The Twelves: Where are they now?!

Hello, Twelve by Twelve friends!  Diane here.

Remember us?! It's been a long time since we last posted on this blog, but as today -- September 4 -- is exactly 9 years since we first posted on this blog, we thought an update was in order.  Brenda had the idea of our posting about what we've been doing since we ended our collaborative quilt adventure, and we agreed that each of us would take a day and tell you what we have been up to.

One thing is for sure: what started as a small, personal art challenge turned into something that took us places we never imagined we'd go. It brought us new friendships, amazing opportunities, and such fun adventures as we watched (and occasionally followed) our quilts as they traveled around the world.

So the rosy glow of our 5-year adventure still makes me smile, with pleasure and real gratitude.

For me, the last 3 and a half years since we finished our challenges have seen quite a few changes.  My art quilt making has slowed considerably (I'm going to maintain that it hasn't ground to a halt -- I'm just taking a break. A long break.) I'm not sure why my interest turned to making contemporary traditional quilts and modern quilts, but it did. And I'd had fun, making quilts for no particular reason. Here's one I finished recently, made from selvedges I've been saving over quite a few years:

I have also taken a bit of detour into drawing and painting, which continues to be a surprise and a pleasure. I've taken a load of online classes, mainly to make myself have to paint regularly. And I've found, as many of the teachers have promised, that the simple act of painting every day really has made me better.  Most recently, I took a great class from an idol, Roz Stendahl, on drawing life creatures from life -- which meant a month of drawing people and animals. Great fun, and I think it did get me past the anxiety of drawing things that insist on moving.

I also looped back to an old passion for handmade books and started making them again which was like reconnecting with an old friend after many years.  I got so involved making them that I started up an Etsy shop (Dizzy Dog Creations) where I add books for sale from time to time. My books aren't traditional -- I call them "jumbly journals," in a sort of crazy quilt/collage style mix of papers and contents that some people call junk journals. They are fun to make and I go through periods where I make books obsessively.  I've made a few commissions too, which has been great fun. You can watch a video flip through of a travel journal here if you are interested!

During these last few years, I started judging quilt shows which has been very fun. It probably sounds corny, but I consider it a true privilege to be trusted with the task of looking at the quilt someone has slaved over with love and passion and so much time, and I take the responsibility of providing feedback very seriously. I especially love judging art quilts, and educating quilt guilds and show-runners about the importance of judging art quilts on art principles and not just on the technical parts of quilt making.

In my personal life, I've seen a fair number of changes. My sweet dog Gemma (who was my model for the "Lorikeet" challenge in the color challenge series) succumbed to back problems about 18 months ago. She was such a lovely dog, but it was time to let her go. For the longest time, I found an odd consolation in the bits of dog hair I seemed to find around the house no matter how well I cleaned!

After about a year and a half of dog-free living, I decided that I was ready to add a new member to the family -- an adorable English Cream golden retriever puppy named Starlie. (I figured another black dog would be too much a reminder of Gemma, so I went in the direction of a white dog.) She is just 12 weeks old as I write this, and is a total sweetheart. She's also hysterically funny in that floppy goofy way that puppies have. I feel like the mom of a toddler again, so I'm spending a lot of time on the floor and out in the backyard chasing an endlessly energetic little creature. Not much art time right now!

My daughter Caroline, who was 11 when we started, is now just a few months' shy of 21. She's grown into a lovely young woman, with quick humor, sharp intelligence, and real gifts with art and with animals.

My marriage also ended in this interim period. Many of you have gone though a divorce, and know the odd ups and downs and  emotions that seem to pop up at unexpected moments. But life as a single woman feels very, very good, and I'm feeling a strong sense of peace and hope for what lies ahead.

I continue to stay connected to the Twelves. Just two weeks ago, I had Helen and her husband Dennis (known as Thirteen after his labors on our behalf when our quilts were at the Festive of Quilts in Birmingham some years back) as guests in my home. I've also had very fun visits with Terry (who came to Sonoma County where we talked endlessly and made books together), with Gerrie when I was up in Portland a while back, and with Brenda when she was in California visiting her husband's family. I know my paths will cross with the other Twelves one of these days, and I am particularly determined to meet Kirsten eventually.

