Lisa Call

I mentioned a while back that I would write a post about why I stepped down from helping with the artquiltreviews website. As this topic is very much related to my posts the last few weeks it seems like time to finish this note and get it posted.

I helped to start up the artquiltsreview website last year after I posted some comments about the lack of serious reviews in the art quilt world on an art-quilter email list. I posted my comments on my blog in this post about Critical Reviews of Art Quilts. To summarize, I pondered the lack of serious reviews in the quilt world and what might happen if someone were to start posting such reviews on their blog.

My comments stirred up an interest by a group of dedicated artists to change the situation and artquiltreviews was created. I was involved with the website for about 4 months.

I have to admit I had misgivings about the endeavor from the start because I tend to find group efforts such as this draining, but I gave it a go anyway. This was a factor in my decision to leave, coming to consensus is important for such efforts to succeed and I simply don’t have the time right now to work through such discussions. Between the day job as a software engineer and the real job as an artist, plus kids, house, etc, etc I’m pretty well booked out on my time. Clearly I should have thought this through better. In other words I need to learn to say NO! better.

But the main reason I left the website is that I didn’t feel it was going in a direction that I was happy with. Most of the reviews that have been posted on this website are group shows. And many of them less than impressive group shows.

Shows that in my opinion are part of the reason quilters have a hard time getting respect in the art world. My thoughts on that are in my previous Respect post.

I felt I was supporting and giving credibility to exactly the thing that I wanted to change. It seemed backwards - the more these shows were reviewed the more group shows that popped up looking to be reviewed. And any critical comments were generally met with resistance from the quilt world. I think they failed to see the value of the reviews in the same light as I had intended. I wanted critical reviews so the quilt world could question what they were doing and maybe rethink our general direction and make improvements.

Many of these group shows bill themselves as displaying all the millions of things that can be done with quilting and fiber. Survey shows that educate the world about the breadth of art quilting. But what I’d like to see is some depth, some shows that focus on the work of 1 or at most a handful of artists. Show that demonstrate that we can develop our art form beyond the latest new trick and technique and create mature bodies of work that are equivalent to the painters and sculptors out there.

I do believe and hope the website will continue to move forward as I feel critical reviews of quilt shows are extremely important and someday the website will begin to serve the purpose I had envisioned. I just don’t have the time to devote to helping make that change. There are some very dedicated folks at the helm and I do believe they will succeed if they keep going and I wish them the best of luck.

I’ve found that if I really want to succeed on my goals I need to stay focused on them. Pulling the entire quilt world up along with me is a noble effort and one I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut about, but I do know the more I resist getting into those conversations and efforts the more progress I make on my own art and career. Selfish? Maybe. But I only have so many hours in the day and at some point I’d like to quit my job and just be a full time artist and that isn’t going to happen if I focus on bettering the world vs. bettering my own art.

Markings #3 ©2006    74"x66"
 

Happy day! I think I found the problem with my computer. Not 10 minutes after my post on friday the darn thing refused to start up excel again. Arg. But thinking about the problems I realized it was always related to my machine hibernating. So I turned this feature off and haven’t had a problem since (and it was happening daily). Hurray - this means buying a new computer is no longer on my list of goals as I’m pretty sure everything is fine.

But that is the only art related thing I accomplished this weekend because I got the crazy idea to completely rearrange the furniture in my house, which of course required cleaning quite a bit of it. The kids are thrilled because we have reinstated my television (banished to a dark corner in basement storage 2-3 years ago). We can’t watch shows on TV but we can watch movies on DVD. New goal: I will not let the TV interfere with my art time.

And for those not glued to Denver weather, it snowed again today. I think we got about 8-10″ here in Parker, which is just sitting on top of the leftovers from the previous 4 weeks of snow. I can safely say I am completely ready for winter to be over. I’d like to just stay home tomorrow but I’ve got to get my son up to school because they leave for Mexico in the morning. I’m not looking forward to that drive. Although from what I can tell I’m not sure I can even get down my street at this point. Hm…

I promise I’ll get back to talking about art soon.

