Cindy Grisdela ~ art quilter

Scrap Coasters

I have bags and bags of scraps from my projects–pieces that are too big to throw away but too small to put back with the folded yardage in my studio.  Getting them out and playing with them is a fun way to sort of jump start my creative brain. I’m always amazed at the serendipitous combinations that I happen upon when I’m just sewing pieces together. I’ve had a busy time the last few weeks as my younger son needed supervised driving hours to get his driver’s license, so I’ve been spending a lot of time as a passenger in the car.  This is the kind of project that’s good to get back into the creative flow.

Scrap Quilt

Anyway, this week I had a project and a goal–make sets of coasters from the scraps to offer at the holiday shows I have coming up–and maybe to give as gifts myself!  At right is one of the sets done in bright colors and soft blue. I’m really happy with these.

But I kept thinking what a great quilt these happy squares would make, and before I knew it, there was a new quilt composing itself on my design wall. The idea behind this piece is similar to the process I’ve used in my color block series with solids–I pick a color scheme and get a selection of fabrics that fit–in this case just scraps—then sew the units together fairly randomly. Once I have enough to put up on the design wall, I arrange and rearrange them until I’m satisfied with the design. I haven’t really decided what to call this one, but Coaster Quilt will do for now.

Now I need to get back to the coasters!

I’ve been on vacation the last couple of weeks, but I’m finally back in the studio now.  No pictures yet, but I wanted to let everyone know that the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) Reverse Auction of 12″ square art quilts starts today. There are many wonderful works to choose from and you’ll being helping support a great organization that organizes exhibits of art quilts, publishes a portfolio of work from current members once a year and offers much needed support and encouragement to art quilters all over the world, among other activities. I’m proud to be a member of this group.

The auction is held in three sections. On the first day, the price for any work is $750. The price drops at 2 P.M. on the following day to $550, then to $350 on the third day, then $250, $150 and to $75 on the last day. The first section starts today, Sept. 10, the second section starts Sept. 17 and the third section begins Sept. 24. All start times are 2 P.M. EST.

Here’s the link to the first series of quilts http://www.saqa.com/newsebulletins/Squares09_1.aspx

Happy Bidding!

I’m pleased to annouce that I’ve been juried in as a new member of the Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria. At right is a picture of two of my pillows on display this month, “Neutral Circles” on the lower left and “Tropical Squares” on the right. Below is my “Building Blocks” quilt on the lower left, which is also in this month’s show.

"Building Blocks" at Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery

I’m excited about this new opportunity. The Fiber Arts Gallery is a co-op gallery that has been part of the Torpedo Factory since it opened 35 years ago. The Gallery has about 70 artist members, including weavers, knitters, jewelers, and quilters. Each month brings a new juried show, so there’s always something new and exciting to see.  The artists staff the gallery, with each one taking a turn about once a month, so it’s a great opportunity to see what other artists are doing and to interact with art enthusiasts.

Now that I’ve finished with my shows and most of my travel for the spring, I’m back to working in the studio. I’ve got several of these improvisational pieces made out of solids either on the design wall or in my head. “Hint of Lime” shown right is the latest. There’s something about working in this style that really appeals to me right now, but I’m conflicted about it because it’s different from my other work and I’m not sure that it really “works” on a design level. I enjoy the process of deciding what color palette I’m going to work with and then just diving into cutting and sewing without much of a preconceived plan. In many ways the piece creates itself as one design decision leads to another and it’s this intuitive process that is exciting to me. Does it matter if it appeals to anyone else? Or should I just follow this trail where it leads?

I’ve been entering or curating quite a few shows recently and while I enjoy doing that, it has definitely meant less time just working on new ideas and letting things percolate. As a result, I’m finding that I’m focusing more on the finished product than on the process. The process is where creativity comes from, I think. So I’m back to the studio to play!

I curated an all media show of Great Falls Studios artists at the Fairfax County Government Center last weekend. We have 14 artists exhibiting 53 works of art ranging from painting to photography to sculpture to fiber in a curved first floor hallway of the office building. The exhibit is part of the Fairfax County Arts Council’s Arts in the Workplace program which showcases a rotating group of artists in different office venues around the county. It will be up until July 10, 2009 and you can see it during normal business hours Monday-Friday.

