Last week I shipped two works from the Dozen White Shirts series to the Schweinfuth Art Center in Auburn NY for Quilts=Art=Quilts 2019.
Spin Cycle, 43 x 44”, Cotton, linen, found white dress shirts, hand embroidered and stitched.
Spin Cycle was one of the earliest pieces in this series, and somehow was never the “chosen one” when I entered juried exhibitions. I was very happy to have it selected to show at the Schweinfurth as it is one of my favorites. Imagine staring down into a top loading washer and you will see how I visualized this image. I loved experimenting with fabric manipulation on this piece and also enjoyed putting together the shirt pieces that I had solar-dyed outside into the lower border. This border would become the common element between all eight of the quilts. I think this is also a successful use of the shibori-style fabric I made carelessly in my backyard indigo vat. The fabrics were not at all expert, but I had so much fun making them. The other work selected for the Schweinfurth is Line Dried.
When I have a chance to talk about these quilts I enjoy how other people also have pleasant sensory memories of laundry and are eager to share their own laundry stories. So many of my friends remember their own mothers toiling over white shirts, and the sounds and smells of clothelines and steam irons. Even though the images in this series of quilts are very abstract, I think many different people were able to connect to the ideas I was working out. Agitation will be traveling with Quilt National for another year, but I would like to someday exhibit all eight of the quilts together in one place.
I was in St. Louis last week for the Surface Design Association conference and saw so many astounding fiber artworks. My head was spinning when I returned. The St. Louis area fiber community has put together an amazing group of exhibitions called Inovations in Textiles. Lastly, I was delighted to finally meet two artist friends in person, Amy Meissner and Paula Kovarik. The fiber world is so large, and then sometimes wonderfully small. It is good to meet fellow travelers on the journey.