Barbara Lee Smith Shares Her "Journey"

Barbara Lee Smith at CQA meeting

Barbara Lee Smith’s love affair with land, sea and sky is reflected masterfully in her sweeping, impressionistic landscapes that first envelop, then easily draw the viewer into the scene for greater contemplation. The Gig Harbor, WA artist shared both her passion for place and her creative techniques with CQA members at the group’s May 11 meeting.

CQA members view image of "Wind" (48" x 25")

In her talk, titled “Sources: A Journey of Life and Art,” Smith described how she plans for the maximum creative accomplishment to be achieved even before embarking on one of her journeys, whether it’s to be a first trip to Umbria, or two weeks at an artists’ colony near Chicago…or even a walk from her house to her adjacent studio. “It’s the internal expectations that build up in you as you plan that matter,” she says.

Arriving at a destination, Smith takes lots of photographs to help her remember the essence of the place once she’s back home in her studio. She urges all travelers, “At the very least look carefully around you—at what’s in front of you, to the left, the right, above and behind you. Allow yourself to get uncomfortably close to the scene…let yourself get purposefully lost in your surroundings.” She advises to “be quiet…observe, listen to sounds, especially the musicality of foreign languages—you don’t need to know what’s being said.” And of course she writes down her thoughts and ideas continually, to capture what it is about a place that speaks to her.

"Old Growth" (18" x 35") as displayed at the meeting

Not all of her work depicts the foreign or the exotic, however. One series is based on her daily observations of the construction of the Second Narrows Bridge in Tacoma, while others celebrate her lifelong affinity for water—rivers, surf, lakes and ponds. She grew up near the Atlantic Ocean in Cape May, NJ, and now relishes being near the “very different” Pacific.

"The River" triptych (92" x 50")

A small seascape, as displayed at the meeting

Back in her studio, Smith will draw on her photos, observations and notes and begin a piece by using the “mind-mapping” technique, then may move on to a rough diagram full of notes. Once she begins creating the piece itself, she works entirely with Lutradur® as her “canvas,” a material she purchases “by the carloads.” She will apply acrylic paints and silk pigments to what can turn out to be many layers of this non-woven, polyester material that is something of a cross between cloth and paper. Often she will print a portion of an appropriate map on a piece of Lutradur® and add it to the work in a collage technique. She uses Wonder-Under® to adhere the layers to each other.

A portion of Smith's "mind map" for a new piece

A portion of Smith's annotated sketch in developing a new piece

Many of Smith’s pieces are quite large—you could say they measure in feet more than in inches—and some can take up an entire wall, inviting the viewer to feel a part of a near-life-size experience. A multi-part piece exhibited at Bellevue Arts Museum’s “High Fiber Diet” in February of this year measured 7 feet high by 15 feet wide. “That one took me two and a half months, full time, to complete,” says Smith.

"Oyster Light," a 5-part piece measuring 15' wide by 7' high, as seen in Smith's studio. The piece was later displayed at the Bellevue Arts Museum's "High Fiber Diet" exhibition

Often the size is determined by what she can reasonably get through her sewing machine: “All those layers make the piece pretty stiff.” A number of her larger works comprise 2, 3 or more separate elements, sometimes of different sizes, hung together as a single piece. An example of this is a multi-part work titled “Salt, Sand, Stone” that resulted from her visit to the Great Salt Lake to view the spiral jetty. This work includes a number of 12-inch squares and even smaller units, combined with a cluster of long, vertical strips.

