Lisa Call

We’re home! Yesterday was a long day with movers and packing and cleaning but I’ve turned over the keys to the old house and said goodbye. It feels great to be in our new place. The yard isn’t much as the house has been a rental for the past 10 years but the place has huge potential.

Many have asked me how I can fit 4000 sq ft of stuff into 900 sq ft. So far the answer is "not so well" but give me a few weeks and I’ll have it whipped into shape.

This is my bedroom and computer room.

 
Yes - it’s also my studio. All 3 crammed into 10′x12′. Not quite the same as the dedicated 600 sq ft studio I just left. Still, I intend to make amazing art in this space and I have plans in the future for a larger studio, just not exactly sure how that will play out yet.

There is currently no where to sit or walk in the living room/office but we’ll figure out something. I have storage space in my studio/bedroom for all of my artwork (rolled up on the couch) but in the meantime my cat is taking care of them. [those are older traditional quilts on top - not my artwork - cats stay off the artwork]

 
A view of the dining room/music room. An upright player piano takes up a lot of space (as does my rolltop desk which can’t decide if it’s in the living room or the dining room).

 
Standing on the piano bench affords us a view of the kitchen/laundry room. Yes indeed the washing machine sits right next to my stove. I can do some serious multitasking with this set up.

 
The true state of that dining room/music room. There won’t be much eating in there for a while.

 
There is no basement but fortunately there is a largish 1 car garage so it’s the house annex and part of the laundry room as the dryer lives out here.

 
And then there is the stuff that didn’t fit in either place. Hm… Garage sale anyone?

 
I’m too exhausted to unpack today so I’m just relaxing. Almost. Tomorrow I’m leaving town for a week long visit to Montana with my family. We will be burying my father’s ashes (he passed away last fall). I’m really looking forward to seeing the family and more of Montana. My sister and I will be spending the first 3 nights of our trip visiting hot springs with our kids. My only plans - sleep, relax, eat, relax, read, relax, get massage, relax, etc.

I’ll deal with the organization when I return. I will also send out my June newsletter when I return, in early July. Didn’t quite make that goal. Moving is a LOT of work!

I thought I’d do a post with all the quilts I’ve made that are similar to Structures #48. These images are a bit deceptive because the quilts are all different sizes but I’ve sized the digital images all about the same width (click the images for larger versions). In reality they range from the very small Structures #26 (2 feet wide) up to the huge Structures #28 (7 feet wide).

I enjoy taking an idea like this and just making small changes to see what happens. It’s a mini series inside of my larger Structures series. This way I don’t have to do everything all in one quilt and expect it to be perfect. I can take the time to really explore an idea in detail.

I have ideas for more quilts with these blocks but I’m not sure I’ll get to them anytime soon. Problem is I have too many ideas and right now some other ideas are screaming louder in my head to try them out.

 

Structures #26   ©2004   24"x24"

 
 

Structures #28   ©2004   57"x84"

 
 

Structures #31   ©2004   34"x53"

 
 

Structures #47   ©2007   61"x76"

 
 

Structures #48   ©2007   50"x65"

 
 
Apologies for the bad photography on Structures #31. It is my Quilt National 2005 piece and only have slides of the piece taken by a professional photographer and the quilt is sold so I won’t have a chance to get good digital images. I quit using this guy to photograph my work because I discovered the slides came out way too yellow than reality for my tastes. Sure made the art look great when projected but it reproduces horribly on the web and in print.

[Update 4/12/07 - I’ve updated the image of #31 in this post so it’s a better quality image.]

I have now made 60 quilts in the Structures series. (disclaimer - only 49 are completely finished, 11 of them need to be quilted and of those 3 need a bit more design work before quilting). But 60 seemed like a number worth mentioning.

I started the series in October 2000 at a Nancy Crow workshop at Ghost Ranch. Last fall I thought the series might be coming to an end as I started working in a different direction, but turns out it’s not, I keep thinking up new ideas and directions I want to take this work. So for now I will work on these quilts in conjunction with my new series Markings.

[Side note: I am not yet posting images from the new series, which currently numbers 13 pieces - although only 3 are completely finished. I have a blog post in the works explaining why I feel it is important for me to really come to terms with my new work before showing it.]

I’ve heard it said that working in a series is tantamount to doing the same thing over and over again with different colors. I disagree. While some people might view my work that way I do not.

My goal is to become the best artist I can become. I feel the way for me to do this is to concentrate on a narrow field of art and become an expert.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice practice practice.

If I do a few pieced quilts, then dabble in some painting and then a bit of embroidery I doubt I will ever become an expert at any one thing. I might get good, but after having made 60 pieces in 1 series I can assure you that it is only after years of practice that I have begun to master this technique (piecing abstract quilts) and I still think I have a lot to learn.

At times I am jealous of the time it takes to make a painting vs. a large quilt and think I could get in a lot more "practice" if I worked in a medium that wasn’t so time consuming. But I quickly forget these thoughts when I head to my studio. I love the process of working with fiber, I love the versatility, the tactile nature of the fiber.

Each piece in the series is an extension of previous work. I’m often answering the question what if?. What if I used the same type of elements but incorporated some smaller scale pieces also. Or reversed the values, or cut my lines more at 90 degree angles, or more lyrical. What if I cut my lines even narrower, or wider.

I’m always striving for perfect proportions, beautiful colors and brilliant compositions. I’m looking to further explore the walls and fences that so intrigue me, to break down and understand the internal walls I see as a barrier to knowing myself and my art (see my artist statement for more details).

It’s a daily process of struggle and discovery in my studio. For me, each and every piece is new and unique, presenting fresh problems to be solved and possibilities to be explored.

The works in the series are named in approximately the order I design and pieced the quilt tops so if viewed in order from #1-#60 you would get a feel for my progress through the series. The copyright date is the date the quilt was finished, sometimes 4 or 5 years after the piece is started.

With all that said I believe in the end the work has to stand on it’s own without comment (okay I cheated and wrote a lot of blah blah blah first). But without further explanation here is a selection of 19 pieces from my Structures series:

Structures #1 ©2005    38"x74":

Structures #2 ©2003    36"x37":

Structures #10 ©2004    52"x35":

Structures #11 ©2002    72"x47":

Structures #13 ©2005    44"x35":

Structures #17 ©2003    31"x77":

Structures #24 ©2003    29"x32":

Structures #28 ©2004    84"x57":

Structures #30 ©2004    48"x28":

Structures #31 ©2004    53"x34":

Structures #33 ©2006    46"x49":

Structures #35 ©2005    49"x32":

Structures #39 ©2006    43"x29":

Structures #40 ©2005    44"x44":

Structures #41 ©2005    44"x31":

Structures #45 ©2005    28"x28":

Structures #46 ©2005    61"x45":

Structures #53 ©2006    66"x41":

Structures #56 ©2006    48"x58":