The Festival of Quilts in the UK has posted their online gallery of quilts. This year’s show is called Beyond the Festival of Quilts and has lots of online resources for quilters and artists. You can see my work in the art quilt section, just click here and scroll down. Take some time to scroll through all the incredible work that has been included.
I recycled three different quilts to create Dark Heart.
You can learn more about my process in this article.
Here’s a way to stop the endless news dipping. Turn off the Instagram pages, close your ears to news anchors, take out the sketch book, scribble, then stitch. I had to stop thinking this week. I had to disappear from day in day out headlines and distractions. It started with a What If?
What if I only used straight lines and angular corners when drawing a line that never ended. Fill up the page then turn the page 90 degrees to fill it up again. What would I discover?
Here’s the drawing
Filling in the intersections yields a background foreground pattern.
A square of raw canvas, some wool batting and my trusty black thread started me off. I use YLI 40 wt. cotton thread. It has a deep black color and a strong presence. You can’t miss it when stitching on a light background. It’s all about commitment right?
The nice thing about this exercise is that it stopped me thinking about anything but where the thread wanted to go. I had to anticipate the turns. Here’s the base stitching.
I find that the stiffness of the raw canvas and the loft of the wool batting gives me a surface that has both body and resiliency.
Next step, fill in the blanks. This step was like finding treasure.
Choosing which blank areas would be filled in allowed some shapes to have more definition while others could fade away. Letting the pattern meander across the surface brought some active negative spaces and some interesting positive shapes.
Then I started seeing faces. It’s a very common thing with me (see this post for more on that). So I added dots for eyes.
What a powerful thing a dot is.
It looks like some of these guys are asking the same questions I have.
Here’s where it stands now. I may add more shaded areas. I may add more dots. I may cut it up and make something else out of it.
I See Faces, 25” x 28”, Paula Kovarik
Taking a break from thinking made me feel a little more settled this week. I recommend it.
My studio is a hive of fabric and images. There are usually 3-4 pieces in process on the walls or tables, notes to myself stuck on various surfaces and a 12 foot bulletin board with paper flotsam pinned in layers. But more than that, I have collections of debris everywhere.
I have become a magpie, collecting shiny objects for the pile.
At the end of each project I wrap the trimmings into these textural balls as reminders of the raw and unfinished.
I collect rocks with holes in them for their animated messages.
I wrap tubes with strips of fabric. I don’t know why.
I stitch down trimmings.
I save thread ends, tie them together and wrap them onto spools or stuff them into holding cells.
I save all found rust. Especially the curly ones.
The bulletin board has 10 years of layers on it. I may have to edit soon.
Scraps from cut up quilts are great raw material for new work.
The fabric rainbow gives me great joy every time I see it.
The mask table is getting full. I may have to figure out some other way of keeping these soon.
I won’t go into the insect exoskeletons, broken shells, animal bones and feathery bits that turn up in my drawers. I think this habit of collecting drives my creativity. The rich raw materials that surround me take me beyond the mundane.
Pandemic, murder, demonstrations, voter supression, police brutality and…coming around the bend….climate change. The stress load is heavier and heavier. I’m not sure I can even line up two or three sentences that parse how I am feeling. I’m speechless.
I can only show you what I am working on. This piece is called Silos. Silos as in we are all separating into our own narratives. Silos like how we store up for the future. Silos like when there is a surplus. Silos as in dysfunctional business environments. Silos like media streams that only speak to the loyal. Silos as in isolation.
It started with masks.
And a quilt I no longer wanted.
She Didn’t Have the Password. 2020.
That got cut up.
Into head shapes.
And added to a newly created background.
Maybe next time I post here I will figure out what to say.
On the news today I heard a commentator say that the definition of the word crisis could be described as a turning point.
In a crisis our feelers go up, vision sharpens, breathe quickens. We have to make choices about our health, our loved ones and our resources. We need to pay attention to things that normally we take for granted — electricity, food, cell phone service, access to healthcare, safety.
A week ago our electricity went out for 9 hours. That got me thinking. All the what ifs started. What if we didn’t have a communications grid? What if the water system failed? What if aliens landed (I don’t recommend watching War of the Worlds right now)?
Do you have all those crazy thoughts in darkness? I did that night but it passed. I’m not too worried even though I should be. All of those what ifs just put into focus how dependent we are on government services and how much our infrastructure can crumble without warning. It happens in floods, it happens with fires, it happens in earthquakes. And now it is happening to the world. Many leaders have been caught with their pants down and many have stepped up to find solutions. Its the latter category I want to support.
My work is meditative. I wind scraps of thread onto a spool. I wind 1” strips of fabric onto rolls. I sort the cloth bundles that are stored in the studio to build masks. The faces emerge from the scraps. They are my audience and my actors. They satisfy the part of me that wants to express my fear.
My family is fine. My city is handling this crisis well so far. The folks in my orbit are wearing masks and self-isolating. I have more time to read. I can sleep in if I want to. I can try new recipes. I used our stimulus money to support local agencies that are reaching out to people who don’t have as much as we do.