A small unit from Smith's "Salt, Sand, Stone" piece

Working on a table measuring 4 x 12 feet, she sprays paint, daubs with foam brushes and scrapes with a credit card on large pieces of the Lutradur®--“I love the chaotic aspect!”—then stands back to study the piece. At that point she will cut out portions that she will use, discard others that “aren’t working,” etc., and begin to create her layers. A number of her pieces include a “lacy” rendering for wave-top foam. She achieves this by lightly melting the edges of the Lutradur® with a large heat gun. Once satisfied with the piece as a whole, Smith will use a soldering iron to melt the edges, thus sealing all the layers. And then comes the stitching…

View of Smith's studio

View of Smith's studio

Smith “quilts” her pieces entirely from the back side, with standard sewing thread in the needle (size 100, 110 or even larger) and rayon thread in the bobbin, using a “retrofitted Bernina” sewing machine that lacks feed dogs so she can maneuver the piece easily in all directions. She creates a “drawing” as she stitches in random, curving lines that, rather appropriately, share much of the appearance of the contour lines used on topographic maps.

Mounting her pieces for wall display is in itself a unique process. She adheres small Velcro® patches near corners on the backs of the pieces to line up with matching patches on custom-made frames, similar to stretcher bars, which are made to be slightly smaller than the finished artwork. Thus the piece “floats” slightly off the wall, adding to the somewhat ethereal appearance of the work.

Smith’s work has been exhibited in numerous venues both in the US and internationally, and many of her pieces are in private collections. Locally, Smith will be participating in an exhibit with 25 women artists on Bainbridge Island in November, with more information on this event to be available later on her website: www.barbaraleesmith.com.

Rio Patchwork Design Show 2013...in photos

(All photos by Helen Remick)

Seventeen CQA quilters participated in the Rio Patchwork Design 2013 exhibition, April 25 to 27, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Each quilter was represented by three quilts, offering viewers an opportunity to study each artist's style and how her work fits into a series.Two CQA members--Helen Remick and Marianne Burr--attended this year's show as guests of the show's producers, having been selected as "viewer favorites" by attendees at the 2012 edition of the exhibit. Both Helen and Marianne presented illustrated talks about their creative journeys and some of their working methods to enthusiastic (and paying!) audiences as part of the three-day exhibition.

Visitors to the Rio show enter the CQA area

Left to right, Burr's three quilts

One of Brewer's small pieces. Notice wall color.

Left to right, Remick's three pieces

Three pieces by Marylee Drake

Two of  Ruth Vincent's pieces

Above, several of Brewer's small pieces were hung in frames, back-to-back

Here, Marianne talks about her impressions of the 2013 event:

"Helen Remick and I have just returned from Rio de Janeiro where we were fortunate enough to see one of the world's best exhibitions of art quilts. The founder of Patchwork Design, Zeca Madeiros, is so passionate about this work that he refers to it as 'Art' without the qualifier.

"I have been to Visions, Quilt National, and Quilt Japan, and this exhibition in Rio is as professionally presented as any of them. It includes our CQA work as well as work of an African artist and some very fine pieces from the best Brazilian art quilters.What a thrill to see our work displayed as it would be in a fine museum!

"The crowds were very interested and many people spent considerable time studying the artistry we shared with them. Art quilting is new in Brazil and many quilters are interested in learning all they can about the medium."

Helen Remick provided some photos of the exhibit, seen here, and comments, "Notice the wonderful use of color on some walls, and how it enhances the quilts." She adds that "Bonny Brewer entered a series of small quilts, some of which Zeca chose to hang in sets of two, back-to-back down a long gallery. It was difficult to photograph, but very effective."

Part of the exhibition was a vendor area that, in previous years, offered mostly materials for the traditional quilts that have been "standard" in Brazil, but Helen reports that this year there was one vendor offering hand-dyed fabric of the sort that's popular with art quilters in North America.

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The CQA quilts exhibited in the Rio show also were shown several weeks earlier in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in a second show mounted by the same producers. CQA artist Sonia Grasvik attended the Sao Paulo event, again as a guest of the show producers, as she was selected as a "viewer favorite" from the 2012 exhibit. To view all the CQA quilts in the exhibitions, go to the Exhibitions Gallery section of the CQA website, http://www.contemporaryquiltart.com.

pHive Having pHun!

