Prepare to be amazed….

The Camden-Rockport Middle School mosaic mural, in the cafeteria, Camden, Maine. In the style of (and with the permission of) Eric Hopkins.

This post is frightfully late…. I only took these photos in June 2011!  Yes, more than a year ago at the unveiling!   But the mosaic in the cafeteria at Camden-Rockport Middle School (Maine) is so stunningly beautiful and wonderful a public art project, that I decided I still needed to share it with you all.  It all began with Kristen Andersen, the CRMS art teacher.  Kristen is the kind of art teacher you dream of having–after having kids in CRMS for 8 years, I STILL want to go back to middle school and be in her class–alas, I’m a bit too old!  As Kristen put it when she approached world-famous artist Eric Hopkins with the idea, it takes a great deal of faith on the part of the artist to grant permission to a group of children to make a work in his own style.  I’d add that it takes a great bit of courage and creativity to come up with and execute the idea–Well Done, Kristen!

What you see in the photo above is eight 2 x 4 foot (24 by 48 inch) panels of glass mosaic, MADE BY the KIDS of the middle school!

The project began with a detailed proposal. On the storyboard, you can see some of the original sketches, inspiration art by Mr. Hopkins, some of the glass tiles and tile nippers used in the project.  The photo (printed on 4 sheets) on the table is the view from Mt. Battie, which overlooks Camden Harbor.  The mosaic is this view, with the top of the old stone tower on the left of the mosaic and the harbor and view beyond.

A closer view of the sketches

A closer view of the photo-montage and tools used in making the mosaic

The Youth Arts program helped fund this large undertaking…thank you Youth Arts! On the easel at right you can see a mock-up block for what Kristen envisioned. The pictures on the left are of Eric Hopkins’ art.  He has his own gallery in Rockland, Maine; if you’re ever in the mid-coast, DO take a detour down winter street to go visit…it’s just a stone’s throw from Main Street.

The mosaics were made in eight sections that fit into the VERY sturdy frame.  Should the piece ever have to be moved, that can happen because of how this was assembled!  Way too wonderful and too much work not to plan for the inevitable changes down the line.

And here is the official unveiling! Gasps of delight all around!

CRMS Art teacher Kristen Andersen–the multi-tasking mom– tells the assembled students, staff, important folks, parents and onlookers how the project happened.

While Kristen explains the project, (from left to right) Principal Maria Libby, Asst. to the Principal Matt Smith, a Youth Arts representative, and Eric Hopkins listen.

Kristen and assorted students and volunteers (THANK YOU volunteers) met once a week after school to work on the project.  Early on, Mr. Hopkins came to one session and helped fine-tune the drawing on the plywood panels to give it that Hopkins-sweeping-view.

After the unveiling, we all got to go up close. Here is my friend Kathy on the left, then Kristen and her son on her hip, and Mr. Hopkins. It was SO totally COOL…he kept going up to the mosaic touching it in wonder…the way you see folks walk up and want to touch a quilt. Neat!

Another shot of the mosaic, with a Youth Arts representative, Principal Maria Libby, and Eric Hopkins.

And back to where we began… on the tower at Mt. Battie, a close-up of the left end of the mosaic.

THANK YOU Mr. Hopkins for saying yes.  Thank you Kristen for being such a wonderful teacher and inspiration.  Thank you to Maria Libby and the school system for being a place that encourages such wonderfulness in the school.  Thank you to the kids and the volunteers and Youth Arts for making this wonderful piece. Goosebumps, all over again.  WONDERFUL!

SAQA-The Maine Event 2012 dinner at the Capt. A.V. Nickels Inn, Searsport, Maine

What a lovely place to have an art quilt meeting!   I must say that this regional SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates, main site here) was the first time I’ve been around this many really top notch art quilters outside of the ginormous International Quilt Festival in Houston!  Thank you to coordinators Beth Berman, Sarah Carpenter and Margaret Sheehan for bringing this together for a third consecutive year.  I’ve already got the third weekend in September reserved for next year!

During the break after the last workshop/demo and supper, I sat outside on a breezy (and increasingly nippy) deck enjoying the view and sketching.