Shown left is Jonathan Fisher’s wood relief sculpture and Jan Bender’s black and white photographs. At right is my “Fire and Ice” piece, which I’ve recently had mounted onto stretcher bars with a black linen background. I’m happy with the result. The background really makes the bright design pop, I think. It’s recently been photographed and I’ll have it up in the gallery as soon as I get the pictures back from the photographer.

Curating this show was  a real experience for me, since it’s the group’s first major exhibit outside of Great Falls. We hope to get some exposure to people who might not have seen our work before. I’m grateful to those members of Great Falls Studios who participated in the exhibit and helped to hang it last Saturday.

“Chocolate with Sprinkles” was hung last week in the new exhibit at the Conscious Bean coffee shop on Colvin Run Road. The challenge this time for my fellow artists from Great Falls Studios was to come up with an interior or exterior scene of a coffee shop in a format no larger than 16″x20″. It’s exciting to see all the different interpretations of the theme from painters, photographers, a potter and a sculptor in addition to my fiber piece. If you get a chance, it’s definitely worth a visit to the Conscious Bean to have a cup of coffee and see which interpretation is your favorite!

This piece was fun for me to do because it’s such a departure from my usual abstract work. The coffee cup and the cupcake are hand appliqued and the sprinkles on the cupcake are hand beaded. I machine quilted dimensional lines into the applique and wrote the names of popular coffee drinks in the background, like cappuchino, latte, mocha and expresso. Then I used a piece of hand dyed fabric that I made many years ago as a background to stretch the whole piece over an artist’s canvas. The final dimension is 11″x14.”

I’m just back from setting up for the Third Annual Great Falls Studios Spring Art Festival. It’s held at the historic Colvin Run Schoolhouse on Colvin Run Road from 10-5 Saturday, April 25 and Sunday, April 26. I’ll have a variety of art quilts for the wall, bright fun pillows and new casual quilted purses for sale this time, plus notecards with my quilt designs on them.

There will be about 26 artists participating in the Festival including painters, potters, jewelers, photographers, mixed media and paper collage artists. It’s always fun to get together and share our creative spirit with the community. There will be music on Saturday and a prize drawing, plus snacks and the opportunity to purchase an artist made gift for someone special or even for yourself! It’s forecast to be a beautiful weekend, so stop by and see us if you have a chance!

This is a detail of another one of my new art quilts. It’s just the top so far, but I’m having fun with this process. I like the painterly quality of using solids and the element of surprise in the improvisational piecing. These pieces seem to need hand quilting, so I’m using perle cotton to quilt circles and lines in the pieced squares. This is the largest one of these I’ve put together so far–about 30″ high x 18″ wide. I have another small square piece on the design wall, then I think I’m going to experiment with making one using larger pieces. Each piece seems to lead to another and another. What fun!

I’m really excited to announce that “Playing with Colors” has been juried into the 25th Anniversary American Quilter’s Society Show in Paducah, KY. This was the first time I entered the show and it was wonderful to get a fat envelope in the mail on Saturday.  I’ve never been to Paducah and I’m thinking about trying to go to the show now, but I’ve discovered there’s no easy way to get there from here, so we’ll have to see.

As I mentioned in an earlier post when this quilt was accepted into the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival last month, “Playing with Colors” is part of a series of art quilts exploring the use of a simple improvisational block composed of different colors across the color spectrum. The other finished quilt in the series is “Playing with Crayons,” which you can see in the large quilts gallery on my website. I have another quilt in the series in process and several more in the drafting stage.  Having “Colors” going to Paducah makes me all the more excited about expanding the series.

This is the second piece in my new art quilt series. It’s called “Splash of Yellow” and it’s an improvisational design using pieces from a grab bag of hand dyed fabrics I bought from Cherrywood Fabrics. I cut the pieces and sew them together into units, then combine the units into an interesting design. I really enjoy the idea that I don’t know what the finished piece is going to look like. The shapes and colors of the individual units determine how they will fit together best, sort of like putting together a puzzle without a picture to follow. This one has an irregular edge at the bottom and is mounted on a 9X12 artist’s canvas. I have several more of these pieces in the works and I’ll show them in process later in the week.