Lisa Call

I was “tagged” in fellow The Fiber Connection member Dijanne Cevaal’s blog to write 20 things about myself. I’ve kept the list mostly focused on art and am using the opportunity to show a few of my older pieces, which have never been published on the web. Probably not what I was supposed to do but I’m not good at rules.

I only made it to 11 because this was getting rather long for a single posting. I’ll do the other 9 another day (maybe).

I believe I’m supposed to tag some other artists to do something similar so I’ll tag Joanie San Chirico and Cathy Kleeman. The other 2 Fiber Connection members with blogs.

1) I started backpacking in the mountains of New Mexico when I was around 8 years old. Being outdoors, away from the crowds, has always been important to me. I prefer the landscape of the southwest – mountains, deserts, canyons, dry prairie. And brown brown brown. The colors of nature heavily influence my work.

2) This is one of my canyon inspired quilts from my previous series “chairs”. These are purchased commercial and hand dyed fabrics as this was prior to my dyeing of my own fabrics. It’s interesting to go back and look at older work and observe how the work has changed.

Chairs #5 © 2000, 43″x35″:

3) I went on a week long backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon in 2002 and made a series of quilts about the experience. This is one of them, an abstraction of the layers of the canyon.

Structures #16 © 2003, 48″ x 35″:

4) & 5) These are 2 other pieces about the Grand Canyon capturing the colors of some of the specific layers. These are the last 2 “chairs” pieces that I made and a good 3 years after the bulk of the other work in that series.

Chairs #16: Canyon Layers – Tonto Platform © 2003 6.5″x6.5″:

Chairs #17: Canyon Layers – Red Wall © 2003 6.5″x6.5″:

6)I lived in New Zealand for 5 months starting in December 2001. My husband (now ex), a professor, was on sabbatical. So we took the kids, aged 4 & 8, and spent over half of the time living on the road, sleeping in our tent or in cheap hostels, seeing all the sights there were to see. New Zealand is beautiful and we had a wonderful time.

7)When in Rome and all that. So while in NZ I jumped off the 43 meter high (141 feet) Kawarau Bridge, the worlds first bungy jump site. It was the most terrifying but most empowering experience of my life. After facing my fear of heights and successfully jumping off that bridge I figured there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do. Yes that is me in the picture.

8) & 9) I really loved the rocks in New Zealand because they are worn smooth by all the water they have. I started a small series of quilts about those rocks. They aren’t very literal and I’ve been told they look a bit more like cookies than rocks but it was the smoothness of the rocks I was trying to capture, not the actual rocks themselves (for that I have photos and a few pilfered souvenirs). I like these pieces just they way they are because they absolutely capture the essence that so fascinated me. For anyone that has been to the southwest you will appreciate that our rocks are all jagged and rough (hence the name Rocky Mountains) so this was a big deal for me.

Stones #4 © 2002 19″x28″

Stones #6 © 2002 13″x27″

10) My favorite color is purple. But I seem to rarely use it in my artwork as I tend more towards the browner side of the spectrum. Okay so brown isn’t on the color wheel, except here in the southwest. This piece is an exception.

Structures #12 © 2002, 31″x21″.

I spent the first 2 weeks of October in Idaho, taking a workshop with Nancy Crow. This is the 5th time I have studied with Nancy and I am still learning a tremendous amount from her. I don’t generally do the class exercises but instead take the class as independent study and create my own work. I did a few class exercises this time and when I complete the quilts I’ll post images of them.

Idaho was beautiful. We had gorgeous fall weather and the lodge where we stayed Western Pleasure Guest Ranch was perfect. Good food, great accommodations, excellent space for the workshop.

This is my spot (with the blue quilt going up on the wall). As you can see we didn’t really see much of the outdoors because we had all the windows covered with design walls. It was kind of like a cave. But great for focusing on the artwork.

I worked on 10-11 quilts during the 2 weeks and this is one of few that are completed (although it still needs to be quilted). Most of the other works need a small bit of tweaking and will appear here later. This piece is Structures #51 and was created the weekend in between the official class times.

I took this photo around 5pm the day I left Sandpoint to drive back home.

I was sad to leave Idaho and return to civilization. It is a rare gift to be able to concentrate on my artwork for 2 solid weeks with few interruptions. I’ve been home 10 days and have had very little time in my studio due to work, a trip to Kansas, family visits, tree branch removal (thanks dad!) and kid obligations. I hope to get back to work on the art tonight and build back up my momentum.

I returned home last night to discover that 14″ of heavy wet snow fell on monday and damaged my trees. While I’m sure the damage is nothing to compare to the hurricane devastation it’s quite sad because we have so few trees in this part of Colorado!

I started cleaning up the limbs but it is a huge job. So I give up and I’m headed to my studio instead.

My dad will be visiting later this week – I hope he is bringing a big saw and a lot of energy!

More about my trip later – it was wonderful.

Huge limb from my formerly beautiful 40′ elm tree:

Some of the the mess from that limb:

The play structure isn’t exactly useful at the moment:

On my way to Idaho I spent a few hours at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. This is the location of “Custer’s Last Stand”. It was well done and gave me plenty to think about in terms of American history.

But it was also incredibly beautiful. I love the open prairie – the rolling hills and brown grasses. It is so stark and solitary and stunningly gorgeous. I suspect I’ll see many of these colors in the artwork I will be making over the next few weeks while in Idaho.

I’m not sure how well these images will look as I don’t have photoshop on this laptop to do adjustments, and the screen on this laptop is less than ideal. Hopefully they look okay for everyone.