Lisa Call

Insalada Caprese ©2002    24"x24"

 
I was going to post images from the Mesa Contemporary Crafts exhibit today but either my USB 2.0 PCI card is broken or my USB hub is broken. Either case I can’t download pictures from my camera right now. Given that both of these items are brand new and they worked fine last week I’m a bit frustrated.

Messing around with the back of my computer involves a lot of moving of stuff so I gave up on trying to figure out the problem and went to my scanner which is not plugged into the new USB hub and crossed my fingers. I had to reinstall the scanner driver from CD but at least it worked and I was able to scan a slide of the above quilt for this post.

I have several pieces in 4 shows that are all traveling around the country for a few years and I don’t always do a good job of keep track of this work but they travel to interesting places and I know I should do a better job of paying attention to them and promoting them. So here goes.

My piece Insalada Caprese, above, is in the show Potluck Quilts: Art Quilts from the Piecemakers and is currently on display at the Grout Museum of History and Science in Waterloo, Iowa. This will be the final venue for this show that had it’s first showing in 2002 in Colorado.

I was invited to participate in this show by a small art critique group based in Boulder called The Piecemakers.

The requirements to participate in this show were as follows:

• Quilts are to depict some aspect of a potluck meal - food, drink, table decorations, etc.
• Each quilt is to incorporate in it red and white checks representing a tablecloth in some way.
• All quilts are to be 24″ square.
• Please include a recipe of the potluck dish depicted on your quilt to be published in the catalog.

Of the 50+ artists that participated I was one of a small handful to make completely abstract work. My piece, Insalada Caprese, is really part of my Structures series, modified just enough to sort of fit the theme. My red and checked tablecloth is that series of red and white stripes on the lower left.

My recipe was fresh mozzarella and tomatoes. Not really a recipe that needs much effort (cut up cheese and tomatoes and put on a plate) but it sounds better in Italian. The green is for a bit of fresh basil to make the dish (and art) more interesting. And of course I don’t grow just red tomatoes in my garden but also orange and yellow ones also.

I can’t say I’m real fond of how I quilted this piece. The big ugly red circles across the front of it were supposed to be tomatoes but I’m not sure they read that way. I hadn’t yet finalized on my tightly spaced back and forth quilting or I would have done that for this quilt also. I think it would have looked a lot better. But it’s easy to say this looking back. At the time I suppose I thought this was a good idea.

There were cookbooks printed up from this exhibit but I don’t know that they are available for sale anymore. I can’t find a source online. My quilt was printed upside down in the cookbook. That’s always a bit frustrating.

Anyway, the show ends March 24 in Iowa so my quilt will soon be home. If you are in the area and go see it I’d love to hear what you think.

 
Insalata Caprese

4-5 large ripe red and yellow tomatoes
1 pound fresh mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves
extra virgin olive oil
salt
fresh ground black pepper

Slice tomatoes and mozzarella, about ¼” thick. Arrange on large platter with basil leaves. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

I just checked out a new website for selling art that I saw mentioned in the comments section of Lisa Hunter’s blog. Something a bit different than the usual online art gallery that seem to be every where.

Lisa’s post was about studio crafts (something near and dear to me) and well worth a read on it’s own.

The creator of a new website for selling art left an interesting comment on this blog post and so of course I followed the link and found myself at artsocket.com.

Interesting idea of selling small limited edition works of art on the net. The site really reminds me of an art version of woot.com and I think has some interesting potential.

He just needs to list “fiber” in the list of types of art to be sold on the site and I’d be thrilled!

 
PS - If you don’t know about woot.com check out this wikipedia article - very clever (and successful) selling business model for the internet with an almost cult like following. I check the site daily because it’s funny, but so far they haven’t sold anything I want to buy. I’m not big on electronic gadgets and computer junk but you never know.

I wonder if the creator of artsocket is familiar with woot - sure feels like it to me.

I got a heads up from the folks that produced The Art of Quilting that it will be airing on Rocky Mountain PBS (the Denver PBS station) on March 3rd at 8am. I believe the show will be airing all over the country in March so check your local listings.

As I mentioned before my interview isn’t in this version of the show but my quilt(s) will be. My interview is only on the DVD that will be released later on.

I set my TV up a few months back but it doesn’t get reception - I can just watch DVDs with it. So I will probably miss the show for now. Which is okay because I’d rather miss the show then sign up for cable TV and then have my brain sucked out of my head by too many reruns of Top Chef.

