In the new studio

Having a new studio has been a bit liberating, giving me the freedom to play a bit. 

Somehow I always end up starting with quilt blocks. But this time, the
blocks inspired a completely new series that is not a quilt.

The freedom has brought new ideas, including what I think(hope!) will be a good series. Yes, it's fiber. I'm so in love with the medium.

It started with the desire to make a few pieces of clothing that I actually liked this summer, just a little breather from the deeply conceptual work I've been making over the past two years. Anyone else disgusted with the cheap clothing available in stores? And when I do find clothes I love, they cost a fortune, in the $300+ range. Which makes sense, since they're all handmade. So why couldn't I just make my own? I know how to sew. It also doesn't hurt to have a friend, Sonya Philip, who practices this mantra every day.

I started with the most simple pattern there is. Perfect for the hot summer days we've been having in Sonoma.

Once I hung the clothes on the wall, they no longer looked like clothing but more like soft sculpture. Hmmm, the ideas started flowing. In the interim, more peach preserving happening here, I think a total harvest of 70 pounds this year!

Summer happens

Summer. This summer I've been so busy but in a good way, I haven't even had time to post on the blog! And then I realized, I could just post photos, don't worry about text. This summer is my self imposed residency at our cottage in Sonoma. And so, without further ado, I will start posting again but without much text.

Some ideas I've been playing with. I've been wanting to work with
bright colors.

Just some glimpses into my studio where I'm 'playing' with ideas and into my garden adjacent to my studio, where I'm spending a lot of time.

Harvesting about six pounds a day of peaches! I think I might end up with
three dozen jars of peach jam.

What are you up to this summer? Any exciting projects? I'd love to hear!

Chicago Foreclosure Quilt

I finished the Chicago Foreclosure Quilt last month and have finally been able to find the time to update this long neglected blog! More on that in the next post. The quilt is currently hanging at Gallery Nord in San Antonio. I wanted to make a quilt of Chicago at some point but I was having a hard time pinpointing a particular neighborhood as foreclosures were widespread across the city. One afternoon, while listening to This American Life on NPR, I heard a two part story on Harper High School in Chicago which is located in the Englewood neighborhood. 

Chicago Foreclosure Quilt, 2013

It was a gripping story. There had been 29 shootings at the school in 2012. The students talk about how unsafe the neighborhood feels, with abandoned buildings and empty lots. They have to navigate the neighborhood in unusual ways in order to feel safe. Gangs were in charge of the neighborhood, using it's vulnerability to their advantage.

Chicago Foreclosure Quilt detail, 2013

RIght in the center of the quilt, shown in light blue above, is the block of the high school.

Chicago Foreclosure Quilt detail, 2013

I'm not sure how I want this quilt presented but I know if the quilt sells, I'd like to give the money back to the community somehow. In the meantime, you can listen to the entire podcast here.

Upcoming Show : Gallery Nord in San Antonio - June 8th through July 6th.

I'm off to San Antonio tomorrow to attend the biannual Surface Design Association's conference. Interface runs from June 6 through June 9th. I'm leaving early to install many of my foreclosure quilts at Gallery Nord in San Antonio. This will be the first chance to see two of my most recent quilts, Chicago and Miami. Here is the Chicago quilt. There's a great story behind that I'll explain in more detail later.

Chicago Foreclosure Quilt, 2013. 31" x 42"

The exhibition is sponsored by Surface Design in conjunction with the conference and runs from June 8th to July 6th. I'm thrilled to hang my work with Natalie Miebach, Maria Shell and Eun-Kyung Suh. Natalie's work is a featured exhibit and she will speak about her work at the conference. All of the artists' work is incredible and I look forward to meeting them as well as other fiber artists at the conference. I'll be with my people!

If you're attending, I'll be in the gallery all day on Thursday to greet visitors on the exhibition day tours. Be sure to say hi, I'd love to meet you! There will be an opening reception on Saturday, June 8th from 5 to 7. Visit Gallery Nord here and learn more about the exhibit and the artists here.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

1110/5 by MIEL Publishers

I've been meaning to share a little surprise that landed on my lap a few weeks ago but I had to deal with deadlines first. Finally, I can share! Last year, thanks to my friend Lisa, I happened upon MIEL Publishers, a Belgium based book publisher that aims to bridge the divide between trade books and artist's editions. What a brilliant idea. Jonathan Vanhaelst and Éireann Lorsung are the talented and friendly team behind MIEL. They create high quality art monographs along with a twice a year journal, 1110, that features creative writing and beautiful art.

Artists shown here include Lisa Congdon, Cathy Cullis, Camilla Engman,
Elsa Mora, Heather Smith Jones, and of course, Lisa Solomon.

I had MIEL on my radar to contact them at some point when out of the blue, they contacted me to include my work in the Journal 1110/5. This edition arrives as a set of postcards, each artwork paired with writing that responds to the art.

