I blogged about the show on the Quilter’s Guild of Indianapolis’ website here.  You can visit there for more general photos of groupings of quilts and those laying on tables under the shelter.  Below you can see a slideshow of most of the individual quilts hanging in the show.

The IMQG is a talented and fun bunch of quilters!

[See image gallery at triscartsi.com]

There have been countless debates over the art verses craft of quilts.  I definitely come down on the side that art quilts ARE art.  They are pieces of art using fiber as the medium.  Artists, such as myself, study design and art principles and utilize and analyze them during the making of their art pieces.  They are generally not utilitarian crafts, but made and presented as pieces of art.  I digress on this topic for a purpose.  It can be difficult to get exhibition space due to this issue.  Museums and galleries limit the number of art quilt exhibits.  I heard back from a gallery space saying that they had already exhibited quilts and felt that two quilt exhibits in two years would be too many.  Would they have said that about two watercolor exhibits?  Two oil painting exhibits?

The acceptance of art quilts by museums, galleries, and art academics has been an ongoing struggle since at least the 1970s.  I am very grateful to those who have been persistently working toward respect for cloth as a valid art medium.  SAQA, and it’s founder, Yvonne Porcella who passed recently,  have been integral in this movement toward expanding the value of art quilts in the art world.  There are now museums specific to fiber arts and quilts, due in a great part, to the popularity of quilting and the continued efforts to show this art to a broader audience.  This exhibit may be ground breaking.  I wonder if anyone knows of another art museum that has had two simultaneous quilt exhibits.  I thank Niloo Paydar for her efforts to make this exhibit a reality.  I hope that we artists did not disappoint her in our resulting pieces for the call and that the IMA gets good feedback on the dual exhibit so that they will expand their exhibiting of art quilts in the future, while modeling the value of quilt art for other museums and galleries.

Susie Goodwin with one of her pieces during the opening

I attended the opening evening’s artist panel where the topic: When Artists Step Out of Their Comfort Zone was very interesting given that our pieces were to be artist responses to the quilts and body of work of Marie Webster.  Drawing inspiration to make an art quilt based on something so removed from contemporary art quilts was a challenge for many of us and it was interesting to hear how four of the exhibiting artists dealt with this disparity.  An album of some quilts from the Marie Webster exhibit are at the bottom of the page.  The panel was comprised of two Indiana artists, Pamela Burns and Terry Pate, and two regional artists, Barbara Schneider and Kathleen Loomis.

Joan Webb at opening night with her quilt

Marie was a Hoosier quilter in the early 1900s.  While today her quilts seem very traditional, back in her time they were cutting edge.  Her quilts and their patterns were published and sought after.  She became an entrepreneur in a time when it was unusual for married women to work, let alone be an entrepreneur.  She published the first book on quilting.  I did not know much of anything about Marie Webster before I began and did research into her and her work because the pieces were to be “dialogues” with Marie.  I will expand on my journey for this exhibit in a future blog.  For brevity on this post, suffice it to say, I did enjoy my “dialogue” with Marie and am grateful for this exhibit for all I learned about Marie Webster, her work, and her process.

My quilt Dragonflies (submission photo). The dragonfly wings in the white border are quilted in metallic threads that is also surrounding each dragonfly.

There were so many beautiful quilts in the exhibit, I decided to give myself some guidelines in selecting which pieces to post here. Just like any jurying process, that does not mean there were not many other equally beautiful pieces I could have chosen.  I decided to choose some overall photos of the gallery and quilts from Hoosier quilters whom I  know.  I will say, that due to the fact that most of Marie Webster’s quilts are floral, so are the responses.  There are only two quilts that do not have flowers:  mine and Kathleen Loomis’ (seen above on the pilar in the second gallery photo).  Mine is below, but I chose to use my submission image since it is a better photograph than I was able to take in the gallery.  I also include the submission photo of Sonia Martin’s piece since I took that for her and the natural lighting is better for photography.

