Rubberband Ball

It's been two weeks since I posted my family's rubberband ball. The front side is above, and below is the back side. I started photographing both sides in my last post, because there is a difference between what's falling apart on both sides. Sometimes the ball gets moved, and it's position changes a little. Even with some movement, it looks like the section that fell off in the back, is being taken over by gravity.

Color

I've been doing more painting inside my home (interior house painting). This time I re-painted the stairs from the first floor to the second. For the past 19 years each step has been painted a different color of the rainbow. Now they alternate between orange and yellow. (I apologize for the grainy quality of the photos. The stairway is a bit dark, and my camera didn't like the lack of light.)


I think I'll try using the stair paint on some fabric, like I did after painting many rooms in my home. I'm curious to see the "high gloss floor and patio latex enamel" on fabric vs the wall paint I painted on fabric for my May 12x12x12 piece.

10mph

I promise that my blog will not turn into a blog only about movies. But, being someone who likes to watch movies, I can't help share a good one with others. I recently saw the movie 10 mph. It is a documentary about a few guys (and their traveling companions) who road a Segway from Seattle to Boston in 100 days. The fastest Segways can move is 10 miles per hour, hence the name "10mph".

There are four reasons I enjoyed this movie. The first is because I have not had the opportunity to go across the USA by car or train yet (going by Segway is not something I'd want to do), so seeing various parts of their trip was of great interest to me.

Second, the journal aspect of this trip was inspiring. Plan a long trip. Quit your tech day job. Go on the trip, and deal with the every day issues involved in traveling (money, car and Segway break downs, etc). See beautiful +/or interesting places. Meet interesting people. Make a movie about it. Become film makers.

Third, the still photography, and the video, were both wonderful. Who ever shot the images had a great eye. The video showed beautiful scenes of the route they traveled, and the still photography showed barns, stone walls, fences, and other images that I found very inspirational.

Fourth, I loved the art work used to set up the story, and in between scenes. Great paintings!

All of the quilts in my book The Uncommon Quilter, are from my seven years of making a small quilt a week, which was my journal. I'm very interested in how people journal their experiences. 10 mph was a video journal, and I really enjoyed it!

Inspiration

I find inspiration just about everywhere I go. I really wanted to remember these two buildings, in Boston Massachusetts, for future ideas for new work. I like the color, grids, and pattern.

more Jackson Pollock

Only because I mentioned the Jackson Pollock movie in my last post..... the McMullen Museum of Art (at Boston College in Boston Massachusetts), is having a show called "Pollock Matters", from September 1-December 9, 2007. There will be two dozen recently discovered paintings that may, or may not, be real Jackson Pollock's. The show will also have 150+ photos, drawings and letters. To quote an article about this show from today's Boston Globe, "Studied by scientists and argued over by art historians, the paint-spattered pictures will be on view for the first time."

Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?

I recently saw the movie "Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?", and I highly suggest it to other artists. It's about a woman who bought what MIGHT be a Jackson Pollock painting, for $5.00 in a thrift store. She then starts on a journey to prove that it is real. If real, it could be worth tens of millions of dollars. What I found interesting about it is, there are scientists who found scientific evidence that proves that it's real, but the art world denies it because there is no paperwork to prove it's history. A group of un-named art experts declared it a fake. Which is more important, the paperwork or the scientific evidence?

Color!

It's a colorful time of summer. Very inspirational. The Coleus (seen above) is growing in the planters in front of my house. I have no idea what the flower is below. It's growing in a neighbor's garden. It looks tropical, and I don't think this is a plant that normally grows here in Massachusetts.


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Later in the day, I received an email from Sue Reno, which identified the flower above. "The lovely yellow/orange flower on your blog is a canna lily. There are lots of varieties; not sure what this one is. You are right, they are a tropical species, to grow them in the north requires digging up the rhizomes in the fall and storing them in the basement. It's well worth the effort; mine are hummingbird magnets!"

Thank you Sue! I really appreciate this information! - Jeanne

Even More Natick Mall Inspiration

There's is more building going, this time in the front of the Natick Mall, at street level. More inspiration, though not as much as the other buildings I've taken pictures of.


These pictures give me ideas for some pieces that are very grey and yellow-ish, where the gray lines focus on vertical lines and the horizontal lines aren't as important. I'll try to sketch it out some time and post it. I'm not going to be able to actually try to make anything with these images for many months, but it's good to plan ahead.

I'll try to stop by the Mall in a week or so, to see if there are any interesting changes to this building.

Printing/Painting on Fabric

I just finished stitching the piece of fabric that was inspired by the Natick Mall, which I last photographed in whole on the right side of the image posted on July 22nd. I did apply more paint to that piece, but forgot to photograph it again before stitching. I'm preparing to stitch the piece that is on the left side of that same picture (which also has more paint on it than in the picture). I'll get them them both photographed ASAP after the second one is finished.


In the mean time, I'm still working on the two pieces of fabric with the blue "glass tiles" I discussed on July 18th. This is one of the pieces of the unstitched fabric, with small pieces of 1" square black felt pinned to it, to help me figure out a design problem. The problem is the two different sections of this piece do not go well together, so now I'm trying to find a way to make it work (as Tim Gunn from Project Runway would say). Once I've figured out where I would like the black squares to be, I'll hand stamp rubber erasers with fabric paint, to create permanent black squares instead of the felt squares. I like using small pieces of felt to problem solve because they are easily moved. Once fabric paint is on the surface, there's no turning back (unless it gets covered up or cut off).