Éireann chose a detail of my Las Vegas Foreclosure quilt and sent the image to Neele Delschaft, whose beautiful writing was previously published by MIEL here. She wrote a beautiful response.

Writing by Neele Delschaft.

Learn more about MIEL here and be sure to stop by their webshop here.

work table : foreclosure quilts

Just a quick view of my studio wall this week as I finish up quilts for the show at Gallery Nord in San Antonio in June.

Chicago, Miami and Cape Coral Foreclosure quilts.

I have several more shows coming up later this fall and into next spring all across the US, so stay tuned for more details on the Gallery Nord exhibit as well as the rest!

Tokyo

So these won't be your typical Tokyo photos. I had plans, big plans for visiting Tokyo. Visiting trendy neighborhoods full of creative shops, hitting all the fabric stores, finding more books that our local Kinokuniya can shake a stick at, so much more. They just weren't meant to be. And I've realized that's okay by me. By the time we made it to Tokyo, my eight year old daughter who hates traveling, was pretty much done with the whole vacation thing.

She made it through, not without getting sick a few times. It did mean I had to let go of all the crazy, realistically unrealistic plans. It also didn't help that when we did get out, I forgot you really, really need good maps to actually find the places you want to go. Look at that lovely street grid ... not!

By the end of the trip, I was looking forward to a few good hours of contemplation time on the plane. I knew I'd learned something about myself and my expectations on the trip. But I had also realized that back in the US, there's something amazing going on in the craft world that I hadn't noticed before. It was really inspiring and exciting. I couldn't wait to get home to ponder it. And I still am.

There certainly were some incredibly creative ideas flowing around the design and craft world in Tokyo. The picture above was taken at 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT museum. There was an incredible exhibit called Design AH! Here's a little blurb about it which is quite a bit heady. All I can say is the visitors were eating it up!

The exhibition theme is "Design Mind." Along with clairvoyance and creativity, the physical ability to unconsciously determine the adequacy of the things around us is an integral element for carrying on with our daily lives. Here, we call the capabilities honed by these two aspects as the "Design Mind."

There's also this strange dichotomy in Tokyo between nature and urban-ness that is especially apparent during the cherry blossom season. We timed Hanami perfectly.

It seemed as if the entire city would pour out into the parks to enjoy lunch alfresco. Even the widest angle photo doesn't even begin to capture the sheer quantity of blossoms so I managed to snap a video this time. Let me just say that path went on and on and on. The blossoms never seemed to stop!

My latest revelation about our trip occurred just yesterday when I went back through my photos of Tokyo. I think you can see the common theme here is me missing nature.

I was so longing for my garden by the end of the trip. Even though we live in a city, albeit a tiny one compared to Tokyo, I can't wait to dig in my vegetable garden on the weekends. I realized I need to embrace that more in the coming year.

 We made it home and are so happy to be back. I do miss Japan already but have found ways to admire it from afar again. In the meantime, back to the interesting observation about the craft scene in the US. We seem to have an advantage of trying anything and just playing with our work and seeing where it takes us. Not that other countries don't have that, it was just strangely apparent while I stepped away and looked back towards home.

It's always nice to appreciate what's at your feet. And it's got me thinking again ... which was something I was missing before this trip.

Kyoto : Part II

Oh my, it feels like yesterday that I shared part I of my Kyoto images. Let's just say since I've been home, I've been insanely busy. I think we all seem to wish there was an extra day in the week right now. I'll explain soon what I'm working on. Yes, there's been a lot of studio time and a lot of progress but have been too busy to actually photograph the progress! So for now, more photos from the Japan trip!

Of course, we visit the Golden Pavilion. My daughter couldn't wait to see this one. When we told her there was a Silver Pavilion across town but forgot to mention there was no silver on the building, she insisted on seeing it only to exclaim "Where's the silver?! I came all the way here and there's no silver?!"

And of course the cherry trees were in full bloom here and there in Kyoto.

We took a stroll down the Philosopher's Walk. Last time we took this walk, it was in the fall which was just as spectacular.

At the end of the walk and after a wonderful warm bowl of yodufu in broth, we took a wrong turn and discovered a small group of shrines all with little porcelain cups that stood out against the stone.

We toured a quiet little garden that the crowds seemed to ignore. Fine by us - the crowds were getting to us.

I thought the incense ashes were beautiful. Call me crazy.

And then a visit to Rozan-ji temple in the center of Kyoto.  So many cherry trees in full bloom there.

I loved the red text and red fabric here.

I've always loved seeing the stacked sake barrels. I'm still not sure what that signifies but I think it's beautiful.

And as usual, I find beauty in strange things. No one could understand why I wanted to take a picture of this old stone writing. I love how nature intervenes.

And we saw a lot of dogs. This one was one of the largest we saw on the trip, which looked huge to us after seeing so many the size of your hand! I love how he pops his head out of the bars. Notice how his owner has so lovingly removed one bar, just for him?

