Empty Spools - Day Two 03-04-17

Another beautiful sunny day at Asilomar - it was warm enough for me to take off my vest, but as the sun went down I had to don a sweater.  The ocean is beautiful and there are stars out tonight.  Supposed to rain tomorrow - BOOOO.

 

Sue Benner is such a good teacher.  She has it all laid out beforehand and passes out an "agenda" with all sorts of tips and instructions.  Today she showed a series of slides of the work of Modrian which I found very interesting.  I have never had any art history classes, so now I know a little more of the origins of abstraction and how it has changed since the mid 19th Century.   We had one assignment today and the pictures below might give you an idea of what we are doing.  Sue gave each of us a picture cut from a magazine and we traded one eight inch square of fused fabric with the person on each side of us - which gave us each five fabrics.  They were all supposed to be different, but I wasn't listening and mine were all the same busy fabric, so I ended up with only three fabrics.  Woe am I!

We were to use only those five fabrics to interpret the magazine picture we received and use some of each fabric in our piece..  Everyone worked very hard and some of us had never done abstraction previously, so the results were mixed.  And that was the lesson.  Working within the instructions and limitations we did intuitive abstraction - it was hard. 

 

In the pictures the magazine photo is on the left and each work to the right of it, except for mine where the magazine photo is below because there wasn't enough room to put them side-by-side.   I didn't space some of the images very well, but I think you can get the idea.   Tomorrow we will make five different 8" x 10" abstractions based on a photo we have selected and can use any fabric we wish.  An abstraction with a little control. 

I think the second one down on the left is the most successful one.  Mine is on the lower right. 

 

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Empty Spools at Asilomar

This is my 26th consecutive year at Empty Spools Seminars.  This year I am only taking one session, because I just don't have the energy I used to have.  And packing, unpacking in classroom and sleeping room takes a lot of energy.  My class with Sue Benner started today for only an hour and a half, but with all that schlepping I am worn out tonight.  So, I will have to tell you more about it tomorrow and in subsequent days.  I'll be here until Wednesday, spend another night with Mary and Joe and drive home on Thursday.  KoKo is staying with Nancy Ota in San Clemente. 

 

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Revisiting a quilt by Sally Sellers 02-26-17

Between the wind and the rain, I have not been able to photography any new quilts.  So, this is another revisit. Originally posted 06-20-10   Del

 

 

 

Here is another of the foot square quilts I purchased at the 2007 SAQA auction. I don't have much information about it and Sally doesn't have images of her quilts posted on her website. But I have seen her work for many years, perhaps dating back to the first issue of Art/Quilts Magazine (which is no longer published) and have always admired it. When I think of her, I think of houses and beading, so this was the perfect quilt to fit into the TCQC.

"House" Sally Sellers - Vancouver, WA. 2007 12" x 12" Hand and machine stitching, hand embroidery,  hand beading, tied.  Cotton Fabric and Batting, a button. .

Tiny blue beads form the moon and faceted blue beads sprinkle the roof. The bugle beads lined up on the roof top make me think of neon lights - don't know why. She has filled the shockingly pink night sky in the background with French knots and created a lawn in straight stitch with many color threads.
 

The back is made from a Sherrill Kahn print that I also had on my shelf and had a lot of fun with. You'll note that there is no label, instead Sally has signed the front of the quilt on the binding in the lower right corner. Note also that for the binding across the bottom she has used some of the backing fabric. It seems to extend the lawn into the binding.

http://sallysellers.com/sellersAbout.swf

06-24-10 Sally responded to my e-mail telling her I had posted her quilt: "This house was totally for fun, fun, fun. No agonizing over details, no angst about design, just grab some color and make it happen. I hadn't seen it since I sent it in to the auction, so am delighted to see it again now. I was doing all the things I love to do: stitch with embroider floss, add beads, use color. I continue to do that with larger projects. I have a zillion beads now but know nothing about jewelry -- I use them all on fabric. Thanks so much for purchasing it.