But in the meantime the above quilt was finished in the fall of 2006. It’s quite large, 6′ by 5.5′ and quilted just as closely as the other pieces in this series. I believe it took me about 36 hours to do the quilting, which is done with a walking foot with the feeddogs up for the quilters out there that wonder. And yes - I stop and turn the quilt at each corner. Maybe not the easiest way to do this but the way I enjoy. Here’s a detail of the quilting.

Markings #3 Detail

I’ve mentioned gapingvoid in a few prevoius posts on my blog. Most notably my discussion about internal disruption a few months back.

I’ve had these 2 cartoons from gapingvoid on my cube walls at work for maybe 3 years now (reprinted with permission here - I’ll go buy a bottle of Stormhoek when I see it - it was pretty good at our blogging art and wine gathering a few weeks back):

This cartoon kept me going through a couple difficult corporate take overs the past few years. Someday I hope to no longer be mistaken.

And this one seems to sum up many of my attempts at joining groups.

As some astute quilters may have noticed my name is no longer on the list of contributors on the artquiltreview blog. I am working on a longer post to discuss my feelings about this blog and why I left, tentatively titled depth vs. breadth. Still look for my comments over on that blog. I may not be helping edit and run the blog but of course I always have something to say. The folks over there doing the work are a talented group of artists.

For any of you that ventured over to art and perception and followed the recent posts you would have learned that I stepped down as head admin for that group also. It was a job I didn’t want but for reasons that I should learn to overrule I saw a need to step in and so I did.

Actually I attempted to get myself voted off the island at one point when things were turning sour in my personal life but it failed, much to my dismay. I look back now and realize the right thing to do at that time would have been to just quit as I knew I was in no shape to continue. Unfortunately I felt I made a promise and was half way through the job of designing the first template (which I’ve now learned they don’t like and are working to replace asap - I did my best at the time and I’m happy with the results - even if they aren’t) and felt I should fulfill my obligation and complete it.

I’ve since had a disagreement with the owner of that blog about some behavior that I felt was inappropriate on his part (he disagrees and thinks I’m being ridiculous). It’s really rather ugly. While I don’t recommend reading it, the posts to read here… [Update 1/4/2007 - posts are now deleted].

I’m not proud of my behavior. My writing is often misunderstood and taken to be much harsher than I ever intended it. This always confuses me and I have learned to mostly walk away as I know I can’t fix it with more words that will continue to be misunderstood. But for some reason this weekend I lost my mind. I felt cornered and things my personal life have been pretty rough this month and who knows what I was thinking. But I stupidly tried to defend myself and the more I tried the more I screwed it up and the madder everyone got at me and the more cornered I felt. All I can say is I wish my internet would have been down this weekend.

But what’s done is done. It certainly means I have more time for making art and that can never be a bad thing.

My teeth are just too sharp to bleat.

Update - 12/5/06: I received a lot of really wonderful support from many of the folks over on A&P and my readers here and I’m not so down on myself anymore.

While I still think I did wrong, I see that it was maybe unavoidable and it was pretty cool to be thanked for speaking up to bring some things to light. I’m maybe not ready to be proud of those posts, as someone suggested I might be, but I am thinking about them differently.

I was letting the actions of a very few really impact me in a way that was ridiculously out of proportion to the importance of issues. While I’m still licking my wounds and thinking about things, the sense of community that I have experienced today has been wonderful.

Thanks to all of you that reached out.

Another artifact in my cube is a magnet that says:

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History

Pat, who I met last fall in Idaho and had the honor of sitting next to during one week of the Nancy Crow workshop and who is now officially in Quilt National 2007 (congratulations Pat!), posted the following comment on my hobby? post a few days back:

We have a family friend who is a self-supporting artist over many years. All he does is work in his studio. His marketing efforts to galleries and his solo shows have all been arranged by his wife. She’s in charge of that complete aspect of his art life and early in his career she was the one schlepping canvases throughout the West and Southwest. So, with the right partner, Lisa, maybe you wouldn’t need to change one job for another? You could add finding a marketing partner to your goal spreadsheet. (Now, don’t dismiss this out of hand ….)