Sonia Martin Brown’s submission photo

At the bottom of the page is a slideshow of  some of the quilts in the Marie Webster exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  The lighting is low to protect the quilts as much as possible during the exhibit.  They are also on angle for less stress on the fibers.  So, it does not provide the best possible scenario for photographing the quilts.  The quilts are pastels in general and I adjusted the photographs.  During adjustments, they either turn out too bright or still too dim.  I over adjusted some and under adjusted others to give you more of an idea range of color.  The truth lies in between.

[See image gallery at triscartsi.com]

Since I brought up lighting issues with quilts, I also ran into lighting issues with the SAQA exhibit.  You don’t want bright continuous light on a quilt because light fades fabric.  The quilts were tricky to photograph and adjust as well.  You don’t want to use flashes with quilts on exhibit which would have helped even out the lighting on the quilts, but adds to the light exposure to the fabrics.  I almost always have my cameras set to no flash since I am often photographing where there is no flash or flash is distracting to others.  I wanted to show the difference in the pictures with straight from the camera and adjusted in software.

This doesn’t truly represent the light level in the room (it isn’t dark in the room), but does show that it is difficult for a camera to photograph without flash in a low light indoor situation intended to lessen the light exposure to textiles in an exhibit.

This is an adjusted version of the same photo. If you go much lighter, the colors in the quilts look faded. Again, this still does not represent the actual look and feel of the room. It is much brighter than it appears in the photo

The Marie Webster exhibit has a very serene feel with the big pastel antique quilts.  It was curated and presented beautifully by Niloo Paydar.  I felt joy in their beauty and calm in their presentation.  I hope you have a chance to visit both exhibits.  The SAQA Dialogues exhibit closes Sept 4th 2016 and the Marie Webster exhibit closes January 7 2017.  More information can be found at the IMAs website.

[See image gallery at triscartsi.com]

The tour didn’t disappoint!  We had an enjoyable time and learned a lot.  I loved photographing the glowing fires and glass.

The glass furnaces that run 24/7. These are very large, but no one is standing near it to get the scale.

A furnace that hasn’t been installed yet.

oven that the furnace goes into to heat up to be able to install it into the big octagon of furnaces. Which has to be installed hot while the other furnaces are burning. And fast so it doesn’t crack from the temperature difference.

testing if the molten glass is ready to go.

Oven fires

Glowing door to a furnace.

Hot glass in a very heavy metal ladle. It has to be moved quickly to keep it from cooling off too fast.

Ladleful about to be added to the pile of molten glass

Pouring the ladleful

Stirring the colors together for ribbons of mixing colors.

Stirring the molten glass to mix the colors a little

Pushing the stirred molten glass into the rollers.

Texture rollers to add texture to the sheet glass

Directing the glass going into the rollers and coming out as a textured sheet of molten glass and then off to the ovens to cool down slow enough to not crack.

finished sheet glass trimmed down to size

The head of a glass sheet that is cut off because it is not even. I enjoy these pieces in their irregularity.

I had a lot of fun photographing the process, in particular the molten glass and furnace.

A glassblower at KOG was working on a bowl like the ones seen behind the IU awards on this table.

Projects for clients. The red one’s are awards for Indiana University and the bowls are what we saw being worked on in the blowing studio.

Blowing and shaping the bowl.

Shaping the foot

Tapping to remove the bowl

Smoothing out the pontil mark

Next up: sheet glass making

I had been to Kokomo Opalescent Glass (KOG) before when buying glass for a lifelong friend’s stained glass she asked me to make for her historic home remodel.   I really enjoyed looking through all of the beautiful glass they make and had a tough time just picking out what was needed for the project.  All of the quilters out there know what it is like to go into a quilt shop and see the gorgeous “eye candy.”  This is the same feeling: heart leaping with all of the possibilities for the beautiful supplies!

Making glass beads

So, KOG is 127 years old!  That in itself is amazing.  They opened in Kokomo because they were given free gas and there was a good supply of it.  They got that deal for many years until the gas supply dwindled.  They have had gas bills as over $65,000 in a month!  Yikes.  Needles to say, there is also not a high margin on glass productions given those expenses.