Next comes Tokyo!

Kyoto - Part I

Japan was amazing, the cherry blossoms, stunning! We returned last week yet I needed another week to recover from jet lag and the typical cold you pick up when traveling. Plus, it was nice to have a solid weekend at our cottage with no phone or computer with looming deadlines over our heads. I know you've been waiting to hear about the trip! We timed the cherry blossoms perfectly in Tokyo and Kyoto. I had no idea there were so many cherry trees in Japan. I'd been before but in the fall (which was amazing in itself) when the leaves were so many beautiful colors. This was a particularly amazing tree and most Japanese were busy photographing it but I loved its' relationship to the building behind with the red trim.

And here in it's full glory ...

One of the things that always surprises me about Japan is how many bikes there are in the  big cities. The bikes, pedestrians and cars all seem to be a well choreographed art. In Kyoto, pedestrians share the sidewalk with bikes ... and it works! I wanted to rent bikes but no tandems could be found for my daughter to ride along with us. The other nice thing is you don't have to worry about having your bike stolen so nobody locks theirs up.

We visited quite a few temples and shrines, this was taken at Kennin-ji temple in the Gion district of Kyoto.

It is the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto (founded in 1202). We happened to visit it on a Sunday, which was the perfect day to go as a lot of locals were visiting, many of the women wearing kimono.  I snuck this shot below. I love how modern the ladies are with their Iphones and peace signs. Everyone was happy that day as it was sunny and warm for a change.

Everything is so beautifully thought out. I loved the material transition in the temple between the tatami to the outside walkways. So much history lies in those scratches and marks made over the years.

 We continued our stroll through the Gion district, which was near our ryokan. I snapped a few pics of the lovely hemp signs that cover the restaurant doors. Of course I have no idea what they say.

We strolled past an antique shop, which I regret not spending more time looking through. Look at all these amazing dolls. They were tiny, most not more than 4" high.

And missing my garden, I fell in love with this one. If you're a gardener, you'll do anything to make a garden. The owner was lovingly tending the other half of her garden wedged in a 1' wide space between her car and a wall.

We did a bit of shopping too. Z found her favorite treat of the trip, this strange somewhat soft, brightly colored candy that comes in tiny little pieces. Apparently, it's a traditional Japanese treat for kids and my friends from Japan got all nostalgic on me when I showed them the picture. ps-she's actually wearing a dress I made for her!

No trip to Kyoto would be complete without a visit to Teramachi Dori, one of the popular covered shopping arcades. We kept visiting it in the early morning for some reason, before the shops opened.

This was my favorite shop, only because of the signage.

I mentioned earlier we stayed at a ryokan in Kyoto. If you visit Japan, at least a couple of nights in a ryokan is a must. It's such a treat. My daughter loved wearing her perfectly sized yukata the owners left out for her. 

I have so many more pictures of Kyoto that are soon to come. I think those were just from two days!

Japan!

Okay, my friends! I'm off to Japan soon but not sure how much connectivity I'll have without running up a $5,000 phone bill! I do plan to take my nice camera, my Ipod and visit quite a few amazing textile and ceramic spots so want to be sure to share my finds. Here's a little video I discovered over at hello sandwich the other day.

If you want to check out my snaps, I'll hopefully be posting regularly on my Facebook page and I bet more frequently on Instagram (yes, I've joined the masses yet again). Thanks to Sonya, Katrina and Lisa for getting me on board over a nice lunch one day in Oakland.

Artist : Hiroko Takeda

Crazy busy this week working in the studio trying to accomplish four weeks of work in two before we leave for Japan next Friday! Keeping with the Japan theme in craft this month, I'm sharing the work of Hiroko Takeda. I have been an admirer of her work for some time and my friend, Lindsay Olson, reminded me about her work last week.

Kisuri Waffle detail by Hiroko Takeda.

Hiroko was the senior designer at Jack Lenor Larson Studio and Custom Designer for Kawashima Textiles in Tokyo before setting out on her own.

Hiroko's work in progress.

Growing up in Japan, she trained in the tradition of Mingei Undou, which is the Japanese Arts and Crafts Movement. Talk about an impressive resume. Her work shows the polished professionalism from her background along with a creative fluidity that gives her work tremendous vitality.

Giant Charcoal detail by Hiroko Takeda.

Every time I view her work on her website, I'm drawn to different pieces. Last time it was the rectilinear structures that I loved. This week it's the soft fluidity of her fluff pieces that draw me in.

Fluff Series detail by Hiroko Takeda.

There are so many beautiful images of her work and her studio, it's hard to choose which to share. Another image I love are of spools of thread. Hmmm, some of those look like Habu Textile threads ...

Spools in Hiroko's studio.

I'm not alone in my admiration for her work. Remember Michele Michael of Elephant Ceramics I featured here last year? She shared a wonderful visit to Hiroko's studio last March. Inspiring! Take a look through Hiroko's website here.