Color!

A bowl of cut tomatoes at the end of the season. Look at the wonderful color.

Rubberband Ball

I try to post pictures of my family's rubberband ball every two weeks or so. The top picture is the front side, and picture below is the back. There are very subtle changes from the last time. I'm waiting for the little yellow piece to fall off the front. The tan rubberbands are starting to crack and fall apart all over, even those tucked under many layers. The colored bands are holding everything together. The black diagonal rubberband is looking very strong.


Click here to see all of the posted changes.

An Open Letter to Stephen Colbert

Dear Mr. Colbert,
 
It had recently been brought to my attention that the publication date for your new book, "I Am America (And So Can You!)" is October 9, 2007. Coincidentally, that is also the release date of my first book, "The Uncommon Quilter: Small Art Quilts Created with Paper, Plastic, Fiber, and Surface Design."
 
I realize that changing the release date of your book is not possible at this late date, and in light of the grave injustice already inflicted on you by the Emmy Award judges, I would not ask you to do so.  How much trauma should one man be expected to take?
 
I am writing to apologize for the unintended consequences to your book sales - just as I also apologize to Ken Follett and Eric Clapton, who also have the misfortune to have books scheduled for release on October 9.
 
It also occurred to me that the similarities between our books are almost eerie.  For example, we both had the idea to divide the different sections in our books into chapters, and that we both use illustrations to make our points.  Is this mere coincidence?
 
If it is any consolation, it will be my honor to send you a signed copy of The Uncommon Quilter.  I would be delighted to hear from you, and again I offer my deepest apologies for the consequences of this unfortunate timing.
 
If you need to reach me, my email address is jeanne@jeannewilliamson.com.
 
Sincerely yours,
 
Jeanne Williamson
TheUncommonQuilter.com

Recommended Reading

I highly recommend reading 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, by Matthew Frederick (MIT Press, Sept 2007). Inside the book are 101 "mini-lessons" in design, drawing, history, and the creative process. While it is written for beginning architecture students, any artist or designer will find it thought-provoking.

One of the lessons Matt shares is "Frame a view, don't merely exhibit it." This can be easily translated to any design medium. In fact, I discuss something similar in my book The Uncommon Quilter. In my "Getting Started" chapter, there is a section about using a template to decide angles and placement when creating small art quilts. To quote from my book, "A template is a guide, or pattern, that helps you play with the size and design of your quilt......"

Many congrats to my friend Matthew Frederick, for creating such a beautiful and intelligent book!

Dryer lint

I'm posting dryer lint once a week for the countdown to my October 9th publication date of my book The Uncommon Quilter.

A few people have asked me why my dryer lint looks the way it does, and if I plan it. No I don't plan it. I wear a ton of black, which makes black or grey dryer lint, and I wash my red bath mats every other week. I also separate my colors when I do laundry, so the dark, light and red lint are added in layers. That seems to have an effect on the look of my lint.

You can read more dryer lint posts on my blog by clicking here.

Art with Fiber - on exhibit at the ICA-Boston

On March 11, 2007, I posted information about work on exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art - Boston with fiber related materials as a main element. I made another visit to the ICA last week, and these artists had pieces that are on exhibit at this time:

Tara Donovan had two pieces, "Untitled (Rubber Bands)", 2006, a relief print from a matrix of rubber bands, and "Untitled (Pins)", 2003, a very large box shaped sculpture that was made of straight pins.

Mona Hatoum had "Pin Rug", 1998-99, that was a rug made of straight pins. (Sorry. No visuals on the web.)
Ambreen Butt had two pieces. One was "Multiplicité (AB95) from the series Cirque du Monde", 2007, which was created using watercolor, white gouache and thread on Mylar and handmade paper.

Also on exhibit is Louise Bourgeois's first solo exhibition in sixty years. In her exhibit, she had two untitled pieces that were made with fiber. I couldn't find any of these pieces on the web, so I'm sorry there are no links to visuals.