So that's what's up with me.  Check in tomorrow to find out what Deborah Boschert has been doing!

Colorplay comes home

 

 
My Twelve by Twelve Colorplay quilts arrived home this week, after a long period of traveling the world without me.  Do they have stories to tell! Gemma, the "Labikeet" quilt made for the "lorikeet color" challenge chosen by Brenda Smith, loved being on display in Belgium this past October.  Apparently the quilters in Belgium are not used to seeing such vividly colored dogs and were highly amused. 
 

My "Wisteria" quilt (made when Gerrie Congdon chose chartreuse as her color challenge)  had tales of the oohs and ahs it overheard while on display in Alsace, France this past September.  I also got a long, involved story Kiluea overheard about a scandal involving a french quilter, her new sewing machine, and the rabidly jealous old machine who was intent on sabotaging things in the studio. Those French sewing machines are hot-blooded, I guess.

The "Kiluea" quilt (made for the Kiluea-inspired challenge that Kristin LaFlamme chose when she was living in Hawaii) enjoyed seeing Michigan, Portland, Oregon, and Iowa back in the summer and fall of 2013.  Kiluea claims that she didn't find many volcanic friends in those areas but was surprised that Michigan in August was hotter than she expected.

 

The "Birds Flying High" (made in response to Francoise Jamart's blue and white challenge) quilt loved seeing Australia and New Zealand in early 2013 and truly felt that they'd flown far, far from home.  They continue to chatter among themselves in their newly-adopted Australian accents.  You'd think they'd have brought me a souvenir or two, wouldn't you?  But no.

 

 

My #2 Pencils (made in response to the "purple and yellow" challenge chosen by Karen Rips) are still blushing and swooning about meeting Chris Howell of Midsomer Quilting in Chilcompton, England. Chris is quite the charmer and his enthusiastic love of the 12x12 quilts has made him a favorite among my quilts.  I think a few of them wanted to stay there with him and his many quilting fans.  I expect they'll be sending off pining love letters now.

The "Imagine" quilt (made for the "orange" challenge selected by Terry Grant), is most sentimental about its time touring the International Quilt Festival shows in Houston, TX, Cincinnati, OH, and Long Beach, CA.  It reports that it felt like a real star with the flocks of admiring quilters touring the full 12x12 exhibit of all 288 quilts, and was glad to have sunglasses with all of the paparazzi taking photos.  I think returning to my quiet house is going to be quite the let-down for this spoiled celebrity quilt.

And the others? They're not talking.

Maybe they're tired and jetlagged.

Or they're sulking about having to leave their Colorplay friends.

The "Spices" quilt seems to be in a particularly dark mood.

Perhaps it's depression, given that the bright lights of their glory days have come to an end.

You never know, I tell them.  And besides, I remind them of what amazing doors they opened for me and my dear 12x12 compatriots.  What a wonderful, wonderful life they've had.  Now, I think I need to find a place in my home where we can get reacquainted, just me and them.

SAQA Benefit Auction 2013 at the International Quilt Festival

The 2013 SAQA Benefit Auction continues with the final tranche open for in-person bidding at the International Quilt Festival, Houston in Houston from 28 October to 3 November (with online bidding available on 28 and 29 October) . This is a great opportunity to purchase quality textile art and support SAQA’s exhibition programs. You can view the quilts in this tranche at page a and  page b of the SAQA website including these works donated by some of the Twelves in their distinctive styles.

Deborah's work Rocks, Rivers and Rooftops incorporates many of her favorite motifs and techniques: the houses, the hand embroidery, handwriting as surface design, a painted stenciled twig and the arch over the top of the suggested landscape.  You can read the surprising back story  to this piece on Deborah's blog and learn some of these techniques yourself in Deborah's new online workshop called Branches, Buds and Blossoms Fabric Collage.

In her work Awareness, Karen stitched a piece of fabric with wool felt underneath to shrink it up for texture.  After bleaching, she overdyed it a very pale blue, which took away the cream color.  Raised circles, created with buttons, adds extra interest.

Terri's Kitty Rides Back features a portait and two kitties in stencilled fabrics made from her very own stencil designs.

