Back in early 2010, Kathy, Kate, Deborah and I started talking about having another show.  Since we had a fun time with the five-by-five challenge (see blogpost here), we decided to do another special set of quilts for this show.   Here are the four of us in front of the twelve  pieces.

"Letters" quilts and the four Frayed Edges

Using the wonderful press release that Deborah wrote as my start, here’s what I wrote to accompany the exhibit:

Letters

The Frayed Edges Challenge, 2011

For our first group show in 2006, also held here in the Picker Room, we worked on a group challenge which was a great success, so we decided to try it again.  This time, we chose the theme Letters, to celebrate the written word, our shows in the Camden Public Library, and our love of letters which all of us have used (some more than others) regularly in our art quilts. 

The centerpiece of the collection is a set of four triptychs designed especially for this exhibit. Each artist created two small art quilts with a third larger piece in the center. The artists embraced the theme “Letters” in many different ways. Kate, the Bowdoinham town librarian, used graphic novels (cartoon-books) as her inspiration, while Kate Daniels was inspired  by the children’s book Tillie Lays an Egg (and received the permission of the author to use the name and image inspiration).  Deborah explored images of letters in envelopes and words on cloth.  Sarah’s more subtle approach uses words as shadows on the table and chairs and in the quilting to explore the idea of conversations.

We opted for a single larger art quilt about 36 inches wide but of varying height to permit design flexibility, and two 12×12 inch squares on either side. The size of the smaller pieces were inspired by Deborah’s work and participation in a very successful group, Twelve by Twelve, (blog: http://twelveby12.blogspot.com/)  Their collection of quilts was published in a book this spring.  A display copy of that book is on the glass case by the doors, along with a non-circulating copy of Sarah’s book ThreadWork Unraveled and a non-circulating copy of Creative Quilting with Beads, which features projects by all four of us. 

And a photo of the four sets without us in the way (click to see larger):

The Letters Challenge

Green House Mantra by Deborah Boschert

DeborahsStudio.com

Green House Mantra by Deborah Boschert--click to see larger

To fully explore the theme “letters” for this triptych, I wanted to include obvious, but symbolic images. This led me to the idea of letters written to loved ones and envelopes received in the mail. There is something so personal and expressive about this kind of communication. I created a sheer envelope with just the idea of a letter inside. The collage of fabrics and shapes leading up to the house in the center piece might represent a porch or doorstep. There could be packages waiting or a message whispered through the windows.

I also love exploring letters, words, stories, voices and ideas in books. Tiny books are nestled in the leaves of the tall plants on the side pieces of the triptych. It’s as if the leaves are unfurling a message of growth. Several of the images, techniques and motifs in this triptych are regular parts of my artistic lexicon. I return to them again and again like a mantra. I love the repetition of stitching tiny wild flowers, cutting stone shapes, stamping painted circles and writing on fabric. The house shape acts as a foundation for these techniques and images. In the same way, a home provides a foundation for many other aspects of life.

Splash*Kaboom*Pow by Kate Cutko

Splash*Kaboom*Pow by Kate Cutko--click to see larger

barnofopportunity.blogspot.com

The “Letters” theme had me thinking immediately of individual letters as graphic elements, each letter having its own negative and positive space.  In the world of graphic novels (comics) letters often stand alone as strong graphic elements.  While I do not pretend to be a huge fan of graphic novels, as I librarian I see that this genre draws in readers of all types.   I do love to look at the art in the pages of graphic novels.  In these 3 pieces I went with classic comic book action words, and direct, bold color so that the letters could be as powerful as their shape and their meaning. In the center piece I included a small glimpse into the artwork of Tin Tin, Zita the Spacegirl, and Jellaby.

Conversations by Sarah Ann Smith

Conversations by Sarah Ann Smith -- click to see larger

you’re here at my link!

Letters make words make conversations.  These pieces were inspired by the stunning architecture of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where there are conversations between buildings and sky, architecture and art, friends and sisters, landscape and architecture, sea and sky and stone and seabreeze, and in my case, artist and cloth, cloth and thread, friends and art. 