By Roberta Andresen

Photos by Deb Rychert

If you ever want to have a good time, be sure to get involved in a project with CQA member Deb Rychert.  Deb heard about the possibility for an outdoor sculpture at CQA's upcoming "Salsa!" exhibit at Mighty Tieton, near Yakima WA, and asked if some of us were interested.  The resounding answer was, “Yes.”  Deb, Barbara O’Steen, Sonia Grasvik, Carla Stehr and I met at Deb’s house.  We wanted to make a sculpture that could wrap around one or more of the trees outside the gallery.

Our initial supplies included recycled produce bags, yards of  nylon, a heavy mesh, and an exhibit catalog on textile sculptures. We started by looking at the catalog and picking out some favorites.  As we looked at the materials we thought we could use the heavy mesh as our support, and sew long narrow pointed tubes from the nylon that could be tied to the mesh.  The other materials were talking to us--we just didn’t know quite what they were saying.  A delightful lunch and lots of good conversation sent us on our way to do more thinking and gathering of supplies.    

A few days later we reconvened. The nylon tubes were tied on as were some of the produce bags that had been rolled into doughnut shapes.  It was starting to take shape.  Time for another break and then we got together again.  Now we had added surveying "whiskers," colored plastic cups that had been cut and heated to flare into flower-like forms, and bright pipe cleaners. Twist ties anchored our forms to the mesh and it became fuller and fuller.

Sonia mentioned that she crocheted around rocks and was immediately put into action.  Some rocks from a neighbor and fluorescent nylon cord were all she needed.  The finishing touch was being created.

As we worked we frequently took our creation outside, wrapped it around a tree in Deb’s yard, and critiqued our growing masterpiece.  Some tulips got trampled in the process, but what fun we were having!

Now for a name...With all our interest in recycling, the sea-form look, and Carla’s interest in the ocean, we thought about how the pH of waters are changing and the fun we'd had creating together.  And so we came to the idea of using words that started with “F” but substituting “pH”  for the “F” in words.  Our final selection was pH-antabulous, pH-ibrous pH-lotsam.  We just had pHun and did not take ourselves too seriously.  We hope that viewers, whether in Yakima or on Deb’s street, have as much pHun  looking at it as we did creating.  

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CQA's "Salsa!" exhibit, comprising more than 30 art quilts, six pieces of decorated "art cloth" and five 3D pieces, will run from May 25 through July 14 at the Gallery at Mighty Tieton, with an opening artists' reception from 12-5 on May 25. Part of the exhibit, "Salsa in the Sun," will present various artworks placed outdoors around the town. Tieton is a small agricultural-based town near Yakima, WA, the heart of which--"Mighty Tieton"--has been converted into an incubator for artisan businesses. The gallery space is a huge, refurbished former fruit warehouse. (For more information on the venue, driving directions, etc., go to http://www.mightytieton.com)

 

 

Joy Rome shows the joys of color!

Many of us hope to achieve a balance in our lives between time spent dealing with the necessities and time for expressing our creativity. Seattle-area painter Joy Rome, speaker at the CQA April 2013 meeting, has successfully managed to do just that. For three days a week she maintains her busy psychotherapy practice. Then on the other four days, she paints—and the colors flow from her brushes with an evident elation that matches her name.

Painter Joy  Rome at CQA's April 13 meeting

Originally from New York, Rome worked in advertising on the East Coast before moving to the West Coast and movie-business assignments in California. She had some experience working with fiber early on, as her first commissioned piece was a “clamshell” design art quilt for a therapist’s office in Los Angeles. But it was a weaving course at San Diego State that set her on her path as a colorist. The weaving instructor took Rome on as an apprentice tasked with dressing looms and mixing dyes, which provided her a bone-deep knowledge of pigments and colors.