My dad responded to this comment to me in email noting that the Montana artist, Charles M Russell, also had a spouse to do this work for him. He thought this might be a good plan for me.

I’m currently reading The Unknown Matisse by Hilary Spurling and last night read the following:

a friend…

was shocked to hear him [Matisse] say in front of his wife that he would have liked to live like a monk, alone in his cell, dedicated solely to his work.

It was the sort of heroic self-denial to which Amelie [Matisse’s wife] instinctively responded. Henri’s driving sense of purpose, which drove hers, had been one of his great attractions from the day they met. Their marriage worked as a partnership, in which it was his business to paint while hers was to ensure that the smooth running of their daily lives freed him to concentrate on production.

At this point in their lives Amelie was running a hat shop so Matisse didn’t have to earn an income, and she was raising their 2 children (both under the age of 3) and also his daugher (age 6).

 
Hm - let’s combine that all together. It really does sound pretty good. Someone to run my art business, clean my house, and keep things going so all I had to concentrate on was creating.

Do these people really exist? Heroic self-denial - that’s an interesting phrase.

How does your partner support your art career?

I’ve tried to write a few blog posts this week but I can’t seem to focus on the task. I think I need more sleep. I have been going to bed at 9:30 and getting up at 5:30 but last week bedtime has crept up to 11 or 11:30 and that’s just not enough sleep for my brain to function enough to write coherent and interesting words.

I’ve felt pretty drained all week and so I’m back to going to bed at 9:30 and hoping I feel more peppy this coming week.

Although I have managed to get in 12 1/2 hours in the studio the last 5 days along with the 40 hours at the day job. While quilting Structures #52 tonight I was thinking I didn’t accomplish much else this week and I feel my life is spinning a bit out of control. Although when I thought about it I did get some things done, today I went to the post office to renew the kids’ passports, earlier in the week I balanced my checkbook and paid bills (always a fun task), took my son to his eye doctor appointment, I got a new cell phone last week so I’ve spent way too much time this week learning how the new one works (technology on phones has sure changed in the past 4 years and boy do I hate all those stupid ring tones - where is the nice unobtrusive sound my old phone made?), and I updated the links on my blog and added more artists blogs I’ve been reading lately.

I’ve added a new category, and for lack of better title it is called "Art Blogs by Artists". These are blogs by artists that aren’t specifically about that artist’s own work (although some) but more about art in general and many of them are reviews of other artwork. It’s a fine line and I’m not sure there is a reason to separate them but in my head (and my rss reader) I have them in a different category as I expect different types of posts from them than a normal artist blog. Maybe I organize things too much. I’ve been asked to contribute to the Art &Perception blog and once I get some sleep I’m looking forward to participating in that capacity.

But now it is past 9:30 again so bedtime - even on a Friday night. I’m clearly boring or maybe just old. Tomorrow I’ll try to finally finish my post about art school. As a preview check out the posts on other blogs that inspired my desire to write on this topic:

The original post was on Carl Zipser’s blog Art & Perception (here and several follow up posts here, here and here. ) in addition to a related posting on Tracy Helgeson’s blog. I’ve written some comments on a few of these posts but I want to address the topic more on my blog.

Yesterday afternoon I went to Target and returned iron #1, bought a black and decker #20 iron to replace it. It worked perfectly and I was thrilled - it got really really hot and it was gliding along making quick work of the fabric.

And then I suspect it overheated and the teflon coating began to get sticky and I couldn’t move it across the fabric at all - it was like a post it note (or super glue) on the bottom. I cooled it down a few times and washed it off but every time I turned it back on it got sticky again.

So yesterday evening I bought iron #3 at Walmart - another black and decker (on the theory they get hot) but this time with no teflon. Well yes - it glided smoothly but the darn thing barely got warm at all. And it leaked a bit. Useless to spend time ironing only to end up with a bunch of wrinkles the iron is too cool to actually press out.