They give tours once a day on weekdays.  We expected the tour to be a few people and it ended up being over 40.  They split us into smaller groups and called in back up tour guides.  We lucked into getting the CEO.  He requested going last and I’m pretty sure we got a longer tour with a little more detail to our tour.  John O’Donnell was a very knowledgeable and interesting tour guide.  His wife, Patty, joined us and was very knowledgeable as well.

John holding glass for the Washington DC metro in a warehouse.

There are multiple buildings in the complex, but the original building was a scissors factory prior to glass, so it is older than 127 years old.

There were rows and rows of sheet glass stored.

I was surprised to hear about the scope of their business and customers.  They are one of about 6 glass manufacturers of the type in the country.  They supplied a lot of glass to Tiffany’s over the years and still have the recipes used originally and still get repair work for Tiffany glass.  Glassmaking has not changed a lot with the times.  You are still melting sand and additives to molten states in ovens and manipulating it how you want it.

Projects for clients. The red ones are awards for Indiana University and the bowls are what we saw being worked on in the blowing studio.

They had a container shipment ready to be loaded in a container bound for Japan.

Part of the shipment for Japan

Here is part of our group looking through a warehouse while John talks about the original unpainted brick wall that employees signed and dated over the years.  A quilter friend is in the light green jacket and the woman in red is a visiting Pakistani missionary who was there with her husband who had on a velvet suit.

The unpainted signature brick wall

While this brick wall is more enduring, there still remains wooden shelving that has very old signatures as well!

Wooden shelving with dated signatures

It looks like they place broken sheets at the ends of the rows.

The man who was doing the cut class/stained/leaded glass had just finished a piece (a wolf that was lovely and I should have taken a pic of him holding it up).  We didn’t get to see him working and thus didn’t take any photos.  We chatted a bit after the tour and he showed me a picture of the leaded glass he made for Elton John.

I took so many pictures (350+), that it is going to take a few posts to share them all.  I will post on glass blowing, sheet glass making, and general photography yet.

A few of us are planning to go back and take a class or two.  So if you find yourself in the Kokomo area, think about a tour.  More posts to follow!

As a quilter I love looking at all styles of quilts.  Although I am an art quilter, I can appreciate the love and labor that goes into making any quilt and enjoy a glimpse into another quilter’s brain through his/her design choices.  Given all of the quilting time in the world, I would try many, many styles of quilting.  But, alas I don’t have that time and I have to prioritize my choices and art quilts generally win out.  That being said, I enjoy seeing the contemporary quilts of the present than those of the past.  So I chose to hone in on the quilts from the present to share today, and art quilts by in particular.  Here are three talented Hoosier artists’ quilts.

Starry Knight by Ellen Anne Eddy

Penny Sisto had two.  Frances Slocum’s Landscape and Frances Slocum’s Totem

Frances Slocum’s Landscape.  Oops.  I forgot to get a whole shot!  So here are two details.

Frances Slocum’s Totem

Linda Gray’s Nineteen Stars for the Nineteenth State

The types of quilts, though all are stars or have a star in them somewhere, are varied, beautiful, and interesting.  I hope you will go to the ISM and see the exhibit if you are in the Indy area.

Yesterday I met up with the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) of Indiana at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) for the opening of a new textile exhibit of fashion with the Curator Niloo Paydar.   While I am not a big fashion fan, I do love fiber and textiles and getting together with others who love them as well.  I really enjoyed the unusual, interesting, and beautiful collection that Niloo put together.  It was basically chronological.  The lighting was dramatic spotlighting the clothing while keeping the walls and the rest of the room fairly dark.  So, while my pictures of people not in the spotlights didn’t turn out well, the clothing was well lit to photograph.

Entering the exhibit with a glow in the dark pantsuit by Stephen Sprouse.

We met for lunch at the IMA cafe which is one of my favorite places to eat.  Always fresh and delicious.  We discussed the upcoming SAQA exhibit that will be at the IMA next year.  The call for entry is here and is open to SAQA members in these states: Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Iowa, Minnesota, and Tennessee.  It is an artist response to Marie Webster’s quilts.  It will be in conjunction with an exhibit of Marie’s quilts in the textile department.

