All the Usual Suspects

Cutting quilts up to create new ones is an intuitive and challenging enterprise. It lends a sense of danger to the workspace. I am constantly reminding myself to let it go. In other words, no matter how many hours it took me to create a piece if it doesn’t please me any more then it is a candidate for the rotary cutter. I just have to let it go and move into the realm of the unfinished.

Let me introduce you to The Usual Suspects. They are named Presto-chango, Caught Red-Handed, Empty Rhetoric and Sideshow. They are a compilation of many scraps of stitching-gone-wrong, stitching-gone-right-but-in-the-wrong-place, or, stitching-for-the-hell-of-it-and-now-what-do-I-do-with-it bins. Those bins supply just the raw materials I need when nothing else suits. They make me feel good about that re-use, re-cycle and re-do mentality I try to foster.

The Usual Suspects.: Presto-chango, Caught Red-Handed, Empty Rhetoric and Sideshow. Each panel measures 40” x 13”, Paula Kovarik

And here are some detail shots.

Using units like squares, triangles and diamonds reminds me of traditional quilts and mosaic tile work. In this second piece I cut up a quilt into 2” squares and rearranged it into a new configuration. It doesn’t have a name. I’ll have to study it a bit before I commit to it.

I'm thinking about working up a lesson plan for this cutting up practice. Perhaps a 4 or 5-day workshop? If you are interested drop me a note and I'll try to figure out how I can get us all together.

Pattern work, 50.5” x 9”, canvas, batting and thread. Paula Kovarik

Ups and downs

Every so often I wake up with a word list in my mind. It happened a month ago at 3 am. It happened last week at midnight and it happened this morning at 5 am. The list is a series of verbs that contrast each other. I have a note pad at the side of my bed so that I can write down my dreams. Sometimes I have enough consciousness to do that. Other times I lay there and try to memorize the thoughts so that I can write them down when I wake up. It never works. My dreaming mind is a white board with an automatic eraser.

Here’s a list from that 3 am wake up call a month ago:

  • shake up/shake down

  • let up/let down

  • write up/write down

  • bring up/bring down

  • lock up/lock down

  • dress up/dress down

  • play up/play down

  • stand up/stand down

  • step up/step down

The thing I notice about this list is how different the meaning of the primary verb is when using the up modifier as opposed to the down modifier. No surprise there. Up is the opposite of down right? But here’s the thing: both can be negative. For example, shake up can imply agitation and anxiety while shake down implies an illegal act. On the other hand using the word up is often positive as in dress up, let up and stand up while using the word down almost always connotes a negative spin. Obviously, I am no linguist. But it intrigues me that my brain is listing these phrases for contemplation.

Why do I dream these things? I think it is a sorting of synapses to process the negative and positive things in life. My work reflects these dichotomies. I will start an “up” stitching and inevitably the “down” sneaks in. Monsters, snakes and cynical grins sit side by side with Seuss-like trees and decorative leaf patterns. Juggling the positive with the negative is part of my exploration as an artist.

What I really wonder about is: Can I do art that is beautiful and uplifting without adding the spice of the down stroke? Do my doubts, worries and anxieties always have to show up?

On another note

I had a great time at Art Quilt Tahoe this month. The setting was spectacular and my students left me awestruck with their work. Thank you Roxanne, Linda, Ileana, Carol, Gay, Nancy, Sandra, Terry, Jacquie, Diane and Marion for making my job so easy. And, thank you Judy, for inviting me.

Taking stock

I spent today stitching a new piece that has yet to be revealed here. It tracks with other pieces that focus on one line traveling across a surface of mystery. The work satisfies my need to be present and not distracted. It allows me to be playful and calm. It tracks my mood and challenges my sense of balance. Here’s a detail:

And, while I have been stitching, I have been thinking about other pieces I have finished in the past year. They range from narrative to expressive, 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional, abstract to figurative. I have cut up pieces and stitched them back together. In some pieces I have scurried over random textures in a frenzy of stitch. In other pieces I have calmly and sedately thought about balance and composition with an analytical focus.