So late last night I got totally frustrated and got out my original iron because I just wanted to get all that fabric finished and decided I could deal with the drips. But - tada - it worked perfectly. In no time at all I finished pressing all the fabric and it’s looks beautiful (photo coming soon).

I think the poor iron was afraid I was going to replace it so it finally decided to behave for fear of becoming landfill fodder. Okay - it’s an iron. But whatever happened - I’m thrilled.

Today I returned #2 and tomorrow night I’ll return #3 and forget the whole mess. What a hassle and waste of time.

One thing I noticed about these new irons was that they were almost impossible to fill with water. They had microscopically openings and they required their own special filling cups. Very very annoying. My old iron has a nice big opening that I can fill in a matter of seconds straight from my gallon jug of distilled water.

What is wrong with iron manufacturers these days? Do they think we don’t actually use them anymore so there is no reason to do a good job making them? A good iron is absolutely essential to making quilts and there seem to be few affordable solutions out there.

It’s much to late to be up but I need to vent.

Irons.

Just how hard could it be to design a quality iron?

My old iron (which was perfect and lasted 10 years) has started leaking. It used to do it occasionally but now it does every few seconds. Annoying and unacceptable iron behavior. Especially when faced with the task of ironing 62 brand new yards of fabric.

So off to our fancy brand new super target, which I believe opened today. It’s huge, and of course irons were way in the far back corner. And they had a zillion to pick from, they even had $120 Rowenta irons.

But my theory is that $120 irons are just $30 irons with a brand label and I’ve never bought one.

So I settled on the big red $30 iron that claimed it was drip free.

Well it drips. And it smells like burning plastic. And it was designed by a moron - there are a couple huge buttons on the handle - one for “burst of steam” and one for the spray bottle behavior action. Well - these huge buttons are right on the handle - right where I would normally put my hand. What - did these folks design this iron to look cool or to be functional? How could they not notice in a quick test run that these huge buttons are in the way?

I actually wonder if the dripping I had problems with was a result of me hitting those stupid buttons and the water came pouring out.

Either way it’s back to super lovely target tomorrow in hopes of maybe a $35 iron that works.

And now I have 50+ yards of fabric perfectly slightly damp - just right for ironing - that will dry out and be a royal pain to iron tomorrow.

Arg.

But to end on a positive note - I finished the week at 20 3/4 hours in the studio. Given that I put in only 3 hours before Friday evening that makes me smile.

I also worked at least 7-8 hours on the business of art this week. I have a show proposal stamped and ready to head out the door in the morning. Yay!

This post should have been about a fun experiment I did today but that will have to wait for another day when the ironing gods are smiling.

• They’ve scheduled the episode of Uncommon Threads, Dying to Quilt, that I will appear in. Check out DIY on November 13 at 10:30am eastern time. I’m sure it’ll be about as difficult to watch myself on TV as it was to read a written transcript of a verbal interview. Yikes - this is actually kind of scary.
• I ordered new dyes this week and they just arrived. I’m pretty excited about creating new color this weekend. I have lot of great ideas about work I want to make this winter, I just need to create some fabric to go with the plans.
• I’ve spent almost no time in my studio this week. Not for lack of motivation but due to lack of time. I did get to watch my daughter earn her yellow belt in Taekwondo, spend some time at a state park taking pictures of the fall colors, tour the new art museum, and take my son out for his birthday dinner.
• Monday evening I spent with my friend Carol Krueger celebrating my Quilt National acceptance and her best of show win at Expressions: The Art Quilt (along with her $2000 prize money). She also cut off my hair so I could donate a 12″ pony tail to Locks of Love. I’m loving the new short hair, which is so much less work to take care of.
• Yesterday I completed the mound of paperwork and got my quilt shipped off to Quilt National.
• And then last night I finally update the front page of my website and the exhibits page. It had been much too long since I did that little task. Next it’s time to tackle my resume which is now 6+ months out of date.
• So things are starting to fall back together again. Life is good.
• Well all except my shoulder. I definitely injured something hefty those big zucchini around last week and I’ve been living on a diet of aspirin and Aleve. Ouch. I should have gotten a massage this week but didn’t had the time.
• Although one of the changes I made the last few weeks was to return to yoga on a regular basis. So twice a week I’m taking a class (at work during lunch, we do have wonderful benefits here at mega-tech-corp). I’m also doing 15 minutes of yoga and weights on my own each morning. It makes a huge difference in my outlook on life and how I feel physically, although it means getting up 15 minutes earlier every morning (5:30am), which is not fun. I just need to be patient with the shoulder - it’ll be okay soon.
• My weekend plans - dye fabric, finish quilting Structures #58, pull together some packets to send off for solo show opportunities, spend time with a friend (either hiking or looking for art supplies and being creative).
• Things that should be in my weekend plans but I can’t seem to get up enough concern to care - refinish my porch floor, paint my porch railing, clean the house, pay bills. Lori - I’m far from super woman!
• Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