You can see my posts about the progress of all of these pieces under the heading Printing/Painting on Fabric.

The Uncommon Quilter

The seed pods that are now hanging from my neighbor's tree remind me of the small quilt I made about them exactly three years ago. The quilt is made with dryer lint and crayon rubbed fabric. You can read about the quilt, and see the instructions about how to make it, on page 106 in the Surface Design chapter, in my upcoming book The Uncommon Quilter.

Sewing

In 1979 I taught sewing to adults with different disabilities, in a program called "Life Spaces" that used space at Massachusetts College of Art, in Boston. In this is a picture, I'm helping Reggie (who is blind) make a pair of mittens. This is another picture that my mother-in-law found and gave to me. It was actually scanned from a slide (a 28 year old slide), so that's why it's so grainy.

Sewing

I've been sewing since I was in the 7th grade, when Home Ec was mandatory for girls (back in the early 1970's). I still remember the first skirt I made. My mother-in-law recently sent me this picture, of me sewing (of course). I think it was probably taken in 1981 or 1982, since I have a ring on my left ring finger. I got engaged in 1981 and married in 1982. Here I am with my big 1980's hair, sewing who knows what.

Rubberband Ball

More on the progress of my family's rubberband ball. The front side is above, which doesn't seem to have changed that much since my last post. Below is the back side, which is really falling apart. I wish I had photographed both sides from the beginning. I'll do both sides from now on.

The Uncommon Quilter

As summer is winding down, flowers are drying up or dying. This is a picture of dried Allium flowers in my front yard. In my upcoming book, The Uncommon Quilter, there is a quilt that was inspired by dried Allium's on page 95 of the Surface Design chapter. I never would have noticed the beauty of a dried Allium flower if my father-in-law hadn't picked some and put them in a vase many summers ago. When I saw them while visiting, I noticed how unusual they are when dried.


This quilt didn't make it in the book, but here is a quilt about the flower after it just opened. I made this quilt a few weeks before the one above.


Both of these quilts are 6" tall and 4" wide, and were created in 2001.

Inspiration!

Not a construction fence, but still inspirational. I love grids!!!!!

12 x 12 x 12 August

I've completed my August 12 x 12 x 12 piece. Since I've been working on four new large wall pieces, I decide to base my August piece on the Natick Mall inspired pieces I've been working on. For this 12 x 12 x 12 piece, I decided to use a smaller grid construction fence for the main design, since this piece is so small. The Natick Mall pieces use a larger fence, but can handle it since they're going to end up in the 30"+ x 50"+ size. The smaller scale of the 12 x 12 x 12 piece necessitated my using a smaller grid.

You can see notes about some of my other 2007 12 x 12 x 12 pieces here on my blog, or you can see all of them on my website.

Guild.com

Some of my work is now available on The Artful Home website (otherwise known as Guild.com). I have ten pieces for sale on their website. I'm very happy to be listed on their site because I have a few friends who have had good success selling their work though them.

The above piece is "Orange Construction Fence Series #43".

More Natick Mall Inspiration

Every time I drive by the Natick Mall, I see more progress as the construction continues on the outside of the condos. To see the difference, take a look at my last picture, which was taken on July 20th.


Whenever I'm driving by, I'm usually in a rush. A few days ago, my husband and I had some extra time, so we made the stop. The best pictures were taken on the top of a nearby parking garage.

I'm still painting the fabric for two Natick Mall pieces I discussed in mid-late July. I'll have some updated pictures of my progress soon.

Copyrighting Art Work

I know two artists who filed copyright infringement lawsuits in the past few years. One case was against a major clothing manufacturer, and the other was against a carpet maker for a international hotel chain. The carpet case is pretty well known in the art quilt world, and has opened the eyes of many artists. Because of these cases, and the seriousness of protecting one's work, I have received a copyright on all of the images in my upcoming book The Uncommon Quilter. Now the book itself has a copyright, and each individual image does too, separately.

Applying for a copyright is REALLY easy. Images may be registered in a bulk application. The application for my book included 52 images, cost $45.00, and took just about 4 months to receive the "Certificate of Registration". Information about registering for a copyright can be found on the The US Copyright Office's website. The main information artists need is on the Visual Arts page.

My book - "The Uncommon Quilter"

I've had a black and white, low-resolution proof copy of my book for a number of months. Since I've never written a book before, I didn't expect to have a real copy of my book in my hands until a week or so before my October 9th publication date. This afternoon, a FedEx truck dropped off a package from Random House. I got a heads up about this from my agent who got her package yesterday. When I heard the truck pull up in front of my house, I ran outside and stood patiently by the truck so the driver could hand me my package without having to get out of the truck. The truck was idling very loudly so he didn't hear me running out the door., and I think I he was surprised when he walked to the front of the truck. He handed me the package, I thanked him many times, and I RAN inside to open it.


To hold my book in my hands is VERY exciting! The color is incredible! The detail is so good that I can see the stitching detail on each quilt. I finally know what the outside back cover (above) looks like, and I'm quite happy. The cover is paperback, a nice thick cover stock. The front and back cover pages are folded in 4" to make it stronger and allow some inside cover text, and the inside pages are printed on a nice quality paper.

Many thanks to Potter Craft (Random House), and my agent! I am REALLY really happy. Visit the The Uncommon Quilter website for more information.