Earlier in the day I had spotted a beautiful old spoon amongst the assorted styles near the coffee.  I picked it up and decided it was so lovely that a mere photograph wasn’t enough, so I sketched it!  I then added a quick watercolor of that view (I believe that is the far north side of Penobscot Bay in the distance) and journaled a tiny bit on the page:

My sketch page of the day. The tiny writing that scrolls around reads: As the sun goes in and out behind the couds the shadows shift and move dancing over the page (upper line) and In the late afternoon we had a break after the last session and before dinner, so I painted the view. The spoon needs to be a bit darker at the tip of the bowl, but otherwise I’m happy with it.

After dinner was the best part…seeing what others are doing! Alas, I do NOT know everyone’s name, so I apologize to artists and readers alike for not having attribution on many of these.  If you know who did what, please let me know so I may update the blogpost!

Sandra Betts (on left) shared this portrait of her mother, using Mary Pal’s technique using cheesecloth. Very effective…. when Sandra first held it up I thought it looked like her, but not quite. When she said it was her mother that explained it!

Isn’t this FABULOUS? Someone please tell me who made it!

Michelle Goldsmith (on left) told us about taking Lisa Call’s working in a series online workshop. This was one of many large pieces, wholecloth and painted. I loved the joyousness of the color in this one. Plus it was fun to see Michelle again–she was program chair for her guild and they hired me to come teach there in May 2011, and it was so much fun!  I blogged about that visit here and here.

Beth Berman, our lead coordinator for this event, has a thing for crows. Her art quilting skills have just blossomed since I first met her. This is one of her two pieces.

This Maine quilter (on right) loves color and dyes her own fabrics and creates her own embroideries (in this case the seagulls). I just want to dive headfirst into that color!

As you might gather, it was a WONDERFUL day!  Thanks Beth, Margaret, Sarah and everyone who traveled from near and far.

At the Hemingway House, Key West, Florida

Back to some visual inspiration from our Florida trip!  After our first night on Duck Key, we drove down to Key West for two nights.  This allowed us one day to wander (sweating a lot…it was over 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity) in downtown Key West and one day for a snorkeling trip to the Dry Tortugas.  The one thing I absolutely wanted to do was visit the Hemingway house, where I promptly fell in love with the acid green shutters!  The house is on the second highest bit of land on Key West, a little over 20 feet above sea level!

Of course, one of the reasons I wanted to go is the cats.  We have a polydactyl, which means many-toed cat.  They are reasonably common here in Maine as well as on Key West.  Most cats have 18 toes (four per foot, plus dew-claws on two feet).  Thumper has 26 toes–basically a foot and a half per leg!

This regal calico allowed us to photograph her in the dining room of the Hemingway house. I think she has the normal number of toesies.

Here’s one of those lovely windows from the INside looking onto the verdant garden.  There are fans for the obvious reason…it was HOT!  Apparently Hemingway’s then-wife (they lived there in the late 20s and 30s) decided to remove the ceiling fans and install her collection of crystal chandeliers.  The tourguides regret her decision every summer!

I loved the paving in the verandah area around the house…looks like a Quilt Modern plan, eh?

I LOVED the pods and flowers… I believe this is a Royal Poincianna tree. Stunning against that blue sky!

Speaking of cats… clearly they go where they want, even if it is on top of wet cement so that their feeties are preserved for posterity! Can you say Surface Design?

More wondrous and bizarre berries on trees–this one near the dock area where we departed for the Dry Tortugas.

LOVE LOVE LOVE the Royal Poincianna petals among the stones and buttress roots! Can you say QUILT-to-be?

And here are Mr. and Mrs. Smith at Mile 0 of US Highway 1. Now we need to go, maybe next summer, to the OTHER end of US Highway 1 where it runs into Canada a couple of hours to the north of us!

Coming soon:  our trip to the Dry Tortugas… yes, it is possible to go beyond the end of the Key West…keep going west!

This past weekend was the third annual SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) The Maine Event… a weekend of folks from upper New England and far eastern Canada. This past weekend was the third annual SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) The Maine Event… a weekend of folks from upper New England and far eastern Canada.  This year organizer Beth Berman chose the Capt. A.V. Nickels Inn, and boy do we want to return!  It is under new management, is gorgeous, has good food, and was a great place for a weekend workshop.  Folks arrived from hither and yon on Friday, had a reception Friday evening, then a full day of workshops led by various SAQA members Saturday, dinner for everyone Saturday evening at the Inn (a B&B), Show and tell, and another workshop on Sunday morning.

