Lisa Call

It’s taken all morning but I’ve got the digital photograph of the quilt for my postcard. Now I just need to design the card and place the order by midnight. While I had the photo wall set up I also took pictures of 15 other quilts in the Structures series that I needed digitals. In a month or 2 these should all be appearing on my main website.

I do all my quilt photography outside for my final images. I tried setting up lights indoors but I could never get it right so I decided outside with even natural light was my best option. I have to hope for good weather and light cloud cover to get exactly what I’m after and today I was lucky. We had perfect weather for quilt photography. It was a bit windy but I managed to get all 16 quilts photographed in between the gusts.

As my quilts can be rather large I had to build a large, 8′ x 8′, portable wall to photograph my quilts on. After a few tries with the design, with input from a good friend and my son, this is what I came up with.

This is the PVC pipe frame for the wall. It’s just tall enough to slide out of my garage and into the driveway without having to tip it over. It’s not perfect because PVC glue is nasty stuff that dries too quickly but it works. Okay, honestly, it’s pretty bad, you’ll note in the front center of this picture the pipe is cut, because that was the only way to get the darn thing together. It’s not flat or straight or any of those other desirable properties and someday I’ll rebuild the base, but for now it works.

This is the back side of the frame with two 8′ x 4′ Styrofoam sheets attached. The sheets are 2″ thick so they are quite sturdy (for Styrofoam). There are holes drilled in the PVC pipe and corresponding holes in the Styrofoam and I put bolts through to hold the sheets to the frame.

This is the front side. I cover the entire thing with a sheet of white or black polar fleece to do the photography. You can see the 4 bolts for each the sheets that hold them in place. I just pin the polar fleece to the foam. Generally the quilts don’t have to be pinned because the polar fleece provides plenty of friction but some of the larger ones I will pin just to get them positioned.

This is a picture of the backside of one of the bolts (big bolts!) that hold the sheet to the wall.

 
The front of the bolt – I put a washer on to keep it from ripping the Styrofoam. The polar fleece covers the lump and it’s not noticeable in the pictures.

Fear of a houseplant is rather lame. And so for the past 3 days I’ve sketched the leaves of my cube plant to try to conquer the thing. While I’m not quite there (no shadows) at least there is no more panic.

The plant looks too healthy in these 3 drawings. I’m getting closer to capturing the pathetic-ness in the final drawing but I’m not quite there. The sadness of this plant can kind of be see in an actual picture of the plant in my first plant drawing post

Wednesday’s drawing. I limited myself to just 3 leaves to avoid the panic. I even tossed in a shadow.

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Thursday’s drawing. A large portion of the plant but just a contour drawing. And done with no panic. But I can assure you the plant does not look this good in real life.

 
Today’s drawing. A small portion of the plant but I’m starting to capture the bent and broken leaves a bit better.

First a progress report on my goals for the week:

• Structures #53 Binding (3 hours).
• Structures #55 Finish quilting (10 hours [Almost done quilting - 2 hours left]) + Binding(3 hours).
• Structures #56 Sewing (10 hours) + Basting (1 hour) + Quilting(16 hours) + Binding (3 hours).
• Photograph quilts (digital), order slides from digital.
• Ship quilt to Form not Function. Show opens Jan 13th.[Completed!]
• Actually mail my stuff to Art Quilts at the Sedgwick like I said I would do last week (it’s almost ready).[Completed!]
• Ditto for sending things to the curator for my solo show.
• Mail invitations to Quirk Gallery Show in Richmond that opens on Jan 6th.[Completed!]
• Send lecture proposal to Front Range Contemporary Quilters.[Completed!]
• Cut & piece quilt top for my son.

Most of the business stuff is done so I can spent my week off doing the fun stuff. Except I have to add another couple tasks because Modern Postcard is having a sale that end saturday at midnight [thank you Alyson for the reminder!]:

• Re-Photograph quilt for the postcard (This quilt was completed before I got my wonderful digital camera (Nikon D-70) so I have a slide but I need a high quality digital for the printing. Scanning the slide won’t give me the detail I want for the postcard).
• Design postcard.
• Order Postcard for solo show by 12/31.

 
Thank you everyone for your encouragement on reaching this goal of entering Visions. You are all the greatest!

I learned this skill of estimating time at work. We have to give estimates for writing software. Generally management ignores the estimates and tells us when to be finished but they still make us do it anyway. It’s really a silly game but that’s the way the industry works. So four years ago I started paying more attention to how long it took me to do things and I’ve gotten fairly good at estimating the quilting tasks. The software, well that’s a lot harder because there are just too many variables that I have no control over.