Every year SAQA has an auction of 12″x12″ quilts.  You can see my leather quilt: Bee Play II here.  The quilt I donated last year now resides in Paris.  I hope my bee lands in another good home this year as both quilts have bees on them.  I may need to continue that unintentional theme.

A zipper vest by Martin Margiela.

The clothing ranged from recycled, to paper, to satirical, to haute couture.  They were all beautiful and all interesting.    Here is a vest made from reused zippers.  I know my daughter is going to love this one.

Niloo Paydar the textile curator

Niloo told us about different ways they acquire articles.  One way is through donations,

such as this hand painted and hand made dress by Zondra Rhodes that Niloo donated.

Niloo’s donation

Looking at Moschino leather purses

Moschino leather purses

Another piece by Moschino: Dinner Jacket with utensil docorations

Some of the group listening to Niloo discuss the exhibit in the Japanese section

Rei Kawakubo’s unique gloved ensemble

I had an enjoyable afternoon and hope that if you are in the area you will stop by the Indianapolis

Museum of Art to see Cutting Edge.  The pictures I shared here are just the tip of the iceberg.  There are some others posted on my Facebook page Barbara Triscari, which is public, so you don’t have to friend me to just check out the pictures of the exhibit.

This quilt was my favorite. It hits close to home with being a military family for 20 years. By Cindy Garcia

She really caught the sadness in the girls eyes. I teared up.

I had a lot of fun at Bloomington’s IHQS!  I always love looking at quilts!  Quilters are not only VERY creative, they are fun, and so friendly.  I chatted away the day as I went.  I saw lots of Indy QGI friends, booth sat at the SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) booth where we had wonderful conversations, ate lunch with some local quilters, and then made some purchases before heading back home.

I had two pieces in the show.  Il Ponte alla Carraia and Thistles and Bee.   First time I showed there.  Next year SAQA will have a special exhibit, so that will be nice and they allowed us to have an informational booth.  Kate Lenkowsky was wonderful to run it for 3 days with just some breaks!  I really enjoyed chatting about art with her, albeit continually interrupted, lol.  I can’t wait to see what her submissions for the SAQA Indiana exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art will be.  She showed me a very rough sketch of one of her ideas.

I have to share my quilt show pet peeve.  It has become common at shows to put up plastic ropes that criss cross through the booth.  I get that it keeps people further away from the quilts and keeps most people from being tempted to touch.  But then you can’t get close to the quilts to see the details.  Which is the biggest best part of going to a show, in my opinion!  I will be less likely to go that far away when I know I can’t do what I like most.  It also makes it impossible to get good pictures of the quilts on the sides.  So not many pictures.  Ba humbug!

I don’t usually get all that excited about the shopping.  As a dyer, I usually use my own fabrics and I don’t like to fight the crowds looking at the latest quilt gadgets.  But I knew that Breezy Manor Farm would be there with her hand dyed wool.  Yummy.  I bought a bag of silk/wool roving and a bag of wool.

I found Heather Givens creator of Crimson Tate, her alter ego cartoon character who is out to rule the world.  I love her enthusiasm for all things creative and finally got to tell her congrats on her new fabric line!  I stopped in the store in Indy last month but she was out, but I got a sneak peek at the succulents fabric.  I bought her “baby toes” t shirt.  Love it!  She gave me a couple of pins from the Houston pin swap and a huge hug.  Love her!

So the fabric line hasn’t hit the market, but she had some at Houston and said she couldn’t let it be sold at Houston without letting us buy some back home.  So, I bought a fat quarter pack of the fabric.  She told me to let her know if I might want to make a quilt for the next line she is working on.  So I pondered that on the drive home.  Go, Heather!

I thought I was all done spending.  My two temptations I couldn’t pass up.  But no!  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the SAQA Urban Textures line, which was designed by SAQA members.  Ugh.  I had to get some of that and now I might “have” to do the quilt challenge now.  I was trying to not get sucked into another project.   So again, thinking I’m done, I got sucked into some more fat quarters: Marcia Derse and Nature’s Treasures by Laura Van Horne which reminds me of my hail photos.  So much for not spending much. 

