Friday, July 24, 2015

Check Out My PDX Quilts on STQRY

Have you tried the STQRY app on your smart phone? STQRY is a guide to art and cultural venues.  Many venues around the world post their exhibits and visitor destinations on STQRY. Download the app to your smart phone.  Your phone will use its gps to find art and cultural sites near you, wherever you happen to be.


So, if you are near Portland, check out the Portland International Airport info.  Open your STQRY app. Select Portland International Airport, select Stories, select Site-Specific Installations, select Caverns, and there I am!  You can see photos of the airport quilts, read about me, and link to my website.  And when you are done with me, there are 23 more stories at the Portland airport.  Enjoy!

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Mostly Blue Totes

This set of totes is mostly blue.  I had five interesting blue fabrics that I loved and got carried away by all the possibilities for combining the fabrics in different ways.  Here are the five fabrics I started out with.

The first is a noren, Japanese door curtain, that I bought in Sapporo long ago.  It's a beautiful shibori dye.
 
This next was a recent purchase from a vendor at the LaConner StashFest.  She said the fabric was a hand-woven cotton from a Miao ethnic minority village in Southwest China, Guizhou Province. The stripe pattern is simple but very elegant.

 
This is a piece I picked up in Thailand, but I don't remember exactly where I purchased it.  I don't know the fabric content, but it has a slightly rough weave.  The design looks to be a wax resist with an indigo dye.

 
This is a piece of hand-woven cotton ikat that I purchased in a little village on the south shore of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.
 
 
 
And the last is a woman's skirt of hand-woven ikat cotton fabric.  I bought this one from a street vendor in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.


On a couple of bags, I used pieces of this embroidery to embellish the front pockets.  My friend Sally bought this piece for me when she visited Kaross, an embroidery workshop in Pretoria, South Africa.  I had purchased pieces there a couple of years before.  When I learned that she planned to visit the same shop, I asked her to be on the lookout for me.  This was a large piece, but parts of it had already been cut away, I presume to make pillows or some smaller items. I wouldn't have had the heart to cut it up had it been in one piece.

 
Also, the beautiful bird embroidery on the first purse below is by my friend Francisca who lives in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.
 
So here are the totes. See the Purses for Sale page for additional information and photos on each purse.
PTT44
 
PTT46
 
PTT47
 
PTT48
 
PTT49
 
PTT50
 
PTT51
 
PTT53
 
And I actually made two new totes that are not blue.
 
PTT45
 
PTT52

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

What's Blue to You? at The Art Gallery, Longview WA


High Fiber Diet's What's Blue to You? exhibit opened last night at The Art Gallery at Lower Columbia College in Longview, Washington.  The gallery space is beautiful and curator Diane Bartlett did a marvelous job of hanging the work.  The exhibit will be on display through August 19, 2015.  Summer hours at The Art Gallery are Monday and Tuesday 10am-6pm, and Wednesday 10am-4pm.  It's a beautiful show.  Stop by!
 
Fiber works by (left to right) Emily Stevens, Terry Grant, Bonnie Bucknam, Mary Arnold, Jill Hoddick, Anita Kaplan, and Maarja Paris

Fiber works by (left to right) Gerrie Congdon, Kimberly Connelly, Diane English, and Lynda Christiansen

Fiber works by Marie Murphy Wolfe, Sharry Olmstead

Fiber works by Pamela Pilcher, Mary Goodson, Gerrie Thompson

Fiber works by Carol Heist, Mary Ann McCammon

Fiber works by Sherri Culver, Anita Caplan, Jeanette Duke

Art by (left to right) Terry Grant, Bonnie Bucknam, Mary Arnold, Jill Hoddick, Sally Sellers, Susan Cowan, Sharry Olmstead, Terry Grant (foreground) 

Artwork by jurors Sally Sellers, Susan Cowan, and Sharry Olmstead

Fiber works by Susan Circone, Karen Miller, Mary Arnold, and Sara Miller



Quilt National Video Interviews Available

Now you can see videos of Quilt National artists talking about their work. Click here to go to the Quilt National Exhibitors page, then click on the artist's name.