Art with Fiber - on exhibit at the Forest Hills Cemetery

Today I went on a walk with my husband and mother-in-law around the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts. Each summer, they have a "Contemporary Sculpture Path", complete with maps to show the way to each sculpture. It was a really nice, reflective way to spend Yom Kipper. I was glad to do it again, after remembering we did this on Yom Kipper about 5 years back with my son and some friends.

There were two artists, with three fiber related works......

One of my favorite Boston area sculptors is Leslie Wilcox. She has two pieces in the cemetery. One is "Nightshirts" (2002). It's made of painted stainless steel screen. She makes working with screen seem easy, but we all know it's really hard. Her second piece is "Wraith Wrap" (2004).

The third fiber related piece, "Spirit Vessels" (1998) by Susan Ferrari-Rowley, from Churchville, NY. It's made of welded stainless steel framework with poly-fiber aircraft coatings, and is quite stunning. When I first saw it, I thought that it was amazing that she made the seams look like it fabric, but then I realized it was fabric. When I read calls for submissions for outdoor sculpture, I always think using fiber would be impossible, but now I see that there are ways to do it so that it can withstand mother nature for many years.

New Work

The two pieces above are new work. The top one is "Orange Construction Fence Series #55", and the one below it is "Orange Construction Fence Series #56." The inspiration came from the condos under construction at the Natick Collection (AKA the Natick Mall in Natick Mass, where I live), which I discussed on July 20th.

You can read about my process and progress in creating these pieces, by scrolling through the fabric painting/printing section of this blog.

Both Orange Construction Fence Series #55 and Orange Construction Fence Series #56, can be seen on my website with size information.

Color!

There is a very nice, rusty dumpster across from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. I had take pictures of it. I love the blues, the rust, the plaster dust, and the signage. These pictures almost look like they could be mixed media pieces, or dryer lint, but they really from the outside of the dumpster.

Dryer lint

I've been collecting dryer lint samples, and here is one of best I have taken out of my own dryer. I'm posting dryer lint once a week for the countdown to the October 9th publication date of my book The Uncommon Quilter. Why dryer lint? There are two projects in the book that show how to make small quilts using dryer lint.

You can read more dryer lint posts on my blog by clicking here.

Printing/Painting on Fabric

It's been since August 21st since I've been able to work on one of two pieces I started in early July, that have small blue "tiles" and other influences mentioned in my July 12th blog entry. Yesterday I had an hour with nothing I HAD to do, so I hand stamped black squares, in place of the temporary felt squares I used to help me figure out a design problem.


The very top photo is of felt squares pinned to the fabric. The photo above is the black squares stamped on the front side of the fabric with fabric paint, and the back side of the same piece of fabric is shown in the photo below. I love the difference between the 2 sides.


Next I have to stamp the squares again on the second piece of fabric in this grouping. More images to come in the near future (I hope).

Fiberart International 2007

Fiberart International 2007 is traveling. It will be on exhibit at the Mint Museum of Craft and Design in Charlotte NC, from Saturday, September 15, 2007 - Sunday, February 24, 2008. They have an additional website about the show, that's really nice and informative. Check it out!.

The piece above is "Orange Construction Fence Series #34," which is in the show.

Rubberband Ball

It's been two weeks since the last post about my family's rubberband ball. The ball was 7" tall when we stopped adding rubberbands to it. Now it's about 6.5" tall, and it continues to fall apart. The picture above is the front side, and below is the back. The back seems to have changed more than the front this time.

Color

I love the color of the ornamental grass growing in my back yard. The magenta, tan and green colors look great together.

The Uncommon Quilter and dryer lint

In one month, my book The Uncommon Quilter will be released. Inside the book are two projects that include using dryer lint as a design element in small quilts. To celebrate dryer lint, and the countdown to my October 9th publication date, I'm going to post some examples I've removed from my dryer's lint trap, over the next few weeks.

