Protest

Anyone who knows me well, knows how unhappy I am with our present president. I stopped watching CNN because I usually would end up with knots in my stomach listening to the outrageous things he had said. Some nights I couldn't fall asleep. And it wasn't CNN making up Fake News about him. These were videos of him speaking, usually sounding like a fifth grade playground bully. He has sided with our enemies like Putin and Kim Jong Un. He has alienated our long time allies. He has taken away regulations that were put there to help with the climate crisis that we are in. But then he thinks that's all a plot against him and big business. He daily tweets things that are insulting and demeaning to anyone who doesn't totally agree with him. He exaggerates and lies about everything. I could go on and on but then I just make myself more upset.

I should also say that I have never been political before. I am neither Democrat nor Republican, but this last election pushed me over the edge.

I did make one political protest quilt, Presidential Fabrications.  I felt so good making it and it went to a good home. I had no intention of selling it, but someone fell in love with it and it is now proudly hanging in her home.

Sooooo, when I heard about this project started by artist, Diana Weymar, I knew I wanted to participate. She started embroidering Donald Trump's most outrageous quotes onto vintage fabric. Now it is a constantly growing textile protest immortalizing the president's words in stitching. It is called "Tiny Pricks Project" (a wonderful double entendre) and you can read all about it here, and at  the Tiny Pricks Project website , and in this article in the New Yorker.

I didn't think that I had any vintage fabric and then I remembered a stash of old handkerchiefs tucked away in the back of a drawer. I had several to choose from and picked this one with crocheted lace. I had many false starts with the embroidering before I settled on using one strand of #5 perle cotton. I am not happy about the way you can see my thread carry-overs on the front and I think I will use a different thread on the next one. Yes, there will be another, a quote directly from his Twitter a couple of days ago. Stay tuned. I hope to have it done by next week.

If you share my political views, please participate. She hopes to have 2,020 by 2020.

I will be linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

Fun Collage

I had fun using some new-to-me techniques, namely alcohol inks on Yupo Paper. It is actually a synthetic paper that works perfectly with these inks because it is nonabsorbent and you can really play with moving the inks around to form new patterns. The hard part is knowing when to stop. There are numerous videos on YouTube.

One of my fiber groups, FANE, made several of these 4" x 12" boards. I can't remember what the boards are called, but they are a hard smooth surface on a wooden frame. Perfect for gluing things down.  I was away away in the winter when they were being purchased so at the last meeting when I saw the cool things people were doing I took one board home. Now I wish I had taken more.We could do anything we wanted and some people used fabric, but mine is all paper, metal, and buttons. I should have shown you the two different Yupo papers I used before I cut them up. They are both in shades of blue and green, but one is a denser pattern than the other. I also used some pieces of metal that I had embossed on my embossing machine and then treated with alcohol inks. I used sections of a tree die cut and some buttons from my stash. Click on the picture for a bigger view.

Below are three other Yupo papers in different colors and patterns. I'm hoping that they will find a way into my cards or other collages. 

The sheets that I purchased are 5" x 7", but it comes in several sizes. It is rather pricey, so from now on I will use one of those great 50% off coupons from Michael's.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. 

Radiant

When my order from Spoonflower arrived last week I was delighted with the true color. It is exactly like the image I sent them. I enjoyed quilting with various colored threads to match the fabric. This was done for my Fiberworks monthly word challenge, this time Radiant. I showed my smaller version last week, a 4 x 6 piece that is all hand embroidered.

You can't tell from this photo, but hung now on my design wall it almost seems three dimensional. It just leaps off the wall. It is also a tad brighter than this photo.

I will be putting both of my pieces into our exhibit, Inspiration-Exploration, which will be hung at the end of September. I like my Escargot Begonia piece, shown last week,  because it is interesting and different and I like the Hibiscus for the vibrant colors. Now I have to attach each of them to a 30 x 30 black canvas, which will be painted first with black gesso since we could not find that size canvas in black. All quilts in the show will be displayed on said canvases. We did this last year and it gave a nice cohesive look to the show. More about the show when we get closer to it.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.

Pleasant Surprise

I have been a member of SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) for many years and a JAM (Juried Artist Member) of same group for several years. One of the perks of being a JAM member used to be that you would have one full page of a quilt of your choosing in the annual Portfolio book. It was a lovely, large soft covered book that was distributed to galleries and museums and was available for purchase. I was so pleased to be in several issues.

A few years ago the powers that be decided to discontinue the annual Portfolio and replace it with Art Quilt Quarterly. As the name suggests it is a magazine that comes out four times a year. It is also distributed to galleries and museums and can also be acquired by subscription. I was in issue 14 with my political statement quilt, Presidential Fabrications. 

Issue 16 arrived in the mail yesterday and as I was browsing through I was thinking of which quilt I would enter for the next issue. Much to my surprise my quilt, All the News That's Fit To Print was on page 91. I didn't think I was eligible so soon, but apparently I was wrong. 

This quilt was made for an exhibit put on by my FiberWorks group. I copied several pages of the local newspaper onto fabric and then cut it up and sewed it with fine line piecing. I got most of the newspaper headings online and tried to have a wide variety. It has been a favorite piece of mine, so I am glad that it is "out there". The red in the quilt is actually a bright red, not as dark as shown in picture. The whole quilt reads a little darker than it is in person.

Being in the Portfolio and the Quarterly have been instrumental in my participation in an invitational show at an important museum and being asked to enter another prestigious show. 

In addition to the Portfolio section of the magazine there are several interesting articles and spotlights on different artists in the art quilt world. You can buy it at Barnes and Nobles, but I don't think they carry too many issues or you can buy it online or subscribe at the SAQA website, given in the first paragraph.