Category: Art
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Fabric Messages AT 48 Natoma
This is Deb saying that If you find yourself in the Sacramento area between now and March 9, 2019, take the extra drive out to Folsom to see the Fabric Messages exhibit at the Gallery at 48 Natoma.* Under the curatorial vision of Cindy Abraham, this unassuming gallery has quite a history of promoting both nationally known and…
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Art Quilts Unfolding
“Wow! That’s one heavy box.” said my husband as he handed me (Deb) the package from Schiffer Publishing. “Wow!” I said as I tore the box open. I don’t think I’ve had a book that large and heavy since the days of college textbooks. This is no mere coffee table book, this book has meat!…
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Katharine McCormick and MIT
This is Kris, back with another installment on our piece for the 2020 exhibition, Deeds Not Words: Celebrating 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage. We chose Katharine McCormick as our subject not simply because she was so instrumental in the women’s suffrage movement; she furthered women’s rights wherever she set foot. And the first place she happened…
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Building A House Quilt To Share
Our friend and fellow artist, Jamie Fingal, is collecting 14″ x 14″ quilts that feature a house for people transitioning from homelessness and starting a home. Jamie has partnered with Furnishing Hope on this project. We decided to make our own house quilt to donate to this great cause, and we also love to take a…
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Antoni Gaudí’s Barcelona
Spain did not disappoint. Antoni Gaudí’s Barcelona was as magical as I thought it would be. What artist intentionally starts something that he knows he will never see to completion? La Sagrada Familia My first stop was Gaudí’s masterwork, La Sagrada Familia. This temple is amazing in so many ways. The highly decorated nativity façade…
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Katharine McCormick: The Facelift
It’s Deb, back with the another post on our project for the 2020 exhibition, Deeds Not Words: Celebrating 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage. In our last post about the project, we talked about how we chose the face color. This time we’ll show you how we gave Katharine McCormick a bit of a facelift. Liquify Filter…
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The Pixeladies Turn 15!
Has it really been fifteen years since we paddled around Deb’s pool, dreaming up a way to start a business? It seems like yesterday when we decided to call ourselves the Pixeladies, but now that we’ve taken stock of what we’ve done these past fifteen years, it really has been a long time. You can…
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My Love Affair With Mosaics
This is Deb. I’m in the airport right now and thinking about mosaics.* I’ve forgotten when my love affair with mosaics started. It was definitely before I visited the Magic Gardens in Philadelphia. And before visiting the House of Shards at the Abita Mystery House in Abita Springs, Louisiana. It…
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Behind the Scenes at Quilting Arts TV
We flew to Cleveland, Ohio last week to film three segments for Quilting Arts TV. We met up with our colleague Jane Haworth (pronounce it like Howard, but replace the “d” with “th”) at the airport for a red-eye flight to Cleveland. The bad part about taking a night flight is that you usually arrive…
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“Apple Records” and the 2018 SAQA Benefit Auction
If you are regular readers of the Pixeladies blog, you know that we are big supporters of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) and especially its annual benefit auction. We’ve individually bought quilts at auction, but as the Pixeladies we try to also donate a quilt every year. Last year we were unable to donate a…
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Katharine McCormick: Choosing A Face Color
It’s Deb, back with the next episode of our project for the exhibition Deeds Not Words: Celebrating 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage. In Part 2, you may recall we decided to try something different and make our text collage in black and white and add the color in Photoshop. This post is about choosing the…
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Why We Go To The Movies
It seems like a silly question. Doesn’t everyone go to the movies (or at least watch them at home)? While most people do just that for the enjoyment of it — and we’re no exception — we love to go to the movies for inspiration. Ogle all you want over George Clooney (and we do),…
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Kris’ 2018 SAQA Dream Collection
As Deb mentioned in our last post, it’s time again to start dreaming about the perfect art collection in the form of six amazing 12″ x 12″ art quilts from the annual SAQA Benefit Auction (Sep 17 – Oct 7). Deb actually posted not one, but two dream collections. I, on the other hand, have been…
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Deb’s 2018 SAQA Dream Collection
It’s getting to be that time of year again. Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) holds an auction of amazing 12″ x 12″ art quilts in September. This year it goes from September 14 through October 7, so mark your calendar! In addition to seeing all the quilts, you can view members’ dream collections of six…
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Katharine McCormick: Creating A Cartoon
As promised, we’re back with more about our project for the exhibition Deeds Not Words: The Power of Persistence, Celebrating 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage, which premieres in 2020. If you would like to read our first post on Katharine Dexter McCormick, click here. We usually start on our portrait projects by looking for a…
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Transparency In Fashion: Art That Makes You Think
Do you let your magazines pile up? You know–you have a whole stack that you haven’t read and then try to read them all at once when you want to clean your house. I usually do that. But yesterday I received my Surface Design Journal and while flipping through the pages, there seemed to be…
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Katharine McCormick: Making Her Mark Part 1
It’s funny how the creative process works. Multiply that by 2, and you get an idea of what it’s like for us to come up with an idea and see it to fruition. That second part can sometimes take years. We’re finally working on a piece that has been on our collective back burner for…
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Photographs for Designing
I just returned from a fantastic SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) conference in San Antonio, Texas. Along with listening to lots of thought-provoking talks, catching up with old friends, and meeting new ones, I took lots of photographs. Some of these photos might look odd to you, but for me they’re textures that I might…
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Creative Block? [Part 2]
Last week I wrote about creating a quilt by copying one of my favorite artists, Maria Shell. Here’s a link to that entry in case you missed it. The first thing I learned by copying Maria Shell is that she is a master of color. Her quilts may look simple and random, and the construction might…
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Creative Block?