The first sample is the first piece of lint that caught my eye in 1986. My son, who is now 21 years old, was in need of fall overalls when he was 10 months old. Clothing choices for baby boys was not good back then, so I decided to sew a number of multi-colored corduroy overalls for him. This dryer lint is the result of pre-shrinking the half dozen or so pieces of corduroy. I loved the little specks of corduroy in the lint, and saved it along with other baby memorabilia.

On August 20th, I made a blog entry about one of the dryer lint quilts in my book, and the inspiration behind it. Click here to read the entry.

12 x 12 x 12 September

This is my September 12 x 12 x 12 piece. The color of this piece would be based on the color of the stairs I repainted in my home a few weeks ago. The orange and bright yellow are Floor & Patio paint from Benjamin Moore. The light yellow paint is a Benjamin Moore semi-gloss wall paint.

You can see comments about many of my 2007 12 x 12 x 12 pieces here on my blog, or you can see all of the pieces to date on my website.

12 x 12 x 12 September - in progress

I'm working on my September 12 x 12 x 12 piece. I painted it using the same Floor & Patio paint from Benjamin Moore that I used when I recently repainted stairs in my home. Above is a picture of the front, and below is the back of the fabric. I've been interested in what the paint looks like on both sides of the fabric. The back on this piece isn't that interesting to me, or at least not as interesting at the back of fabric with fabric paint on it. What was interesting was that I dunked it in water, to try to soften it up before I started to stitch it, and it not only glowed orange, but it also dried in about a minute because the water couldn't soak in to the fabric because the paint is on the surface of it. Fabric paint sort of dyes the fabric. Now I get the difference between what happens when I use house paint on fabric.

Confetti as Inspiration

For the past few months I've been blogging about the condos that are being constructed at the "Natick Collection," (otherwise known in in the Boston area as the Natick Mall) which have inspired me to create some new work. I've just finished two large pieces, and will post them as soon as I have photographs.


In the mean time, there was a grand opening celebration this morning at the "Natick Collection", because they just more than doubled in size. What's a party without confetti?!?! I had to take a picture of it as it was in mid-air, as well as on the ground. I was very inspired to put a handful in my pocket, to use in a small quilt, but I'm not making a quilt a week this year, so I didn't do it.


I was equally as inspired to grab a handful of this confetti in mid-August, after a parade in the North End of Boston.

The Uncommon Quilter

I have a clematis that flowers in the fall. This picture is what it looked like a few weeks ago, as the flowers were forming.


The flowers have now opened, and they smell great!


In 2003, when I was making a small quilt each week, I made this quilt about the same clematis. This quilt is not one of my better ones, but it's a lesson that being persistent in making art on a regular basis, leads to more creative thinking and risk taking (art wise).


Over the seven years of making a quilt a week, I made three clematis quilts. You can see directions about how to make the clematis quilt shown above, on page 101 of my book The Uncommon Quilter.

Abstract & Geometric

My piece, Orange Construction Fence Series #38, will be on exhibit at the "Abstract & Geometric" show at the Woman Made Gallery in Chicago IL, from September 7 - October 4, 2007. This show is a mixed media show, that focuses on work that is abstract and geometric, as the name suggests. I am very happy to be in a mixed media show, vs a fiber or art quilt show, since the focus of my is about painting and printing geometric images, that just happen to be on stitched fabric.


If you're visiting Chicago, stop by the gallery. If you can't get to Chicago, you can see the show on the web by clicking here. You can also see my Construction Fence Series on on my website.

New Frontiers: an exhibition of contemporary fiber art

I will have three pieces in the show "New Frontiers: an exhibition of contemporary fiber art", at The Art House in McAllen TX. The show runs from September 7 – 29, 2007. If you're nearby, I highly encourage you to go see the show. If you can't get there, you can see it on the web by clicking here.

The three pieces I'm exhibiting are from my Skeletal Fence Series. You can see all twenty pieces in the series on my website.