 
And since an artist’s post without an image is just not as much fun here is a quick sketch I made yesterday. I stayed late at work to do this. Oh no – this drawing thing is starting to be a habit!

This is a small part of the mess in my cube. Don’t those books look exciting! I need to work on perspective (that laptop is rather messed up) but I’ll get there – I hope!

I’ve been working quite hard the past few weeks on some quilts that are related to a new idea I started in the Nancy Crow Workshop from October. I thought it would be great to have a few of these newer pieces in my solo show coming up in February. Here’s how it’s going:

• Structures #52 Designed and pieced (ie sewed it together) in the workshop. Turned out nice but I wanted to improve on the concept so I put it aside.
• Structures #53 Designed and pieced in November. Wow – really nice. So I quilted it last week.
• Structures #54 Designed and pieced in December. It’s good but it lacks the wow factor. Set aside.
• Structures #55 Designed and pieced Christmas weekend. I vacillate between “wow” and “what was I thinking” on this one. Took a risk on the wow and am now quilting it.
• Structures #56 Designed Christmas weekend. Has potential for wow, need to do the sewing to see if the idea can be fleshed out in fabric.

So I’m most pleased as I think this was a good chunk of work for November and December.

And then I got a crazy idea. “Hey, I should enter Visions with these quilts”. The deadline for the slides to be in California for this show is Jan 10. I can fed ex on the 9th. But I need slides. I can order them Jan 5th and pay overnight delivery to receive them the 6th. So quilts must be done the 4th.

Why would I do this? There are 2 areas on my resume that I would like to concentrate on for 2006, that being Solo Shows and Publications. The Visions show produces a soft cover book with the quilts in the show. It’s an expensive show to enter, I’d have to pay for double shipping plus the cost of 2 overnight mail deliveries. So I needed to decide if the prize is worth the cost. I came to the conclusion that the carrot of the publication was a goal so I’m going to try to do this.

I haven’t entered Visions in 10 (or maybe 12) years and didn’t get it so I have no idea if my work will get in or not. We shall see!

What’s left to do:

• Structures #53 Binding (3 hours).
• Structures #55 Finish quilting (10 hours) + Binding(3 hours).
• Structures #56 Sewing (10 hours) + Basting (1 hour) + Quilting(16 hours) + Binding (3 hours).

So that’s 46 hours in 1 week. Maybe doable except that pesky thing called a job. BUT I am taking next week off. So I can do this. BUT I’m taking next week off because my kids are out of school. Hm – dilemma – art vs. playing Magic the Gathering with my son. We’ll see how this plays out but right now I’m planning on going for it.

I know I can finish the first 2, I might just send in the entry with those and skip the third. We’ll see.

So Goals for the week:

Dec 28-Jan 5:

• Complete the 3 quilts above.
• Photograph quilts (digital), order slides from digital.
• Ship quilt to Form not Function. Show opens Jan 13th.
• Actually mail my stuff to Art Quilts at the Sedgwick like I said I would do last week (it’s almost ready).
• Ditto for sending things to the curator for my solo show.
• Mail invitations to Quirk Gallery Show in Richmond that opens on Jan 6th.
• Send lecture proposal to Front Range Contemporary Quilters.
• Cut & piece quilt top for my son.

 
So there it is public. Now I’ve got the motivation to follow through. Down to the studio to quilt I go….

I was thinking yesterday after posting my drawing of the plant that I made a tree quilt several years ago. So I got out the pictures and thought I’d post them for comparison. This quilt was a bit easier to draw than the plant as it was winter and so no leaves!

I started this quilt during a workshop with Pauline Burbidge in 1999. I can’t recall the assignment at this point but it was the second major piece we worked on after doing some still life work.

I made this quilt not long after joining my first critique group and I was seriously intimidated. I made only 2 or 3 quilts the entire year as I was so overwhelmed and feeling very insufficient. So the artist statement is quite genuine. It reads:

During winter branches are barren but the trees are not dead. They are preparing for spring when they will bloom into life again. I have encountered dormant periods in which it appears I’m not producing anything of value but it’s during these quiet restful periods that I must remind myself to relax, renew my energy and dream of the wonderful things to come.

Materials: Commercial cotton fabric, paint, cotton batting, cotton thread.
Techniques used: Fuse appliqued, machine embroidered, hand painted, machine quilted.

I used the paint to cover the sky. The original background I had used was too bright and it ruined the feel of the piece. It was rather tedious to paint over it but in the end I think it was worth it.