Sometimes you just need a change of scenery. Kris and I usually take some time off at the end of the year. For me, time off doesn’t mean stop doing. I woke up one day and wanted to DO something–create something–something different. As an artist, when you have a style, it’s a good thing. But…
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MSU Museum Purchases “Drawing Humanity”
What a lovely surprise it was to hear that the Michigan State University Museum wanted to buy our “Language of Color 10: Drawing Humanity.” We said, yes, of course. The museum knows our quilt well because the museum, along with the Women of Color Quilters Network and the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, mounted…
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Tech Tuesday: Inspiration, Spoonflower and Photoshop
This started out to be a post on working with multiple images in Photoshop, but it has turned into a post about inspiration and why I allow my inbox to be filled with promotions for this product or that service. Most of you know that I’m a saver. Kris thinks I’m a boarderline hoarder, but…
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And What did you do on your Summer Vacation?
For the first time ever, the Pixeladies took the summer off. Deb needed to find herself, and Kris, well you’ll have to wait until next week for that. I, Deb, really needed to find my paint rollers and paint the interior walls of my house. I had also planned a slight renovation of the kitchen,…
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Cover Girls, Exhibition, And Vacation, Oh My!
We certainly are starting our vacation off with a bang. For one, we were interviewed for the latest Patchwork Professional magazine, which just hit the newsstands. Patchwork Professional is published in Germany, so we had double the fun answering our interview questions in German. Yes, the editor was a bit surprised at that! The best…
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Art And Politics: What Does An American Look Like?
I won’t mince words. Last November’s election for US president hit Deb and me like a punch in the gut. In fact, we’re still reeling from what seems like a daily assault on what we have always held as true; we have the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We’ve never shied…
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What We Found at the Met
Yesterday I told you about the Met joining forces with Creative Commons. Click here to read the post. Today I’ll show you some of the goodies I found. By now you know Kris and I both love text. We don’t even have to know what it means to like it. My favorites (this week) are…
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Tech Tuesday: The Met Goes Public–Domain, That Is
There are real advantages to collaborating. Here’s one I hadn’t thought of. Kris and I don’t read the same articles, websites, and blogs. So when one of us sees something exciting, we share it with the other. Kris stumbled across a good one. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) has partnered with Creative Commons…
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Inspiration and Documentation
Kris and I are revamping our Digital Designing class. Sometimes it takes us quite a while to formulate a class, but this one came together in an afternoon. I just love it when that happens. So while Kris was fleshing out the outline, I was looking for inspiration for projects. I’d really love to have…
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Ahh, The Company We Keep!
I regularly check out the website of Studio Art Quilt Associates because they frequently change their homepage banners. For me, it’s a weekly art fix. Well, wasn’t I surprised to check in the other day to find this amazing collage: Wow, our Obama quilt is in great company! These artists have produced some amazing work, and we hope you…
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Why We Go to Quilt Shows
Sure, we quilt. Sure, we like to meet up with friends. In the end, though, we go to quilt shows to get inspired. We usually go to the Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara every year, but the past few years have not been very inspiring. It seems the quilts got dark and brooding…