Rome soon struck out on her own and created weavings—“fiber constructs”—for residences and large hotels, etc. She would show potential designs to clients in the form of “maquettes,” or small versions of the works where she blended colored pencils to represent the subtlety of color achievable through the use of multiple threads per bobbin that is the hallmark of her Aubusson-tapestry style weavings. Some of her pieces contained bits of her own Japanese-style handmade paper.

"Maquettes"--small pieces done in colored pencils-- Rome produced for tapestry clients' approval before creating large "fiber constructs."

Life changes resulted in Rome selling her looms and leaving California for Seattle, and a hiatus in her creative pursuits as she returned to school for training in psychotherapy. But soon the love of color and fabrics once again took hold and she started making quilts, this time dyeing and painting her own materials to achieve desired colors. Rome says that mixing dyes for the weaving yarns was all formula-based, but she found painting was so liberating in its color creation: “Color is my vehicle into what I want to talk about,” she says.

Many of her art quilts are collages, combining fabrics, her handmade papers, often some found objects and painted surfaces, and are framed. Some are all fabric, but entirely painted. Frequently she incorporates a female figure in these pieces, sometimes via the basic elements of the piece, sometimes in the quilting stitches.

CQA member Marcia Mellinger holding one of Rome's framed collages

Closeup of a Rome piece with female nude as part of quilting lines

A Rome art quilt done in paint on fabric

Small, unfinished quilted piece by Rome, with seated nude (in stitching) at right

Rome returns to her tapestry weaving roots in this collaged piece

Rome’s more recent works are abstract paintings in fairly large sizes (36”x48” is typical) and brilliant in color. “The fun of abstract art is that it invites the viewer to participate in the painting,” says Rome. “It asks you to not just be a passive viewer…turn it in different directions and the impression changes for each viewer.” She adds that “Abstract artists frequently have trouble finding places to exhibit because the pieces are usually large and do ask you to stop and spend time with them.”

“Painter’s block” is something that hits even such an experienced artist, and when it does, Rome will take out a big piece of paper or canvas and “just make a mess!” Sometimes she’ll take a stack of small pieces of canvas or paper and quickly create some color patches or visualizations of thoughts, just to get her hands moving and stop intellectualizing. She keeps an “inspirations folder” like most creative folk, and advises others to “review your memory banks of places you’ve been when you’re looking for a stimulus…you don’t even need a photo.”

Rome considers this large canvas "a total mess," made just to get the creative juices flowing

Rome cites some of her own inspirations and influences as the works of Mark Rothko and Georgia O’Keefe, as well as Helen Frankenthaler and Kenneth Noland of the “color-field painters” who worked with untreated canvas in order to have the colors bleed into the fibers.

For more of Rome's work, see her website, http://www.joyromeart.com.

Brazil’s “Patchwork Design” show

Brazil’s “Patchwork Design” show

Over the past several years, a number of CQA artists have been invited as individuals to participate in the annual "Patchwork Design" show that starts in Sao Paulo, Brazil and then travels to Rio de Janeiro. Visitors at the shows voted for their favorites among the CQA pieces, and the 2-3 artists whose pieces received the most votes were invited to attend the subsequent year’s events as guests of the show organizers.

The lucky winners from the 2012 event were Sonia Grasvik, who this year traveled to the Sao Paulo show (March 14-16, 2013), and Helen Remick and Marianne Burr, who will attend the Rio show (April 25-27, 2013).

"Tango" by Marianne Burr

"Birdsong 1--Yearning" by Sonia Grasvik

"Spinning Out, Spinning In--4" by Helen Remick

In advance of the 2013 show, CQA was invited to participate as a group so that entry was open to all members. A panel within CQA nominated the entries to be submitted to the show organizers, who juried the submissions and made the final selection of artists and quilts for this international show.

