of those today.

None of us could figure this one out.  There is  a small iron at the end of the board.  What do you think it's all about? Sorry that I didn't write down the artist or title.

 The artist, Peter Coffin, collected snap shots of rainbows and combined them to form this spiral.

This is one of the two Alyson Shotz's sculptures made of acrylic in this room with a white floor.  You had to take your shoes off to go inside and walk around the sculptures.  They appeared to change colors according to the light and reflections.

This room was at the end of a long hall with room running off either side.  This seemed to be framed by the doorways.  It was hard to photograph.

Peter Coffin's Untitled (Yellow Outline)  perfectly framed the landscape.


Please come back tomorrow for outdoor sculptures.

New Project, part 2

Here is the second piece of fabric that I drew at the FANE meeting. Fran painted her piece a solid bright green.  I found it to be challenging.  I tried stenciling with Shiva paint sticks and they didn't show enough, I tried using paint on the stencils and that looked messy.  I tried spraying, also messy.

So this was my solution.  I drew circles on the cloth with a white chalk pencil and then painted dots all around each circle using a pencil eraser.

And look at the lovely surprise when I lifted the cloth. What was I thinking?  I should have put down a plastic drop cloth. Now I have these circles as a permanent reminder of this project.  And no, they don't wash off.  

Autumn Splendor

I took advantage of this scintillating fall day to do some garden cleanup, not my favorite job.  I do a lot of container gardening and now they are mostly emptied with just a few remaining.  We had a frost a few days ago and it got a lot of the plants, others survived. The weather has been a roller coaster.  A few days ago I wore long johns, a winter coat, mittens and earmuffs on my morning walk. Today I had on capris and a t-shirt.  Crazy! I even ate lunch out on my deck today, not too many more days to be able to do that.

These beauties are from a new hydrangea I planted last year to replace a big overgrown one.  I wanted something that wouldn't get very big and this one is perfect. I wish I had saved the tag so that I could tell you the variety.  Although the plant is small it was covered all summer with luscious mauvey pink blooms.  Now they have turned this glorious russet red,with undertones of pale green. The picture does not do it justice, they are much deeper in person.

I was hoping to get to the second piece of the project I wrote about yesterday, but this piece is turning out to be much more challenging.  Everything I've tried so far has been disastrous. I will post it when I'm through.

New Project

Last night at one of my art quilt groups, FANE, we started a new surface design round robin.  Everyone was to bring one half yard of white fabric to which they had done some sort of all-over surface design. At the meeting they were cut in half to make fat quarters, put in a bag and we each drew out two pieces to take home and add another layer of surface design. My contribution was piece of turquoise pole scrunched shibori, which I talked about here.

One of the pieces I drew was Barbara's.  She had used some old liquid dyes in vivid colors, but because of their age they came out soft and subtle.  I think it's so pretty.

I had purchased this stencil last spring at a quilt show and still hadn't used it, but this seemed to be the perfect piece for it.

I used Shiva paint sticks in bronze and teal, placing the small squares in the center. I think I kept the integrity of the original piece while adding some interest.

At the next meeting each of the two pieces we do will be cut in half again and put in the bag again,so the final piece will have three layers. I won't be here for the next meeting, so I'm doing mine early so that I can give it to another member to hand in.  I hope to get the other piece done tomorrow, so please check back.

So there, Carole, a new post.  I hope you're satisfied.

Christmas? Already?

Well, not really, but I did decorate a tree yesterday.  It was for the Festival of Trees in November which will feature over 100 decorated trees. These will be purchased to benefit Ann's Place which provides services without charge to those touched by cancer.  

You may know that I love to decorate for the holidays, especially Christmas. In my previous home I used to put up three trees, each with a different theme. My kitchen had a big bay window with a window seat, the perfect spot for a small tree. Alas, no room for it in this house.  Now I only do two trees. My kitchen tree was decorated all with white geese of many different styles--china, wood, fabric, femo clay, glass, etc.  Geese were very popular back in the 80's when I started this one.  These ornaments have been sitting in a box for 11 years and I thought it was time that they found a new home. So I purchased a three foot pre-lit tree from the festival organizers and went to work.

Remember that all pictures are clickable for a bigger view.

We had to give our tree a name. Mine is "Goosey, Goosey Gander" and is in memory of my late husband who loved Christmas and died from cancer in December 2000.

This is photographed on the floor, so it looks out of proportion. It is only three feet tall and meant to go on a table.  Geese were so popular that I even had Christmas fabric with geese to make a tree skirt and I found a cute figurine of white geese in a row wearing red bows to go at the base of the tree.

I made the angel for the top. She used to go on a four foot tree and she's a little big for this tree, but I think that she's so cute that I had to use her anyway.  Don't you love those Princess Leia braids?

Geese that sing, wear holly wreaths and top hats.

A little farm boy tending his goose

This is one of my favorites. He's fine china or maybe even porcelain. He has a slightly iridescent glaze.

There has to be a Santa goose

The goose on the left wears a down vest and has a Christmas package tucked under his wing. The goose in the wagon with wheels and handle that move.

I will be away for the delivery date, so I had to make mine early and get it delivered this week.  All the ornaments are wired on to make for easier transit.  Whoever buys it has to take it home.

Postcards for Pets

Pokey Bolton, former editor of Quilting Arts Magazine and now chief creative officer of IQA in Houston, TX, recently asked for postcards to raise money for a no-kill animal shelter in Houston.  Apparently they are overrun with pets because of recent natural disasters. You can read about it on her blog here.  The fabric postcards will be for sale for $20 each. I like to make postcards and have done quite a few over the years.  Remember to click on any picture for a bigger view of all.

Drawing is not my strong point so I decided to get some novelty fabrics. I bought these quarter yards and then fussy-cut one animal from each one.  I had some landscapey type fabric in my stash and fused an animal to a background.

Then I machine quilted some grass and flowers on each one, matching the flowers to the animal.  I used Jeans Stitch thread which is very heavy and gives the impression of hand-made French knots. 

I think that this one is my favorite.  I like the incongruity of the tough-guy bulldog sitting in a field of pink and lavender flowers.

I won't be going to Houston this year and will not have a quilt there, either, so this way a little bit of me will be at the show.

Finished Quilting

A few posts ago I asked for advice for how to quilt this piece that I had started in a Jan Myers-Newbury workshop.   It is made of Itajime blocks, a form of shibori that is folded, clamped and dyed.  Most suggestion were to keep it very simple, just quilting on the seam lines and the vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines in the motifs. It did that, but it just wasn't enough.  The quilt looked saggy, baggy, and so not to my liking.  So I did free-motion machine quilting in each design, an innie-outie, following the shape in each design. I am pleased with the results and got a big thumbs up from my quilt group today at our weekly meeting. 

I will bind it the same soft black that was used for the dyeing, which I will have to order since I ran out of that color. 

Please click on any picture for a bigger view of all.

Finished quilt without the binding
56" w x 45" h

Detail

Detail