The last 2 days my kids have been out of school because it is goal setting conference time (like parent teacher conferences but student led). I’m fortunate to have a job that allows me to work at home on such days, so I worked, and they ran around. We’re having our normal gorgeous fall weather for Denver so the kids took to the street with sidewalk chalk.

These are my 14 year old son’s creations:

I suspect this might mean he’s not so excited about living in suburbia. It also meant he was kept occupied today cutting stencils and chalking the road. I think it’s wonderful suburban art and I love that he is questioning his surroundings.

My kids attend an expeditionary learning school. It’s a fabulous (public) school that teaches to the whole person instead of just focusing on academics.
Design principles express the philosophy of education and core values of Expeditionary Learning. Drawn from the work of Outward Bound’s founder Kurt Hahn, and other educational leaders, they shape school culture and provide a foundation for the moral purpose of schools.

The 10 principles are (see above link for more details):

• The Primacy of Self-Discovery
• The Having of Wonderful Ideas
• The Responsibility for Learning
• Empathy and Caring
• Success and Failure
• Collaboration and Competition
• Diversity and Inclusion
• The Natural World
• Solitude and Reflection
• Service and Compassion

It’s an amazing school and I’m actually quite jealous of the opportunities they have. The in-classroom education is stimulating and interesting. They go on almost weekly field trips: museums, hikes, libraries, etc. In addition they have a few major trips each year, from camping to backpacking to rafting to amazing out of state (and country) trips.

One of my favorite things about this school is that the kids are challenged to question their world instead of just accepting spoon fed textbook content.

 
And I’m sure at one time I had a point to this post but the electricity went out so we went to Target and spent money like the good suburbanites that we are. It was a grand adventure because our Target is closing in a few days so a bigger and better Super Target can open instead. Right next door to our huge Walmart.

Conform…

Last April while attending the opening of Art Quilts at the Sedgwick on the Square, I was interviewed by the Save Our Stories project from the Alliance For American Quilts.

The Quilters’ S.O.S. (Save Our Stories) is an oral history project to record the stories of United States’ quilters. The Project design is based on brief (45-minute) interviews launched from conversation concerning a “touchstone” object, a quilt chosen by the person interviewed as a focus for the interview.

My interview started with a discussion of the piece I had in the show, Structures #41, and continued on from there.

Today my interview was posted on their website (the long delay between interview and posting being entirely my fault).

Structures #41 ©2004 44″ x 31″

Detail:

 
Reading a verbal interview transcribed verbatim is a rather humbling experience. When speaking I start a sentence, rethink what I’m saying and then start over. Hopefully I make sense in person but it didn’t make for a very intelligent, easy to read interview. So I tried to fix all of those parts and remove the extra words. I was happy to see the interviewer did this several times also.

I was also happy to note I didn’t say “um” more than once or twice but I do tend to say “you know” and “like” (like a valley girl, ick) a bit too much. Rather embarrassing.

 
This is a wonderful and very worthwhile project and the crew at the Alliance are very easy to work with (even when you are rather lame and take months to edit your interview - oops - I was busy focusing on the art this summer and let some things slide that I shouldn’t have).

If you have an opportunity to participate in the project I highly recommend it.