Three pieces were selected from each exhibiting artist, including new work from Grasvik, Remick and Burr. Other CQA members included in the 2013 show are: Colleen Wise, Mary Arnold, Jill Scholtens, Bonnie Bucknam, Debi Harney, Melisse Laing, Lynne Rigby, Louise Harris, Marylee Drake, Patti Bleifuss, Cathy Erickson, Ruth Vincent, Donna Hudson and Bonnie Brewer.

"Bamboo" by Patti Bleifuss

"Gearing Up for the Future" by Marylee Drake

"Innovate, Inaugurate, Initiate #3" by Donna Hudson

"Firewall" by Jill Scholtens

"Steps" by Cathy Erickson

"Snowy Night" by Ruth Vincent

For views of all 51 works in the show by these and other CQA artists, please see the CQA website. or check out the Rutesato show itself! 

Yes...metal mesh can be a fiber!

Award-winning, Anacortes-based artist Lanny Bergner can work sculptural magic with a roll of aluminum insect screening or stainless steel mesh, a pair of flat-nosed pliers, a small torch—and a whole lot of patience!

At the Contemporary QuiltArt Association’s March 9 meeting, Bergner described his artistic journey from his degrees in sculpture (BFA, University of Washington; MFA, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.) to being possibly the country’s largest individual purchaser of industrial screening.

Bergner had a period of working in mixed media, mostly employing non-traditional materials including such oddities as broken chunks of car-window glass, carpet tacks, safety pins, black nylon stockings, etc. Then he began investigating the possibilities inherent in coiling, fraying, twisting, wrapping, gluing and knotting one of the most prosaic of materials—mesh insect screening—and the results may now be found in prestigious exhibitions as well as museum and private collections worldwide.

Rolls of metal mesh and simple tools

One of Bergner's suspended pieces

 Illustrating his processes for the CQA group, Bergner showed how he cuts strips from 100-foot rolls of  anodized aluminum mesh, frays out both edges of the strips, and starts his pieces by pinning first one and then subsequent rows of the mesh around a home-made turntable rig. He connects each row to the next by twisting together the frayed ends with flat-nosed pliers—one pair of ends after another—in a process than can only be called tedious yet meditative. Bergner said that it once occurred to him that this was more or less the same process he had watched as his mother crocheted.

Joining the frayed ends, row by row

 Most of his earlier mesh pieces were vertical hanging or suspended forms, sometimes with secondary, smaller mesh forms within the pieces. Airy and open in appearance, they are also very light, weighing a few pounds at most. Later he began adding glass frit (a glass-making supply) to provide spots of color to the otherwise metallic tones.

Adding glass frit to silicone "blob"

Finished frit "blobs" add decoration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From aluminum mesh Bergner moved on to stainless steel mesh and, over the past 3-4 years, began working in grid patterns, creating some pieces that are reminiscent of quilts. For these, he painstakingly creates little “pillows” consisting of two layers of the mesh, usually with colors added, that are wired together to form wall-size “quilts.”

Grid patterns resemble quilts

                                            

Closing the back of a "pillow"

In adding color to the grid pieces, Bergner introduced some new elements: a small torch to create vari-colored patterns on the surface of stainless steel mesh; the frit-covered silicone “balls” he affixes to the pieces, and silicone “blobs” in solid colors that are squished between layers of brass or bronze anodized aluminum mesh. More and more he uses the torch as a drawing tool on the stainless steel, which reacts differently depending on the distance he holds the torch from the mesh. In addition, if he applies a layer of spray lacquer before burning his patterns, a different color can be achieved. 

Squishing colored silicone balls between mesh layers

Using small torch to burn patterns on stainless steel mesh

All these elements come into play in the several series Bergner is presently concentrating on, where he uses largely stainless steel mesh, plus wire in various colors, and often black and white spots of silicone. Some are best described as free-form “baskets”and others as mesh vessels—including some teapots that are deceptively solid-looking!

For more information on Bergner, examples of his pieces, and lists of his many and varied exhibitions and awards, go to http://home.wavecable.com/~lbergner/