Dormant Dreams ©1999   36″ x 14″

 
Detail:

 
This quilt was displayed at Images of Parker in 1999 and again in 2000 in a show my critique group had called The New Year of the Trees: Tu B’Shvat held at the Oregon Jewish Museum in Portland, Oregon.

The quilt sold during the show in Oregon, my first “real” sale of my artwork. While we all dislike writing artist statements, I believe that it is what sold this work.

This weeks Everyday Matters Challenge was to draw something from the previous year’s challenges that I hadn’t yet done. This was easy as I only started a few months back. I chose: Challenge #15 – Draw a tree or trees, leaves or branches.

During lunch time I drew this plant that sits next to my cube, it’s probably a tree so I think it counts. It’s absolutely pathetic and was in the pile to be thrown out but a coworker rescued it and gave it to me. It leans against the wall as it is in desperate need of repotting, and probably watering.

 
This is the view of the plant while sitting in my cube. For those that haven’t seen the more detailed picture of my cube you can see it in this post. It’s a lovely place.

Cube Plant © 2005   11″ x 8.5″

 
This drawing was a challenge of the right vs. the left brain. I started off fine drawing the pot and trying not to worry about perfection. I drew the trunk and then

…panic!!!

Eek – how to draw all those crazy leaves. Left brain kicked in and said “are you insane, read a book or take a class”.

So I took a break and did some work.

When I came back to it I decided to bail out and do a semi blind contour drawing for the leaves and be happy with that. Right brain can do that, although I still had the left brain enter into the conversation a bit and try to correct things. Hard to keep the left brain out of the office.

Next thing I know the sun comes out and I’ve got serious shadows. I attempt to capture them, panic again, and well – you can see the results.

I bailed out of fixing shadows, drew the whiteboard on the wall and called it good enough for today.

 
I’m kinda pleased, but now I see all sorts of things I could improve on. It’s interesting how different the drawing looks scanned and on the computer screen instead of on paper.

 
It’s really time to read a book. I think I bought “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” 5 or 6 years ago. Time to see if it’s still around. Has anyone gone through the exercises in this book? Is it a good way to learn?

I had an early Christmas with my kids and then on Saturday afternoon turned to my studio for 2 1/2 days of (mostly) uninterrupted quilting time. Hurray for holidays.

It’s been an amazingly productive 2 days and I still have 4-5 more hours to go.

Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far:

• I finished quilting Structures #53. While this was planned for last week a small incident slowed me down a bit. Some guy smashed into the back of my car on the interstate on my way home from work. Car is fine. I’m fine, maybe very mild whiplash, but nothing yoga can’t fix. I went through a bunch of physical therapy 3 years ago when a different guy smashed into the side of my old car and totaled it. And get this, last year another guy smashed into the back of my car in a parking lot. Male drivers – geesh. What is their problem always driving into my car? What do you bet the deer I hit in 2004, which was standing in the middle of the road looking just like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights, was male also. And yes I’m starting to get a paranoid about driving, 4 accidents in 3 years is a bit much.
• I designed, cut and pieced a twin size quilt top for my daughter.
• I designed 2 new pieces – Structures #55 & #56.
• I’m half done sewing together #55 and will have it done this evening and I’m hoping to get it basted and start quilting it.

I had been planning for and looking forward to this long weekend in my studio for a few months. It’s my holiday ritual every 2 years when my kids are at their dad’s house for the santa visit. It’s a wonderful time to work in the studio as I know there won’t be any email to distract me so I don’t bother checking. I went over and played with the kids Christmas morning and went out for a yummy dinner Christmas evening but other than that I’ve been extremely focused.

 
The quilt top for my daughter (90″ x 65″):

This was a very simple quilt to make. My daughter helped me pick out some handdyed fabrics that she liked (I did not dye these fabrics – I inherited them earlier this year). I then cut them into squares that were a size that was divisible by 2 1/2″ when finished. So I cut out squares that were 15.5″, 10.5″, 8″, 5.5″, and 3″. I didn’t plan anything, just cut what I could from each of the fabrics and laid it out on the floor until I had enough for the entire quilt. I spent a bit of time rearranging and then sewed it together. Total time for the project was less than 4 hours.

My son has picked out fabrics for his quilt and later this week I’ll cut out the squares sew it together. I need to get it done before the kids return on Saturday so he isn’t all paranoid that I like her better because her quilt top was finished first.

 
But now it’s back to the studio to finish Structures #55.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, restful or productive or whatever you wished for.