 
I had a fabulous weekend vacation in Arizona and got back after midnight last night. Photos of the Mesa Contemporary Craft show, which I got yelled at for taking, will be coming soon. Along with some cactus pictures as we also spent some time at the Desert Botanic Gardens in the glorious sunshine yesterday.

It’s snowing again in Denver - UGH. So I’m headed to Arizona for the weekend where it’s warm and sunny - Hurray!

I’ll be able to see my work in the Mesa Contemporary Craft Exhibit and am most looking forward to it.

I’ll be back and relaxed after a wonderful vacation on Tuesday.

Elementals - Autumn No. 4    © David Castle
Watercolor on Paper    36"x36"

 
Today I’d like to introduce my readers to my favorite watermedia artist - David Castle. I met David in a marketing salon run by Alyson Stanfield and we’ve occasionally run into each other at various artist gatherings over the past few years.

David is now blogging and I definitely recommend reading about his current work at davidcastleart.wordpress.com.

His new fossils series is just fascinating. You can read a bit about how he makes the "fossils" in this blog post.

 

Fossils No. 2    © David Castle
 

I love his work and am quite enamored his geometric shapes. It almost feels to me like hand dyed/painted fabric that is cut and pieced together very similar to how I make my quilts. I love it!

 

Sunset From Agate Beach    © David Castle

 
[All images reproduced here with permission by the artist.]

A quick heads up to all Denver based artists - Denver will be holding a second “Building Creative Businesses” expo on March 3rd at the Municipal Building downtown. You can read about this expo on their website here. Here is the list of workshops for this year.

I attended this expo last year and it was choked full of really great information for all types of artists.

This is a bit of a wake up call to me because some of the information that I learned last year I never put to work for me. Oops! Some of those “I’ll follow up on that soon” things are now a year old. Hm….

If anyone has an extra few hours to spare every day please let me know - I could use it!

 
And on a personal note - Happy Birthday to Chip (my boyfriend) today. Eat a lot of cake!

Structures #49 - Detail ©2007

I haven’t posted much recently because I’ve been too busy in my studio finishing up work. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for having all of my Structures quilts that are in progress completed and I want to get them DONE!

I finished Structures #65 on Saturday and just finished Structures #49 tonight.

I was going to take a bunch of photos of #49 and talk about what I was exploring with this quilt but my camera battery died after taking the above shot.

First thing to note about this quilt is somehow it’s changed names in the past year and half. I suppose it was supposed to be #50 but it’s got a label on it now that says #49 so 49 it is.

I first wrote about this quilt in this post about reworking my quilt.

If you go read that post you will see that I made some big changes to the quilt in November 2005.

It went from this:

To this:

Now I’m looking at this and wondering just what the heck I was thinking. I think the original looks better. The final colors are really rather blah - nothing is going on - it’s very obvious and simple. At least the original piece had some spice to it.

The final quilt actually looks a bit different than what is shown here but it’s very similar. When my batteries are recharged I’ll take another photo of it.

This quilt is done, and it’s not bad. But there is a reason I put off finishing it for so long. Yawn.

 
I now have only 2 Structures quilts left to finish. I’m working on #50 right now (it used to be Structures #49 in this post). In 12-16 hours it will be finished and then all that is left is Structures #48, which is still not sewn together. Some photos of it in progress are in this post. I’ve done a bit more work from this last photo but not much.

Structures #47 ©2007 - In progress.

 
Last Friday I posted a rather long list of goals for the weekend. I didn’t expect to get everything done but I was hoping it would help to get me motivated and back on track. Looking at all the things I wanted accomplish this year definitely was the kick in the butt I needed.

Here’s how I did:

• I will spend 15 hours in my studio. Accomplished!
• I will finish my taxes for 2006. Accomplished! Well almost - I have to organize papers to send to my accountant for my personal taxes tonight.
• I will set up spreadsheets for the 2007 art business and get all my expenses to date entered. Accomplished!
• I will create a budget for 2007 for my art business. Accomplished!
• I will finish my goal spreadsheet. Accomplished!
• I will research and identify 4 possible venues for future solo shows (Accomplished! I’ve chosen 6 locations to send out proposals this month) and prepare and send off proposals to the venues. More realistic deadline for for this task - 2/23/07
• I will select mail list software for my upcoming studio newsletter and start setting it up. Accomplished! More on this below.

