I’m sure you’ve all had one of those serendipitous events. You know, you planned for one thing and it just wasn’t meant to be, but then you got to do or learn something you never would have done in a million years.
For me it was visiting the Lace Study Center at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia. First, I wasn’t planning to be in Australia, and second, I’m not a lace person. A little background: I’ve never been a lace person. I remember when I was a little girl, if my mom bought me anything with lace, I’d get my scissors and cut it off. No scratchy stuff for me! Training bra with lace? Get out the scissors. Let me clear up another thing. The Powerhouse Museum isn’t a museum about electricity; the building was the former powerhouse. It’s got a bit of everything. My friend saw that there was a lace study center and wanted to see it. Of course it wasn’t scheduled to be open—it was just a happy accident. Now that place has some lace! We must have spent hours pulling open the drawers , looking at all the pieces. The volunteers were so generous with their knowledge, and we got quite an education.
Here are a couple of my favorites.
Amazing Lace
I think if my mom had bought me a dress with the car lace on it, I would have let it stay. The second piece was part of the Powerhouse Museum 2nd International Lace for Fashion Award (2002, I think). It was made with a hot glue gun. Yep, you read that right—hot glue. I’m sure that would not have made me “itchy.”
Glue Lace
Which brings me to part two of this post. Don’t ask me how, but somehow in my web surfing today, I ended up at the Lace Study Center website. Wouldn’t you know, it’s time for the Lace Exhibition. This time it’s called Love Lace. If you can’t get to Sydney this year, pop on over to the website and see the amazing pieces they’ve got on display. If you find yourself hooked, like I was, watch the interview with the exhibition designers Camilla Block and Neil Durbach. You’ll see not only the amazing pieces but the exhibition space. With portholes in the walls, the exhibition space is, like the lace it contains, an open-work structure. But the sinuous walls make wonderful backgrounds for the shadows cast by these amazing pieces of art. You’ll wish you had some of this lace in your home.
As we start this new year – and Kris’s 54th birthday today (whew!) – Deb started looking around for inspiration that will keep us happy and young. We can’t wait until we don’t have to explain our wardrobes or our love of boas (in the case of Deb) or all things pink (in the case of Kris). We’re already working on our advanced style! May 2012 be the best year yet! By the way, in the still below, Kris would be the one in red, and Deb would be the one in purple!
The Toyamas pose with their quilt (if you click on the image!)
On January 18th, we are going to be teaching a workshop for the River City Quilters’ Guild based on the commission quilt we finished in October. I just realized we had not posted a photo of the finished commission, so people who weren’t at the RCQG show or meeting wouldn’t know what we’re talking about. I guess we didn’t post because we were waiting to have the quilt professionally photographed. Well, we still haven’t, but we have an appointment with the photographer after the workshop. In the meantime, here is a bad snapshot of Mapping the Family. We’ll tell you all about the name and the story behind the quilt in another post. We just wanted to tempt you to take the workshop. As of this post, there are still a few spots open, so if you want to join in on the fun, here are the details.
Watercolor Quilts with Batiks Watercolor quilts are beautiful to look at and fun to make. Batik fabrics are stunning in their variety of pattern and color variations. Wouldn’t it be fun to see what kind of watercolor quilt you could create with batik fabrics? We’ve come up with a simple method of creating batik watercolor quilts that will allow you to focus on the technique of moving from one hue to another. The raw edges give these watercolor quilts a modern twist. In this workshop, we will create a 20” x 30” quilt made of 2 ½” batik squares. So that you will spend your time creating, instead of cutting and fusing, you will be able to choose pre-cut, pre-fused squares to complete your quilt. Yep, we did the tedious work for you. I guess it was really our way of getting “up close and personal” with all the fabulous batik fabrics. I think we each said, “This one is my favorite,” about a hundred times. Our comment about the other 80 or so was, “I don’t really like this one, but it will make a great transition between blue and brown.” Visit the RCQG website for registration information.
If you just want to stop in to say hi, we’ll be the guest speakers at the RCQG meeting on Tuesday evening, January 17th. Come along as we recount our story from our first collaboration to exhibiting in NYC. Learn how the River City Quilters’ Guild always seems to be there for us at critical moments. Sentimental Journey: The Pixeladies and RCQG is a program of quilts, storytelling, and the role of local quilt guilds in the support of artists and entrepreneurs.