I bought myself a set graphite drawing pencils a few weeks back. I had never paid much attention to these things but pencils come with different types, or “grades”, of lead. Some are harder than others so they draw a thinner fainter line as less graphite comes off when you draw a line. The softer leads draw darker thicker lines.

It’s really quite clever. Kind of like different weights of thread.

So I decided to test out all the different pencils types and made this drawing. My set only had 10 pencils but my drawing required 11 sections so I went back to the store to buy an 11th grade of pencil so they could all be different.

The paper is a tad too big for my scanner so the outside lines are cut off a bit. (click on the drawing for a larger image).

Pencils © 2005  8.5″ x 10″

 
Things I learned doing this drawing:

1) Using a piece of paper over the top of the drawing to protect it really helps reduce smudging. Thanks for the great tip Felicity.

2) Pencils that have a hollow tube vs. lead in the middle don’t work well and require another trip back to the store to replace them. Which means step #7 in the General Pencil company’s How A Pencil is Made needs a bit better quality control.

3) I’m planning on doing more abstract drawings like this as I really enjoyed it. While trying to draw real things is a good challenge that I will continue, I don’t think I’ll ever be very good at it as I just can’t get interested enough in the process. And for me I think loving the process is absolutely necessary for my artwork.

On the other hand, I could really get into making a whole bunch more of these parallel lines. It’s just like quilting, except with a pencil. Very monotonous and probably boring to normal folks.

I’m beginning to wonder if I was dropped on my head as a baby.

Last September I made 3 quilt tops that I had intended to give to the Katrina storm victims that arrived in Denver. Unfortunately my connection was no longer able to place the quilts with these people so I put them aside to deal with later. The first 2 quilts are posted here and this is the third.

My kids attend an Expeditionary Learning school, which is based upon Outward Bound philosophies. I love the school as it teaches to the whole person and not just core academics. While they do emphasize doing strong academic work they also concentrate on character and leadership. It’s an amazing curriculum that works very well for my family.

One of the school’s ten Design Principles is “Service and Compassion” and so my kids must participate in a significant amount of community service each year to pass on to the next grade level.

As part of their service the kids helped me finish the quilts and get them ready to deliver to the homeless shelter for women and children where Samantha works. I ‘met’ Samantha via my blog and am looking forward to meeting her in person when I drop the quilts off.

To finish the quilts we “tied” the top, backing and batting using embroidery floss. This is an alternative to quilting that the kids were able to work on.

My daughter was quite enthusiastic about the project and really enjoyed it, although said it was hard work.

My son wasn’t so impressed but he did a good job and put in a lot of effort, even though he said it was “boring”. Of course being mom, I had to point out that at least he had a home where he could be bored.


 
The cats worked on quality control.


 
Overall I think it was an excellent project and while they didn’t exactly agree with great enthusiasm, I’ve decided this is our family’s new holiday tradition.

Yesterday I was sitting at my cube working when the guy next to me pointed out the beautiful sunset at only 4:45pm. So it is with great pleasure I welcome the solstice.

I’ve done yoga off and on since 1982, when I took my first yoga class while at Berkeley (yes I know you just can’t get much more stereotypically than that). One of the more well known, and one of my favorite, asanas is Salutation to the Sun or Surya Namaskar. Today I think it is most appropriate to thank the sun for turning back my way to warm and lighten things up.

When I lived in New York from 1990-1992 I found a wonderful yoga instructor, Margo Jenni. I took the classes through my HMO, Kaiser Permanente at their office in Tarrytown. It was the most peaceful 1 1/2 hours of my week.

Margo was an amazing woman. She taught private yoga classes to the Delany Sisters, amazing women in their own right. I took classes with Margo up until a few weeks before giving birth to my first kid, and no I’m not posting the pictures of me doing a handstand while extremely pregnant. Let’s just say I was a lot younger then.

I moved to Williamsburg, Virginia when my son was only 2 weeks old, but before leaving New York I went back to see Margo one last time and presented her with this quilt. It is an original design (with wonder under Melody!) depicting the 12 steps for the Salutation to the Sun asana that we practiced in this class.

Sadly, the past few years my Christmas card to Margo has come back undeliverable from the post office so in honor of Margo and the solstice I present:

Salutation To The Sun ©1992 ~32″ x ~42″


 
She particularly liked how I quilted the piece.

I still have the patterns that I made for this piece in my notes. Amazing the things I’ve kept.

This quilt was made a little over a year before the quilt I posted the other day, Housework.