The cat had to hop up and smell the wool and was annoyed when I made her go.

Then she decided to help me out, which she does occasionally when I’m photographing by holding up some fabric for me for a backdrop.

1000 Quilt Inspirations: Colorful and Creative Designs for Traditional, Modern, and Art Quilts

by Sandra Sider

You could pre-order/order it at Barnes and Noble from Feb 28-March 3 using the code: 1154892 and part of the proceeds of your order will be donated to the guild and the charity we choose.  The guild works with many organizations donating quilts, hats, and other items and services.  It is currently 26% off.  Be sure to scroll to the bottom of checkout page and look for a selection box for bookfair orders!

I will be doing to presentations during the book fair: Printing on Fabric and Art Quilt Techniques (2:30 and 4:00).  I hope that if you are in the Indianapolis area, you will stop by.

QGI BOOKFAIR

The Guild is hosting a bookfair on Saturday, February 28^th, from 10 AM to 9 PM, at the Rivers Crossing Barnes & Noble (near Keystone at the Crossing). Your purchases that day will help support the Guild and one of our favorite charities (to be determined). The bookfair will feature the following:

• A quilt exhibition throughout the store, featuring the Guild’s 2015 Quilt Show Opportunity Quilt
• Quilting demos and workshops for children and adults alike
• A quilter’s storytime for children
• A charity quilt-in where you can help finish quilts for charity
• A book signing by Jennifer Fulton and the Guild members that helped with her book, Idiot’s Guides: Quilting

The bookfair will help promote membership in our Guild, our upcoming Quilt Show, our charitable activities, and quilting in general. Simply come to the River Crossing B&N and then prior to your purchase, either show the coupon, mention the code, or tell the cashier you want to participate in the bookfair to have your purchases count.

Although we hope you will all come out to support the bookfair, there are many ways in which you can participate. For example, you can make purchases at any Barnes & Noble in the country from February 28^th to March 3^rd and as long as you show the coupon or mention our bookfair code 1154892 prior to the actual transaction, those purchases will count towards this fundraiser.  So spread the word to everyone you know—they can help us out even if they don’t live here in Indy.

You can also purchase items online at www.bn.com/bookfair from February 28^th to March 5^th, and use the code in the Bookfair Event ID Box at checkout to help the fundraiser. So again, spread the word about our fundraiser and share the code number at the bottom of the coupon to help increase our sales.

By the way, if you are a Barnes & Noble member, you can apply your member discount and still help the fundraiser. Gift card purchases, video games, software, and digital content (such as downloadable books, digital magazines, or music files) will not count, however Nook ereaders, accessories, and purchases at the in-store Starbucks do!

So plan ahead and hold your purchases until our special day, and then go crazy and help your guild and its charity.

Printable: QGI bookfair coupon code.

Note: In the case of bad weather, the events scheduled at the River Crossing Barnes and Noble will be moved to Sunday, March 1^st, from 10 AM to 9 PM. The bookfair fundraiser however, will run from February 28^th to March 5^th regardless.

I finally used a few of my favorite Murano beads in a necklace.  I kept looking at some other vintage beads and contemplating making a necklace but not quite feeling like it would be special enough.  I finally thought of the Murano beads I picked out of a giant serving bowl at the Piazzola sul Brenta antique market in the Veneto of Italy.  I must have spent an hour scouring through that bowl picking out all that I could find of these beauties that almost glow from the gold layer inside.  I wasn’t sure they would work so well with the silver, but I found a few of them had silver instead of gold and used mostly those.  They have a frosted finish.

The Piazzola sul Brenta market is one of the largest antique markets in Europe and is quite fabulous.  The market is in the town square just outside of an amazing villa: Villa Cantorini.  It also stretches along some streets and in some buildings.  The link will take you to an Italian website, but the pictures show you the villa and the market.  We spent many afternoons  at the monthly market looking for treasures as we were very fortunate to live only about 20 minutes from it.

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