I began with photos from my visit, words to recall that day, white cloth and dyes to create the colors of the sky and stone and wood and glass.  The words include those specific to that day:

Sea breeze sister friend Leonardo dragon teaching aching feet dragons lunch bougainvillea rough smooth stone water sound shadows…

And words about art and design:

Line shape form function rhythm repetition harmony contrast unity space ….

Tillie by Kathy Daniels

Tille by Kathy Daniels -- click to see larger

Studiointhewoods.blogspot.com

Which came first, the chicken…or the letters? In this case, it was the chicken, observed at a country fair and stored in memory until called forward and committed to fabric and stitch. As she hung on the design wall, a chance statement from my 6-year-old granddaughter turned her into what she is today: “Nana, you’re making Tillie!”  Tillie is a chicken from our favorite book at the time, Tillie Lays an Egg, by New Hampshire author Terry Golson.

Letters, printed and written, are showing up more often as design elements in fabric art as well as other mediums. They can stand alone, as Tillie does, BOLDLY, or can be part of a story as the smaller 12×12 side pieces attempt to portray. With Tillie, there’s no guesswork in who she is and what she’s about!

In a while, I’ll share the process of making my series. Stay tuned!

The fun began when Deborah arrived in Hope, Maine, at my house to spend the night on July 8th.  We had a WONDERFUL visit, during which I forgot to take pictures~!  In my last post about the visit, I shared with you the Coastal Quilters meeting and Artists’ Reception.  Then we got to relax!  Kathy and her husband are moving down to the coast and will be building a house in the coming months. For  a short while, they are staying  in Camden, and her hubby graciously volunteered to stay with a family member so we could have a girls-get-together-sleepover and yakking at their rental.  After the reception, we went to Kathy’s and decided to start things right….

When we got together a couple years ago, near Kate's, she fixed us mojitos and we sipped them under the pines, near the shores of Merrymeeting Bay (which has to have one of the coolest names in all of geography), with a bald eagle in the branches above us. We decided that we needed to do the mojitos again, so after the Artists' Reception, we decamped to Kathy's rental house...

Kate has mastered these drinks, and yes…we WERE all able to walk to dinner at Long Grain (an INCREDIBLE pan-Asian, Thai-inspired small restaurant in Camden..it opened almost a year ago, is frequently so full they have to turn diners away, and they don’t need more than the computer printed paper in the window…no sign…we all know where it is!).  Before dinner, though, we sat on the back porch and talked and took photos:

Me taking a picture of Deborah taking a picture

and

Kathy taking a picture of Deborah

and

Deborah looking happy

and

Kate with the perfect mojito looking happy

and

Kathy looking happy (and I was behind the camera looking happy)

and

Kate looking happy and laughing....ya think we were are having fun?????

In the spirit of “let someone else cook” we also ate breakfast out…at the Bagel Cafe.  I think we STILL look happy!

Bagels for breakfast!

Then we packed up from Kathy’s and headed west…just a little ways West….

On Sunday, after breakfast, we convoyed nine miles west to my house, where it was a glorious Maine summer's day. I had bought a Jacquard Indigo kit, and we mucked about with cloth and an indigo vat!

I later draped mine over a pine tree by the deck:

My indigo pieces on the nearby pine; a few of them washed out more than I had hoped, but I'll figure it out eventually

and

a late lunch....notice the circle necklaces? Those were a thoughtful gift made by Deborah for being "in her circle of friends." LOVELY!

We wrapped up the day with sandwiches from the grill press.  I discovered this AWESOME recipe in Daniel Leader’s Panini cookbook (here) that calls for goat cheese with chopped basil, marinated artichoke hearts (Kathy gets to eat the extra bits), sundried tomatoes (I made some using his other recipe but mistakenly put the oven to timer, not cook-time, so when the oven should have turned off at 1 a.m. it kept baking  until I woke up at 6 and realized what I had done…luckily nothing smoked, but they did look more than a bit black and dead! so we had to use from the jar!), and–my addition–caramelized onions.  I LOVE the sweet addition of the onions to the salty tang and tartness of the other ingredients.

