Developing anxiety

Time to clean up the studio. That means one of two things: it's an unbearable mess or project is done.  I am happy it's the latter. The nicknamed High Anxiety has been pieced! (This doesn't mean the former is not true.)

I'd finally determined a layout (see this post) nearly a month ago. 

initial layout

It was slow going assembling each of the six sections. I had to make more diamond modules.

three sections pieced

six sections pieced

More diamonds to fill in around the edges before sewing sections together.

two halves

Gap-osis at the bottom center half. Instead of trimming to create a straight edge, I deconstructed along the gap then filled it back in. Yes, more diamonds. Then sewed together the two halves, added more diamonds around the edges and marked a five-foot square.

finished top

At least this Potpourri workshop exercise is not in the ufo pile. Yeah! In another year or two or three I'll replace the nickname and quilt it up. 

Not to be missed: Mark Bradford

In May 2010 I was at the Crow Barn for two workshops - Best of Sets & Variables I & II and Sets & Variables III. If you've ever been in one of Nancy Crow's workshops, then you know how tired I was after week one.

Yet I went to the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio and discovered the work of Mark Bradford. His inspirational work re-energized me and the second week went more smoothly.

I was back at the Barn again the following September and saw Bradford’s exhibition a second time. I enjoyed it as much as the first time and attribute my successes in Strip Piecing & Restructuring to that.

The exhibition toured and is now at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I saw his exhibition for the third time.

Mark Bradford in front of Scorched Earth

Different venue, different art? Though I recognize some works, some are definitely new. Others may have been at the Wexner, but because of space, placement and order, I experienced them differently. I loved getting reacquainted. I was wowed again. Great works. Powerful show.

Don’t miss this! It has already been in Boston, Chicago and Dallas. San Francisco is the last venue. I’m going back for a fourth view!

Part of the exhibition at the nearby Yerba Buena Center for the Arts ends on May 27^th (admission to this auxiliary venue is included). Otherwise the bulk of the exhibition ends June 17^th at SFMoMA.

Spell relief

I had anticipated a month of jury duty. Weeks of public transit to the courthouse in downtown Oakland. Sit in the jury box and pay attention. Four days a week. I'm feeling antsy already.

Last Monday the judge provided some basic information: attempted murder, criminal case, but no capital punishment. Hmm, could be interesting.

The experienced one estimated a month for the trial. A soft collective intake of breath from prospective jurors.

Each of us filled out a lengthy questionnaire for the attorneys’ review. Then we were free until the following Monday. Unless we got a call otherwise.

Meanwhile I was advised by friends and acquaintances about how to avoid jury duty. Yet I resigned myself to be selected and serve.

The $15 per day would cover bus fare and lunch. I’d miss my free time – but hey! I’m retired! In exchange I get real experience – not a fictionalized dramatized televised version. I won't get rich, but enriched. My only time as a juror was for a prostitution charge. That was an education. 

I would have regretted missing one day out of each upcoming two-day workshops: Discover Your Shape Vocabulary with Terry Jarrard-Dimond and Deconstructed Screen Printing with Kerr Grabowski.  I really looked forward to these. Oh well. Half a workshop is better than nothing.

Terry Jarrard-Dimond



Kerr Grabowski

Nevertheless, I was much relieved when I got the call: excused from jury duty! I don't question why, just happy I can count on business as usual.

First Friday favorite photo - May

Diamonds are forever

It’s been more than six weeks since I’ve returned from the Indianola, WA Potpourri workshop. You may think I've been avoiding my art, but it ain't so! Exercise 3 from the workshop has been morphing on the design wall.

I've nicknamed this composition High Anxiety for now. Not because that's the way I feel about it (not yet!) but because of the exercise directions.

At the workshop I started with the pieces splattered together helter-skelter.

helter-skelter & rotated

helter-skelter detail

Much as I like it, I’d go loony piecing this. For structure with options plus irregularity, I cut down each module into a diamond - 5 regular sizes and standard angles. You can see the variations from this set of modules.

cut and uncut diamonds

There are five sets of modules gradating in size, value and contrast. All of them are cut into diamonds, but not so they fit dimensionally snug with other sizes. The diamond templates are big enough to fit the rectangular modules without  being locked into one position.

I initially sewed the smallest modules together into strips.

sewn into rows

Too restrictive too soon. I don't hesitate to un-sew. 

These diamonds have been arranged and rearranged multiple times - more than are shown here.

on the diagonal

I like this but not what I was after. May be version 2.

The chosen arrangement – a radiating pattern - a reversal of the one above.

chosen one

This is one composition that demands to be bigger. The Black lines mark out a 5’ square. Rearranging the modules wasn't enough to make it work. I needed more diamonds. Because I had to dig out the colors from my stash, making more took forever.

Now it's about six feet square.

sew this up!

And ready to sew up! To keep it big I'll fill in gaps rather than cutting off the excess. However big it will be, I have a lot of piecing ahead! Maybe even more modules. I'd be making diamonds forever.

So Cal art whirl

When schedules suddenly aligned for an unencumbered week, I seized the opportunity and ran drove to southern California. When I go out of town, I like to know what to see, where to go and how to fit it all in. Monday was an eight-hour drive to San Diego. I laid out an ambitious schedule of exhibitions and venues for the next three days:

• Northern Stars: Twentieth Century Finnish Designs at the Mingei International Museum, San Diego (vintage Marimekko)
• Dyed Elegance: Asian Modernism and the Art of Kuboku and Hisako Takadu at the San Diego Museum of Art (roketsuzome - wax resist dyeing)
• Art Meets Science, Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection, and Magical Mystery Tour: en homage at Visions Art Museum, San Diego (quilts)
• California Design, 1930-1965: "Living in a Modern Way" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (comprehensive view of modern design)
• Breaking Ground: Chinese American Architects in LA (1945-1980) at the Chinese-American Museum, Los Angeles (googie architecture by Helen Liu Fong)
• Folding Paper: the Infinite Possibilities of Origami at the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles (mind-boggling folds)
• Claire Falkenstein at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles (she sculpted entrance gates for Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy)
• Pasadena to Santa Barbara: a Selected History of Art in Southern California, 1951-1969 at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (Karl Benjamin's abstract compositions would make great quilts)
• Carefree California: Cliff May and the Romance of the Ranch House at University Art Museum University of California, Santa Barbara (he was great at marketing)

I didn't have time to see much more at each venue. I just missed San Diego's Craft Revolution: from Post-War Modern to California Design. It looked great even as the Mingei staff were dismantling it. But I maxxed out and even saved the Eames House in Pacific Palisades for another time. But I did manage to connect with friends in San Diego and LA for dinner.

Making it all possible meant a one night stay each in each city - if it's Tuesday, it must be ___ - and two-hour drives each day in crazy southern California traffic. To cap off the trip I spent one relaxing non-scheduled day in San Luis Obispo before returning home.

You may think I'm nuts, but this was a great vacation - full of art and inspiration.