Overseer, 45” x 54”, Paula Kovarik. Repurposed quilt pieces over-stitched and re-assembled.

You Don’t Know Me, work in progress, 3-dimensional assemblage, Paula Kovarik

In 2021, I will have a solo show that will hang at the Visions Art Museum in San Diego, California. I think the pieces I include should have a common thread —an integrated collection that speaks to my current work as an artist.

The question I keep asking myself is: “which self?”


Pieced and Pieces

Two sides, same person. I often work on more than one piece at a time. This month I have been working on two pieces. One is contained and precisely pieced, the other looks like Dr. Frankenstein took out his needle during a side show.

She didn’t have the password started as an abstract composition of black and white fabrics laying about the studio. I always have black and white “units” to play with. They are off-cuts of other work or random shapes put together when I can’t figure out what I want to work on. In fact, I have a whole drawer full of them that I vaguely think about putting together in one huge piece but I never get around to actually doing it. So a piece like this takes the place of that grand plan.

Here’s a detail of the piecing and stitching. Each unit of black and white pieced fabrics is put together to form a landscape that can tell a story. This story has to do with feeling like you aren’t part of the cool kids. Like you don’t know the secret word and everyone else does.

Working on this piece is analytical, planned, light-hearted and precise. I wait for the work to tell me what it needs. It’s a quiet dialog that builds with each detail.

She didn’t have the password - detail, 2019, Paula Kovarik

The original title for this piece was “It looked like fun in there but she didn’t have the password.” The piece measures about 35” x 29”

Dark Heart is an assemblage of cut up quilts. Using traditional quilt patterns, in this case an eight-pointed star, I cut up quilts that are already stitched and reassemble them with Frankenstein-like sutures. I wanted to make fractured crowns, but then it morphed into this bird-like creature overseeing chaos.

Here are some detail shots of the stitching.

Dark Heart, work in progress, detail, Paula Kovarik

Dark Heart, work in progress, detail, Paula Kovarik

Dark Heart, work in progress, detail, Paula Kovarik

Working on this piece is emotional, unplanned, dark and messy. I wait for the work to tell me what it needs. it’s a greedy piece clamoring for more each time I look at it.

Dark Heart, work in progress. Approximately 54” x 46”, Paula Kovarik

So, yes, sometimes I feel like a nut and sometimes I don’t. Two sides, same person.

Better Not Said

I’ve been thinking about what we don’t say.

When asked how we are doing we say “fine.” Not “I’m anxious as hell and I don’t want to take it anymore.“ When we are in a group of strangers it’s difficult to talk about abortion, racism, immigration or politics because it might step on some peoples beliefs. We send out little hints in polite company, feeling out which side of the great divides they are on before revealing our position. We use code words to express our dislike. In the South it is “bless her heart” for someone who is hopelessly wrong or clueless.

So I started thinking about how a language that doesn’t say anything would look. Kind of a secret language we keep to ourselves as we navigate these non-conversations. It’s a language only we understand. You know how it sounds right? It’s that voice inside that calls out your truth but in a whispering tone that only you can hear.

These hieroglyphic shapes could mean anything to the passing stranger. Or nothing.

And then I started thinking about what holding back does to our consciousness. How does NOT saying something affect what I believe to be true? How does NOT saying something create a tacit understanding among community members of where I stand? How does NOT saying something affect my inner peace? Does saying my truth out loud create barriers or bridges?

I’m all over the place with this. It’s hard to even write what I mean here.

Does polite conversation have a place in the dialog of change? Certainly ambassadors must use it when they are negotiating deals with despots. They seed their conversations with objectives while avoiding hot spots. Our president seems to think that name calling and dramatics will result in him getting his way. But will it? Or does the abandonment of polite conversation give us chaos instead?

Keeping my truth to myself results in little reservoirs of doubt and anxiety.

Keeping my truth to myself results in little reservoirs of doubt and anxiety.

So here is Better Not Said. A study of inner thoughts and outer NON dialog.

Better Not Said, 41” x 26.5”, linen, cotton, thread and batting. Paula Kovarik