After that Kathy headed home (with our HUGE thanks to her hubby for making the sleepover possible), Deborah followed Kate to her house an hour south, and I collapsed (briefly)!  I was so fried with stress from Mama’s passing and all the other STUFF, that I don’t know how I made it except that it was so wonderful to be together.  Nothing like being with friends and like-minded souls who love art and playing with cloth and color and having fun together!

WOW… what a whirlwind it has been, and what a lot of fun we had.

"Letters" quilts and the four Frayed Edges at the Picker Room, Camden Public Library, on July 9, 2011

Deborah Boschert, our “expat” member now living near Annapolis, Maryland (for those of you not in the US, that is near Washington, DC) flew up for the weekend to visit, so Deborah, Kathy Daniels, Kate Cutko and I had a glorious weekend.  The reason for the gathering was our second show (the first was in 2007, and is here and here and here) at the Picker Room of the Camden Public Library.  On July 1, Kate drove over an hour from her home to help me hang the show, and was I ever grateful for the help!  A week later, Deborah arrived and spent the night with me in Hope.  The next day, July 8, we gave a program on the show for the Coastal Quilters in the morning:

Deborah Boschert talks about her "long and skinny" piece which hangs over the glass display case in the Camden Public Library's Picker room; this is a first for the Coastal Quilters--rather than meet in the usual Lions' Club location, we met "on-site" in the library! Thanks to all who were able to come!

We had a short break on a glorious summer’s day , minus Kate who had to work her morning  job as Bowdoinham town librarian, and ate on the back deck at Marriner’s for lunch…astonishingly, we all look good in this photo! Clearly we are happy to be together!

 

Lunch at Marriner's, on the back deck over the Falls. L to R: Deborah Boschert, Kate (Kathy) Daniels, and me

Kate arrived in time for our 2-4 p.m. Artists’ Reception, which was well attended—I expect that is was almost all Kathy’s friends and relatives, and we so appreciate their coming!

Viewers at the Artists' Reception looking at our Letters pieces

Eighteen months ago, we starting noodling about the idea of a group challenge/themed pieces that would be new for the show.  I’ll blog more about the pieces in a later post, but the photo at the top of the post shows all the 12 pieces.  We each made two 12 x 12 inch pieces (inspired by Deborah’s participation in the Twelve by Twelve project, here) and a center piece that was 36 (or thereabouts) inches wide and anywhere between 16 to 42 inches tall.  I was inspired by the quilt exhibit by tACTile, a group of quilters from the Australia Capitol Territory (ACT), which you can see here.  But we decided since other groups have taken the idea of a line running through all the pieces, to not do that for our series.  Our theme was “Letters,” which we thought was a good one for a show in the Library and because each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, has used letters or words on our quilts.

At one point, Joshua drifted through (to see if I’d take some stuff home for  him, actually), but he kindly consented to let me take his picture with the portrait of him…he has grown up a bit!

Joshua playing air guitar in front of the quilt of Joshua playing guitar... I think I'm glad I didn't have to quilt the beard that he has had since shortly after the photos I took for the quilt! And isn't that a cool lion on his t-shirt?

We had lots of thoughtful visitors:

Kate chats with a gentleman who really seemed to enjoy the show and spent lots of time looking at the pieces.

and

Kate chatting with the architect, Deborah at the far end of the table, Kathy speaking with the artist who did the recent show with the colorful goldfish paintings

and

Deborah's three pieces on the left, Paul (hubby!) looking at Kate's graphic novel-inspired pieces

and

More of Kath's friends and family, plus a really nice couple who are part-time Maine residents and drove an hour just to come up for the show...way cool!

and

Kate and Deborah looking at the room and show

and

"Letters" quilts and the four Frayed Edges. We are standing in the same order as our quilts: Deborah's inspired by letters home, Kate's graphic novel-inspired pieces which will find a home at her Bowdoinham Library, me with pieces inspired by the Getty Museum, and Kathy's chicken who became Tillie of Tillie Lays an Egg (with permission of the author)

and that’s it for the day….  I’ll post again about the Frayed Edges FUN as well as our Letters Quilts.  Of course, I think I had better go take good pictures of the quilts…would make blogging about them a lot easier, eh?  That’s it for today…stay tuned!