When I have a deadline I don’t want to deal with, my way of procrastinating is to do other things that I’ve been putting off. Like cleaning. So this week it was cleaning off my desk in the studio. Kris is gone, so I can spread everything out and go through each piece of paper. I’m not a journal keeper, so when an idea strikes or I see something worth remembering, I grab the nearest piece of paper. Napkins, envelopes, those awful subscription cards from magazines. They work, but how do I keep them together? I have several idea folders in the Pixeladies’ file cabinet. But Kris wants to go through them. What she really means is that she wants me to throw some of the stuff away. So I need to beat her to the punch. I decided I’d start gluing them on paper and putting them in a binder. (We have oodles of binders, but that’s another story). No organization, just glue, punch and put in the binder. At the same time I requested an account from Pinterest.com. It’s the online version of my idea folders. Today I received my Pinterest account. So what better time to take on a new project than when another dreaded deadline is looming.
This is the long version of how I got to the meat of this post. Somehow, while looking up things to pin to my boards, I came across the blog DreamDrawCreate.com: Art Lessons for school kids written by Janis, an elementary school art teacher. Wow! I want to go back to elementary school and be one of Janis’ students. As I was skimming the posts, I saw some really cool sculptures. When I looked closer, the sculpture looked like one that my nephew Louis made for me a couple of Christmases ago. Too bad you can’t see it in 3D. It’s very interesting from all sides. And it’s FIBER ART!
Louis' sculpture
Louis' sculpture
I think next time I have a creative block (or need to procrastinate), I’ll go back to DreamDrawCreate.com and do one of the art projects for kids! So, do you procrastinate? How do you keep track of your ideas, thoughts, and inspirational images? Do they help get you out of a creative rut?
It’s that time of year when the Pixeladies furiously attempt to clean the studio, sweep all the bad spirits out the door, and look forward to a new year. What better way to do that then to receive advance copies of our book! The FedEx driver said this was her favorite delivery! And, while we were cleaning today, C&T, our publishers, had two azalea plants delivered to the studio. Tomorrow we’re going to celebrate by buying new well-deserved cell phones. After all, we are two of the last 19 Palm Pre owners still in existence. We’re closing the studio until January 2. Until then, may you have the most wonderful of holidays. Our hope is for peace on Earth, good will toward all, and the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl.
The theme was snow. We went to our local hospice thrift store and found 4 painted plaster (?) snowflakes and one brass one. The mission was to create ornaments worthy of Gail Bird’s ornament exchange. The real challenge was to only use embellishments from our stash. Well, I’m not sure if that was really a challenge–we have quite a stash. Remember, I am the one who never throws anything away. I guess you could call some of the sequins vintage–I’m sure I’ve had them since the 7th grade. And my grandma and Mrs. T recently cleaned out their jewelry boxes and donated them to our stash.
Plain Ornament
Deb wields the glue gun
That’s me trying to use the hot glue gun. I only got one small burn. Kris was in charge of gluing the small parts together and only managed to glue a couple of fingers together. I think we need to go to gluing school. Below are our finished snowflakes.
Green Frosty Snowflake
Crystal Blue Snowflake
Ruby Pink Snowflake
Amber Gold Snowflake
Silver and Gold Snowflake
The silver and gold one is for our hostess. We won’t tell you what our other gift is; let’s just say Charades will be a little wackier this year!
Can it really be that eight years have gone by since we went to our first quilt show for research purposes? If the calendar doesn’t lie, it really has been eight years since we met Gail Bird of Russian punchneedle fame. We watched her create her own booth buzz and inspire people to try something new. We liked her chutzpah and charm. We thought she might be willing to give us some advice as we started on our business journey. As it turns out, Gail not only gave us some great advice, but she also became our first client. Why? Although Gail has never claimed to be a tech geek, she has always looked for ways to make technology work for her, so she had us do some quick website repairs while she decided how to proceed with a complete website overall. She didn’t want to lose customers in the interim. We liked that about her.
Gail shows off her QR code and sample purse
It was no surprise, then, to see Gail at the River City Quilters’ Guild Quilt Show this year with new products and new technology. She already had her QR code ready for visitors to scan so they could find her website later. And, she was ready to take credit cards with the Square card reader that is attached to her cell phone. This type of card reader is great for small businesses. And why do our holidays start with Gail? Because she always invites us to her annual ornament exchange where we eat some incredible homemade soup, exchange ornaments, and play some wicked charades. Hope your holiday season has a great start, too.
