Mixed Media Artist

About Me

San Leandro, California
I am a mostly retired Nurse who works enough to pay for a studio and art supplies. I have been making art all my life, with no formal degree-type training, beginning with sewing at an early age. I discovered the JOY of quilting when I realized how much I liked breaking rules and telling stories. Workshops in surface design and art quilting, mentoring and encouragement from quilt artists, discovering the magic of assemblage with found objects, has landed me right in the middle of a mixed media world of art. I have been making my art and keeping it mostly to myself, giving it away only when I felt it was safe to do so. Finally, I was convinced that in order to grow artistically, I had to open up my art world for others to see, to like or not, but to see. Please take a look. Any comments, suggestions are welcome.

Mar 8, 2009

TELLING STORIES

Just when I was beginning to wonder why I was continuing to try to put together traditional quilts that never matched or hung right, I enrolled in a workshop given by Mary Lou Weidman that looked like fun. Mary Lou believes that "every event in life is a quilt waiting to happen" and my girlfriend had just gotten married so I had this idea in my head that I would make her a cute little romantic quilt with two rabbits dancing together on it. Didn't quite turn out that way, but what happened was a turning point in my life as a quiltmaker. During our "warming up" exercises, an image of my mother's bowling league came into my head and I knew that was what my piece was going to be about. To heck with the wedding quilt for my friend, bowling had taken over. These were a group of ladies that got together on Thursday nights at a local bowling alley, despite the grumblings of their husbands, who considered the bowling alley a "pick-up" joint. Season after season they would meet and bowl, bringing home the cheap trophies after their banquets. It was a big deal in our house when my mother went out
By the end of the workshop I had a sketch of what I was going to do, some bowling pins, some border blocks, but not much more as I hadn't prepared anything for the workshop. As you can see from the piece, it doesn't hang straight, blocks don't match, questionable placement of stuff, and why does that bowling ball have wings? It was my first entry into Pacific Quilt Festival 2002 and won an honorable mention. All done with my bobbin in backwards.
Thursday Nite Ladies League
Stories come to me at the strangest times. One day I was sitting in my dentist's chair having some work done when I realized that I was fixated on the ceiling tiles that formed a pattern. I wondered what it be like t o have a quilt that looked out of my mouth.

Open Wide

Empty Spool Seminars puts on lots of wonderful workshops with many traditional and, more recently, innovative-artsy quiltmakers. Niki Bonnet , who is not a quilter but a mixed media artist, taught a class one year that I really enjoyed. The results of this were a small but fun piece in which I got to utilize spray paint, paper, stencils and whatever as part of my design. I also learned that any tossed away lying around 'road kill' has design potential.

"Lost Time" laments about the time spent commuting back and forth to work, some of it traveling through neighborhoods and memories.

Next piece was done in a wonderful workshop with Sue Benner, one of many pieces, that looked nothing like any of the others because that need for story crept in. I had a great piece of fabric that had images of trashy dime-store novels on it, so it became this odd black/pink/orange collage fused thing that stands up by itself. I should have called it "Fused to Death". I love it.

She Was a High Class Dame

I have long admired Susan Shie's work and when East Bay Heritage Quilters held a workshop with Susan as an instructor, I signed up for two days of classes. Part of her process is to take suggestions from the class for a subject that we would all focus on for our pieces. I generally don't like doing stuff like this, thinking in will "cramp" my style/vision/inspiration...whatever. And when the subject voted on was tomatoes, I cringed. But by the end of the class, it was amazing what different visions and story pieces people had of tomatoes. Mine was a memory of my mother canning tomatoes on the hottest day in August and me trying to stay as far away as possible from the whole event. It was a real fun class. I like using some writing in my pieces, though not as much as Susan Shie does.

St. Carrie of the Kitchen

2 comments:

  1. Hi Carol (Sis), I love these quilts and have seen them before, you look fantastic!!! St. Carrie, how wonderful. You are so talented! Thanks for sharing, Love, Mary Lou

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  2. LOL... I can feel the heat..one of the few hot days in Buffalo...

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