No…I have not followed Mama into the great beyond, but instead have been busier than ever (what else is new?).  I am seriously looking forward to some down time in August, but in the meantime had to

• help hang and launch our Frayed Edges mini-group show at the Camden Public Library (will blog about that in a day or two I hope),
• with my fellow Frayed Edges, be the program for the monthly Coastal Quilters meeting and do the artists’ reception at the library
• complete my piece for the local Coastal Quilters Chapter Challenge and then (as project coordinator)
• make some new black drapes and
• pin all the quilts, print the photos, make the tags, etc., in time to deliver next weekend for Maine Quilts (which happens the last weekend in July),
• get son Eli off to a 2-week trip to Australia (SOB… wish I were there but elated as he comes home tonight),
• help get Joshua ready to move into his first-ever-on-his-own apartment (with girlfriend) in town,
• take care of the settling of Mama’s affairs,
• prepare things for teaching in Nebraska at QuiltNebraska 2011 (including ordering supplies and shipping boxes to arrive in time) and
• attempt not to implode!

The Coastal Quilters Grocery Challenge...in a nutshell, pick a food or beverage product, use at least 4 colors and at least one element from the packaging as a motif in your 20.5 by 20.5 inch quilt (since someone will ask, mine is the blue one, top-right)

So as a teaser, I will share with you the photo of the two panels of The Grocery Challenge, an idea I dreamed up for the Coastal Quilters.  The photo above is of the twelve pieces…astonishingly all 12 of the folks who signed up got their quilts done (mine was one of the last few done…no surprise there).   Soon I’ll share more about each of the 12 quilts, the grocery products from which we drew inspiration, and how.   But before that I need to tell you about our group show.  I can’t believe (well….yes, I can) that I managed to not even post a single word here before the show opened on July 1.  So if you’re in or near Camden, Maine, come back here in a couple days or click here to see a bit more.

This maybe should have been titled Making Journals.  See Kate bought this wonderful gizzie, the Bind-It-All,  that punches holes to make spiral bound notebooks!   After we shared and yakked and ate (see here), Kate brought out her treasure:

Kate set things out for us on her kitchen counter.  From left to right you can see the covers (cut off the books for re-use), paper, Paper chopper (to cut the paper to the size to fit the covers), the pink gizzie (correctly it is called a Bind-It-All by Zutter; click on the previous link to see it on Amazon or here to see it on the Zutter website–Kate said she orders direct from Zutter), and…to the right of the handle of the paper-chopper, some “combs” to make the spiral bindings (use tin snips to cut to the desired length).

Kate's set up with journal-book-maker, paper chopper and supplies

There are registration marks so when you place your book cover (in this case a recycled cover from a Readers’ Digest Condensed Books—Kate let us pick our own covers) in the slots, the holes are the correct distance from the top.  Then you slide the cover along and punch the next set of holes.  Here, Kate puts some muscle into pushing down on the handle that punches the holes:

Then you repeat the process to punch the holes in the paper.

punching the holes in the journal paper; I couldn't decide which of Kate's papers to use, so I used them all shuffled up!

Finally, you start to assemble the book by attaching the front cover:

Component parts punched with holes, and stackedk

Once the wires are through, you slide on the back cover and check that everything is ok:

Feed the wire comb through the pages and cut to length

Then add the front cover

Next, add the back cover so that it is outside-to-outside facing the front cover:

Finally, you use the lower front of the machine to “crimp” or close the comb-binding:

Close up the wire comb with the squeezer on the front of the pink gizzie

Next

Admire the finished product, and vow to USE the journal, not just admire it!

Now how COOL was that?!!!!!!   All I need now is TIME to use and enjoy my Kate-Journal!

Thanks KATE!