Afrigraphica I & II

This pair of bright banners was a geometric play of colors and textures, framed in black and dotted with cowrie shells. I have done these designs as a mockingbird spews new songs; they just keep tumbling out and the patterns can run for miles, ever changing and combining, never repeating.

This time, I tried to conceive contemporary African color combinations.

Ears pinned back in full attack mode, Tom bites off the enemy cowrie shell.

Afrigraphica I & II will hang in the Walker Zanger Showroom at 101 Henry Adams St. #412 during the month of November, as the San Francisco Design Center highlights TEXTILES. 10% of the proceeds for the sale of 36 displayed art quilts will be donated to the Textile Arts Foundation of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Pumpkin Patch-Work

It's Half Moon Bay, after all. I had to have something pumpkin in my show, but determined it must have purple and blue to make it work. (I can't stand orange and black.) This was a cheerful quilt to make, and I'm delighted that it is gracing the home of one of my client/friends, Diane Prosser, in her Pumpkin Art Collection.

It must be an instinct.

He always knows just where to settle.

Redhead

Redhead was the sleeper of the Bamboo Hair Salon Art Quilt Show for Winifred's Threads. The patrons of the salon liked looking at her while they were getting their hair colored (often red) and styled. She apparently was given names by the stylists: "Jessica" by one; "Roxie" by another. People walked right up to her and examined the patent leather open-toed shoes, red button toenails, her (real) false eyelashes, tumbling red locks, and her strawberry-covered cleavage. This inspires yet another future collection of art quilts: Dames.

My fantasy was that some guy would discover this quilt and HAVE to have it as a gift for his redheaded babe. Know anyone?

Turn, Turn, Turn

The Byrds recorded Pete Seeger's song from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. Someday I will make a quilt collection inspired by my favorite songs of the Sixties.

My quilt Turn, Turn, Turn renders each of the four seasons as a California landscape.

Tom looks especially good on "Winter."

Biting off the beads again...

Iowa Corn

It's only 11" by 11" but it holds my whole heart. This is my farm. It floods me with memories of my dad who loved to drive those Iowa roads and look at crops. It brings back thunderstorms on hot, humid nights, and lights in farmhouses from 35,000 feet. My cornfield has black Iowa soil. It's earnest and generous; it informs my wholesome rootstock. That soil makes me breathe deeply, just thinking about it.

Tom went to visit last year. He LOVES Iowa. He also loves to bite off those gold bugle beads, each one an ear of Iowa gold.

Mobile Homes

As an interior designer, I find I'm drawn to the HOUSE motif, usually a stylized square body with a triangle roof.  I picture an entire collection of house designs into art quilts some day. My riffing turned to three dimensions: what about 3-dimensional quilted houses? And then it leaped to movement. What about QUILT as HOUSE as MOBILE? A-ha! Mobile homes.

On reflection, it would have been good to talk with someone about the construction. I just set about the old-fashioned way, with balsa wood glue frames, fishing line and dowel crossbars. What a fun excuse to go to the hardware store, looking for solutions.

5 Mobile Homes:

Home Sweet Home - Cherries & Dots -- Too Cute
Love Pad - Peter Max and Yin & Yang
Animal House - Cats & Dogs & Fish, Oh My!
Fixer-Upper - Before and After Half & Half
Eco-Friendly House - Solar & Recyling Bins

Quilt as Apron. Apron as Quilt.

It doesn't have to go on a bed or hang on the wall. It can get put to use as functional art.

 

  

The details on these aprons can be downright silly, as we discovered at the Quilting Bee. Funny apron ideas had us all giggling as the embellishments got wilder. To be continued....

Here's another addition to the apron series:

 

Tom has a special fondness for sashimi.

 

And the seasons, they go round and round....

Circles on circles on squares was much more labor-intensive than I originally planned, all the while humming the song Circle Game. My friend Carol Forster helped sew (by hand) little running stitches around the outside edge of 40 circles. Then I pulled a thread of each circle to cinch in the outside edge, turn it under, and stitch it flat. Circle Game. I finally stopped, went to my computer, and looked up the lyrics so I could sing all the words with the melody: http://www.lyrics.com/lyrics/joni-mitchell/circle-game.htmlme.html Then I had to review all the Joni Mitchell songs on the album Ladies of the Canyon. This took me on a trip down Memory Lane with more and more songs, each one manifesting in a visual image of an art quilt. Now to take them out of my head and translate them into fabric compositions. Joni Mitchell has recently built herself a home in British Columbia, probably filled wall-to-wall with her own artwork (paintings.) Joni, if you hear me, I have Circle Game for you....

Tom wasn't around in those days, but he would have enjoyed seeing painted ponies going up and down.