The Capt. A.V. Nickels Inn, just north of downtown Searsport on U.S. Route 1

This was the first year I got to stay for supper and sharing, and am so glad I did!  Since I live locally (about 35 minute away) I can’t rationalize staying at the inn or one of the nearby B&Bs or motels, but maybe next year I’ll go back for the Sunday session, too.

Sandra Betts from New Brunswick gave the first session on Free-motion Zendoodling–basically the same as with pen and paper (with which we began) but then done on the machine.  This is the same idea as how I noodle around with various fill patterns for free-motion.  I took photos of the doodling by various folks, but alas didn’t get names to go with sketchbooks.  If one of these is yours (or you know whose it is) let me know and I’ll attribution!  (PS–the (c) is just for the photo..the works in the photos are copyrighted by the artists.)

Zendoodle…she later filled the entire page

LOVE the house and antler-tree! I quilted some “antler coral” in the quilt that is on the cover of my book that looks just like her tree!

Michele O’Neil Kincaid (website here) gave the next segment on texture in quilts.

Michelle O’Neill Kincaid’s textured quilt (detail)

Next was Beth Berman’s turn, showing us her method for framing pieces using rigid foam insulation board and painted wood slats…nifty!

Then we had a break before supper and sharing.  I took some pictures:

The Inn was lovely…the first thing I saw as I entered is this sideboard…loved the candelabra!

Sweet creamer and sugar pot in the dining room

And the chandelier

The regular view

and a couple alternate views (that I much prefer):

Close up

And my favorite view, from underneath looking up at the ceiling

The internet is being hideously slow at our house today, so will stop here and will share the rest in a couple of days!

Cardinal in the Pine by Sarah Ann Smith

Cardinal in the Pine is my contribution to this year’s Coastal Quilters Chapter Challenge (see this post for all the quilts).  Once again, I–the art quilter–went traditional!  Since the Ohio Star of course reminded me of Christmas, I thought I’d make a holiday quilt with mine.  Online I found a couple free Tree of Life blocks.  I wanted my tree to be vertical.  Since the vertical axis of the tree is usually on the diagonal of the block, I figured out what size I needed the block to be so that it would fit vertically within the 20 1/2″ square format.   (PS–sorry about the double watermarks on the bottom of the photos…I’ll fix that on the next batch.)

First, there were a LOT of half-square triangles to make, both green-and-white and then red-and-white for the sawtooth border. The red pile on the bottom left is what I had after I “un-stitched” the original block (seen in last photo in this post).

For the reds, I used the red in the original red-green Ohio Start block plus a range of red batiks, all tone-on-tone.  Here I’m trimming, finger pressing, squaring up.

Hooray! I LIKE IT! I’ve got the components of the block pieced and ready to sew together. I used all the green and most of the red in the original block. For the Tree of Life I opted to use just one red square for my favorite East Coast bird: the cardinal; alas, we don’t have any our yard, but they are here in mid-coast Maine. I set the pieced bits out on my 20 1/2″ square ruler to gauge size.

Then on to the really FUN part:  quilting!  I knew I wanted to use a feathered vine as the wind swirling the snow around the tree, and I knew I wanted it to stand out and sparkle, so I used Superior Threads Glitter (a holographic thread–basically ya know the stuff they use to make mylar balloons?  sorta like that except cut into looooonnnngggggg flat strips) in Pearl / Crystal #111 (here).  This thread is amazing, as it looks clear/white/opalescent here, but when used on dark fabric, it looks like an irridescent green (the black quilt on the cover of my book uses the same thread!).  It’s important when using holographic and metallic threads to use a SLIPPERY thread in the bobbin;  I use The Bottom Line, a smooooooth, fine poly from Superior.  Once could also use clear (ugh), rayon (not my fave at all) or silk.  You do *not* want to use cotton, as the slubs on the cotton will grab the glitter or metallic threads and play not-so-nice.

Close-up of quilting on Cardinal in the Pine. Feathered vine stitched in Superior Threads Glitter (Pearl #111). Other background quilting uses Superior’s 40-wt trilobal poly thread in white.

An angled view of the quilting in Cardinal in the Pine shows the relief and (to borrow Pamela Allen’s word) puffosity of the quilting.

And the quilt with the block which inspired this challenge:

Cardinal in the Pine, 20 1/2″ square, with another of the original Ohio Star blocks. I used one of these blocks, a white-on-white (the back side so it wasn’t so garish), and red and green batiks.