Well, you can’t expect the Pixeladies to go anywhere without seeing if there is some store, museum, or event involving fiber. Needless to say, we had our choice during our October trip to NYC. We decided on Mood Fabrics because 1) we knew they would have a lot of fabric (and they did), 2) we wanted to give our Project Runway fans a report, and 3) there’s nothing like going to a store that can’t be reached unless you go into an office building and up the elevator! We have to say that the trip was worth it because we had the best salesperson, Adina. If she doesn’t work there anymore, it’s Mood’s loss! Lots of attention with knowledge of what to show us. She also had the muscles to move those bolts around quickly. At first we went in without a mission (not a good thing), so we quickly decided to look for fabric we could use to make furoshiki. Can you believe they had NO rayon?! What’s with that?! [Deb's note: we didn't get to the upper floors to check--we did have husbands to meet, after all, and we were already late.] Adina was good, though. She found us lots of great dress-weight cotton that had good drape. We did not go away empty-handed.
Kris wraps fabric into a bag
Adina shows Deb some cool fabric
We also decided to check out the Artquilt Gallery NYC. Was it small? Yes. Was it impressive? Yes. Carol Taylor’s quilts were hanging during our visit. Was there a quilt shop attached to it? Yes. We did not go away empty-handed. For those of you headed to NYC in January, our friend Paula Chung will have her amazing quilts on display. And we can’t even begin to describe the lusciousness that is the Mokuba store. When is the last time you ran your hand across silk grosgrain ribbon. Aaaah!!!! And, yes, we did not go away empty-handed, but we forgot to take photos!
We know we still have three months to go, but C&T Publishing just listed our upcoming book entitled Furoshiki Fabric Wraps: simple, reusable, beautiful. We couldn’t wait until February to let you all know about it. If you want something new to do with your fabric, you want to use less paper, or just want to create beautiful wraps and bags, this is the book for you. We love it that C&T thought to make project cards so that you can pass along instructions for a particular wrap. It has been an amzaing experience writing the book and working with all the great people at C&T, but the wait is killing us! As we get closer to the publication date, we’ll start filling you in on some of the neat things that happened like . . .
Furoshiki means "bath spread"
. . . I was looking around the house for props for one of the photo shoots and decided to take a box of my dad’s oranges from his backyard (he was a great gardener) as a little gift for the C&T folks. Well, wouldn’t you know those oranges came in handy as a backdrop to one of the wraps. Nice to know my dad’s gardening got immortalized in some fashion.
It was a whirlwind trip to the Big Apple during the three most beautiful days of the year. Would you believe mid-70s and clear? We have so much to tell you about, but we’ll start with the reason we went – Faith Ringgold received the City College of New York’s First Cultural Arts Award, and Myrah Brown Green curated a show of art quilts to coincide with the honor. The Thursday night reception was wonderful – plentiful and tasty hors d’oeuvre, friendly people, and an awards presentation with cool music by Rafik & Friends (I mean they played Miles Davis – what more could you ask?).
The exhibit ends December 1st
With our quilt, "Crossing the Bridge with Faith"
It was very interesting to actually stand next to our quilt and discuss it with the attendees. One woman told us she really felt the struggle of the three black women and their confidence in moving forward, as depicted by the bridge. I told her the three women were Faith, Deb, and I, crossing the bridge together toward our vision. She had actually hit the nail on the head; we did want to show how women are always in a precarious position, but that we have confidence in ourselves. Having met Faith Ringgold, we learned that you really do have to be confident in your work and be willing to put yourself out there in the art world to succeed. She told us to go to all the arts events in our communities, and put our names out there. When opportunities arise, Faith said, at least they’ll know your name!
Sherry Boram with her quilt (below her)
Valerie White in front of her quilt
Lest you think we stole the show, here are two other quilts with their makers, Sherry Boram and Valerie C. White. These were compelling and powerful quilts. Maybe because the theme – to honor Faith Ringgold – was in itself inspirational that there were so many interesting quilts.
We had so much fun chatting with Faith
Otto Neals with his plaque for Faith
Faith Ringgold really is a great storyteller. I turned to Deb and said she reminded me of my dad, who could hold people’s attention while he regaled them with his life stories. I told Faith the same thing when we sat down to chat. She got a laugh when I told her I bet it was the first time she had ever been compared to a 92-year-old Japanese man. I must say, as much as we loved meeting Faith and being in her presence, we met so many incredible artists and friends of the arts that we kept pinching ourselves. Take Otto Neals, for example. He designed the bronze plaque of Faith that will permanently hang in Aaron Davis Hall. What a talent! We loved our time in Harlem. No wonder Bill Clinton wanted to put his office there. Good food and lots of great art. We can’t wait to go back.
