Registration is open! Come stitch with me

I have a number of scheduled workshops to offer this year. Here are three to consider. I hope to see you there!

At Play in the Garden of Stitch: Fearless Free-Motion Stitching

JUNE 9-15

Find out more here: Shakerag Workshops in Sewanee Tennessee on the beautiful Cumberland Plateau

Using the sewing machine as a mark-making tool, participants will focus on seeing, interpreting and completing concept-driven work. We will explore texture, pattern and story with simple-to-learn techniques.This is not a traditional free-motion stitching workshop. We'll make a mess by playing with lines that are active and reactive. We'll embrace the wonky by learning to make the most of whatever occurs. And, then, we'll stitch with abandon.
Open to all skill levels.

Alter Ego Stitch and Collage

July 22-26

Find out more here: Quilting by the Lake

Guardians, Superheros, Pets, Monsters, Divas and Villains—they will all be here during our stitch-and-collage class. This class will hone your funny bone and polish your grip on stitching. We’ll practice free-motion stitching to create narratives, textures and patterns. We’ll collage scraps of cut up quilts and found fabrics to create bodies, heads and appendages. We’ll experiment with 3D forms to break the 2D barrier. Fun? Yes. Freeing? Absolutely. Our emphasis will be on play. Channel your inner dialog into a superhero or leading lady. Make an ideal pet. Bring that alter ego forward.

Open to all skill levels

At Play in the Garden of Stitch - Madeline Island

August 26-30

Find out more here: Madeline Island School of the Arts

A spectacular island situated in Lake Superior, this site has to be inspirational to all artists. In this free-motion quilting workshop students learn to think in thread by translating visual stimuli into pathways. The first days will focus on simple-to-learn techniques to fill and grow a composition built on linework. Then, throwing caution to the wind, we’ll cut up quilted pieces to create expressive, textural collages. Learn to let go of expectations! Come to have fun.

Open to all skill levels

scraps and colonies

I work on many projects at the same time. If not, I get bored. I like how pieces morph and talk to each other as they progress. I can sometimes see similarities other times big differences. Techniques can change while concepts are basically the same. I am influenced by my readings and by the news, and by the walks I take to catch a breath. Lately I use my art to distract myself from the feeling of dread when I watch the news.

Two works in progress, Nonsense on the left and Letting Go on the right.

Play

Sometimes I just like to have fun. The piece on the left in the picture above is done on a piece of whole cloth I designed and had printed at Spoonflower. The cartoonish figures gave me a playground for stitching.

I like to layer my stitching to create a sense of movement or depth.

I’m always looking for surprises. Check out this dude peaking out from behind the black squares.

Nonsense, 49.5” x 35”, Paula Kovarik

Parts are smaller than the whole

Over the course of ten years I have accumulated baskets of scrapped quilted pieces. They are not only offcuts but also pieces that I cut up after being disappointed with the results of a composition. About seven years ago I made some garlands of the scraps that reminded me of the beaded curtains that were so popular back in the day. Those curtains always seemed to signal a mystery behind them. They obscured an opening while also creating a gateway that was easy to traverse. They were a little mysterious but also enchanting and magical. So, as I accumulated more and more garlands this scraps piece has evolved to be more than its parts. These scraps represent my process, my trajectory and my history as an artist. They also stand witness to the mistakes I defined, the trial and error that I experienced, and the idea that I just have to let go. It’s a work in progress and morphs every day.

I’m starting to curate the scraps. There are days when I look around at other pieces I have created and wonder if they too should be cut up and strung together.

Colonies

We talk about colonies in space, colonies on land and colonies of bacteria. Each type of colony has an intrinsic architecture that fastens the parts to the whole. That architecture is something we have in common with other species.

Once I had the opportunity to follow the trails of leaf cutter ants from a tree that they were dismantling scrap by scrap to their colony in a dirt bank down the road. I was mesmerized. Not only were they a little army of workers but also they had guards, emergency crews, dancers, choppers, lifters, slackers, and buried somewhere deep within, a queen. Their trails, structures and actions are mirrored in our own cities, countries and families.

In the NPR series Searching for Meaning: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science Alan Lightman says that “Meaning must be found in the moment even as we yearn for immortality.” I was totally in the moment, filled with awe, while studying that leaf cutter colony. The focus from macro to micro made me a conscious witness to a separate reality.

Colonies, a work-in-progress, Paula Kovarik

“Colonies” could represent microscopic detail but also resembles aerial shots of land and developments. I am somewhere between those two ideas for now.

taking stock

Yesterday it was Spring. We were taking stock of all the plants that were hit by an unnatural freeze. The garden changed this year. Despite losing a number of trees and cherished bushes, it regenerated. Bushes are shorter, downed trees left open space for new growth and critters found new homes. Nature shows us that growth, death, rebirth is a cycle. I often have to remind myself of that in my work. Nothing is permanent.

Each day we walk through the garden taking stock of the survivors. We tend to the broken and sweep up the debris into mulch piles. Then the cycle can begin again.

Though I know that it was not Spring yesterday it feels like 2023 passed too quickly. My sense of condensed time continues to spur me on. I have so many ideas to test out, so many techniques to try. So I took stock. I asked myself what, exactly, did I accomplish this year? How do these works inspire more? Should I concentrate on one direction? Or, continue to experiment with new techniques? Does it matter?

Below is a summary document of all the work I created in 2023. Some were successful. Some were learning tools, some were cut up and started over. Click on the image below to see the variety.

Do you take stock of the work you have created in a period of time? Does it energize you to do more?

I’ll be teaching in 2024 at the following venues.
Sign up now to reserve your space!

Stitchin’ Post Workshop
Sisters, OR, Apr. 29 - May 3

Shakerag Workshops
Sewanee, TN, June 10-15

Quilting by the Lake
Auburn, NY, July 15-19

Madelaine Island School of the Arts
Madelaine Island, MN, Aug. 26-30

Front Range Contemporary Quilters
Denver, CO, Sept. 13-16

Design Outside the LInes
Taos, NM, Sept. 22-28

The leaves were dancing

The other day I was driving home after doing some errands. I saw autumn leaves dancing in the street from the turbulence created by the cars driving by. They twirled, jumped and rained down from the sky.

For many years I have been collecting the final scraps of each project. I stitch them together to create garlands of scraps. They remind me of those beaded curtains we used to have in the 70s.

That day they reminded me of the leaves dancing in the street.

Each scrap reminds me of former projects.

That night I watched the news about the wars in Ukraine and Israel. The photos showed remnants of buildings, explosions from bombs, scraps of life. It’s so hard to process that horror. So many people affected. So many lives lost. When I got back to the studio the scraps of stitched fabrics became those scraps of life to me.

I made more.

And more.

The announcers on the tv were talking about collateral damage. How does that make any sense at all? When does it end?

Influences

It’s impossible to process

I hesitate to post these thoughts. Watching the horror on the news is too big, too evil, too dark. I feel the weight of Ukraine. I feel the weight of our dysfunctional political system and now…Israel and Palestine.

It’s dark. Overwhelming. I can fall into despair with each news segment.

While working on this piece for the past three weeks I started with the idea of those invisible things that happen in biological systems. Blood cells, bacteria, infection, growth, coded genomes, and bodily structures. And also the way soil has populations of organic matter full of life and motion. I wanted the detail and texture to represent the complicated environments within and without.

But then the news got more dire. A congress that can’t get their act together. People banning books. War in Ukraine continuing and winter coming. And then Israel and Palestine.

The piece got darker. and darker.

Incursion, 30” x 46”, canvas, ink, batting. Paula Kovarik

Breathe, breathe.