Feels great to be motivated again. Spending time breaking down my goals into smaller tasks that I can complete in a few hours definitely helps me to feel like I really can accomplish what I’d like to this year. I now have a list of goals for each month. For February and March the goals are broken down into small tasks with target completion dates. The months later on in the year aren’t as detailed but as priorities and goals change I will update those lists and break down the work into smaller tasks.

Tomorrow I will post an example of how I broke down a goal (my studio newsletter) into small pieces. So far what I have accomplished is to select the software I will use to email out the newsletter.

I was leaning towards constantcontact as almost everyone I know that has a small email newsletter uses it, but I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the monthly fee. I’m only planning on sending out 3 or 4 newsletters a year and paying $180-$300 a year for that service seems a bit outrageous to me. My web hosting plan provides more functionality and costs less!

Instead I have selected free downloadable software to use for my mailing list. I will maintain the software for the mailing list and the mailing list itself on my web hosting account. After doing a bit of research I chose phplist.com as it seems to have what I’m looking for. I’ll start installing and testing the software over the next couple days and in a few weeks it should be ready to start taking sign ups.

 
I finished quilting Structures #47 this weekend. The above (rather bad) photo was taken in 2005 when I finished sewing together the top.

It took me 30 hours over the last 2 weeks to quilt this very large piece (about 7′ x 5′) and I’m quite pleased with how it came out. I’m hoping to photograph my newly completed work outdoors next weekend so I will have a better image soon.

I’m now quilting Structures #65 and plan to be done with it on friday. This will leave me with 3 unfinished quilts in the Structures series, which I’m planning on finishing this month (or at the latest the first week in March).

I decided to not worry about my art and busines goals in January after the last visit to Kansas but I’ve been noticing lately the calendar says February so I think it’s time to get motivated.

In addition this weekend is the first weekend since January 6 that I don’t have my kids with me (normally they are with their dad every other week). So I have plans to get a lot accomplished during my much too short break from the day job.

My goals for the weekend:

• I will spend 15 hours in my studio to bring this weeks total up to my weekly goal of 20 hours.
• I will finish my art taxes for 2006 (along with my personal taxes). I’m about 1/2 done entering my expenses for 2006.
• I will set up spreadsheets for the 2007 art business and get all my expenses to date entered.
• I will create a budget for 2007 for my art business.
• I will finish my goal spreadsheet. I need to break down the larger goals (in case you missed the post my extensive art business goals for 2007) into smaller tasks and figure out deadline.
• I will research and identify 4 possible venues for future solo shows and prepare and send off proposals to the venues. My goals is 2 per month but I didn’t do any in January.
• I will select maillist software for my upcoming studio newsletter and start setting it up.

All pretty specific goals - except that last one: "start setting it up" - that’s pretty vague and I know it. I suppose that means I’m not really committing to do much more than figure out which software to use. But it is the first step and without I’m not going to get very far.

 
I’m also happy to report that turning off comments on my old posts has solved my spam problem. Prior to this my blog was getting hit with hundreds of spam comments a week. Last week akismet only had to stop 1 spam comment.

Now if I could just figure out how to get my mail spam filter to work better - seems to me email spam that can sneak past the filters has increased quite a bit recently.

 
Last but not least - Happy Birthday Mom!

A few days ago I received an email from the executive director of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, organizers of Crafts National.

Crafts National is no longer - after 40 years. I had two pieces in the final show last year which I talked about here and here.

The form email included the following comments:

After some years of doing separate fine craft and fine arts exhibitions, Crafts National and Images, the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts has decided to merge the two exhibitions into one.
…
Crafts National has a long and distinguished history, so the decision to discontinue it as a separate exhibition was not an easy one. However, the considerable duplication of expense and effort required to undertake two exhibitions could not be overlooked.
…
Images will now accept works in ceramic, fiber, and paper, in addition to the traditional fine art categories of drawings, painting, mixed media, photography, printmaking, watercolor, and sculpture.

Which all sounds great. Merging the craft show with the fine art show, while possibly done for monetary reasons, seems like a step forward for fine craft.

But sadly there is also this rule:

Artists must have their primary residence in Pennsylvania, one of the adjacent states, Virginia or the District of Columbia.

So this will no longer be a national show, but a regional one.

Guess that saves me the entry and shipping fees (if I were to get in again) for 2007.