If you happen to be attending the International Quilt Festival, Houston in person, be sure to check out the following exhibits that also features works by some of the Twelves:

• An Exquisite Moment  features works by Deborah Boschert, Gerrie Congdon, Diane Perin Hock and Karen Rips.  There is also An Exquisite Moment Catalogue available for sale;
•  Tactile Architecture and What's for Dinner special exhibits feature works by Deborah Boschert..

2012 Series by Diane

Diane's painted Maverick work in the 2012 series, Art with a Needle and Thread , is in a sketchbook style and reflects her exploration with sketching, lettering and water colours.  You can read more about this meditative practice on Tea and Talk for Two, a trans-Atlantic blog conversation that she engages in with UK Twelve Helen.

Twelve Times Twelve Times Twenty Times ?

Goodness!  When we started our Twelve by Twelve challenge back in the fall of 2007, we had no idea that it would bring us to where we are.  288 12-inch square quilts... 60 20x12 inch quilts... A book... Magazine articles ... Exhibits all over the world... Friends and fans who know our work and have emailed us and come up to us at shows to tell us how we've inspired them... Opportunities to lecture and teach... Challenge groups modeled after ours...  It has been an amazing 5 years.

I think all of us would say that, for all of the fun and inspiration we've experienced over this period, the best part has been the community we have formed together.  We've not just become art partners to share our creative passions, explorations and frustrations -- we've become fast friends.  Some of us haven't met in person, but we've discovered that that little fact hardly matters.  We KNOW each other, and we are well and truly bonded by this experience.

We've just concluded the five 12x20 inch challenge set.  As always, Brenda has done an amazing job of putting the images together on our website, and you can see them all together here.

After four years of working with a 12x12 inch square, I think we all enjoyed -- and were challenged by -- a different format.  Our color themed challenge set will be traveling for exhibits in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the US in 2013.  (You can see the schedule here.)

But that brings us to now, and the question we keep getting:

What next? 

Well, we're working on that.  We have decided a few things.  We do not want to do periodic challenges the way we have been.  We want to work in a larger size.  Some of us may not continue, needing to turn their creative energies to a different direction.  But many of us are dedicated to doing SOMETHING together. We just haven't yet nailed down the specifics.

So while Twelve by Twelve as you've seen us may be changing, rest assured that we don't plan on  disbanding or disappearing totally.  We're evolving.

Watch this space.  We will keep you posted.

Millefiori

 

There were so many SWEET possibilities!  For a while I tried to stay away from the obvious candy connections, and I spent some time working on a design based on (sweet) memories of my daughter's childhood that was going to involve using pieces of silk from the Chinese dresses she's worn over the years... but when she discovered my plan she forbade me and insisted that she wanted those dresses kept intact!  

I started thinking about my associations with Christmas sweets in particular, which led me to think about these pretty candies which always seemed special to me.

I think of them as "Millefiori Candy" and I found this image by searching that phrase.  But I didn't find many photos and if there are other names for these, I'd love to know them.  I haven't seen or hasd them in years.  Are they just at Christmas-time?  These colors seem springy, actually.  I don't even know.  At any rate, with all those happy colors, how could I resist?  And of course, I knew my background had to be pink. 

So I had a lot of fun doing little abstract millefiori disks.  They're fused and then sewn down.

 

And yes, I'm aware that the colors and style of this are so sweet that it almost makes my teeth hurt looking at it.  But that's just extra sweetness, I figure.

There are no deep messages here, no serious reflection on what a gift the last 5 years of sharing art with the 12x12 members and readers has been to me.  I will save that for another time.  This is just a sweet celebration of simple happiness.

Thanks, Terri, for a "sweet" theme!

Epic Maverick Fail

     Now that all of the Maverick quilts have been revealed, I thought I'd share with you the utter disaster that was my first response to the theme.  Maybe this is a good example of an interesting idea gone sadly awry.  Or of how doing more can make something bad even worse.  Or ... well, you can tell me what this is an example of.  I'm not sure.  In any event, since I'm sure none of you reading this has ever had this sort of thing happen in your work, I will use my disaster for its instructive purposes before I wad it up and throw it away.

  My original idea was that homeschooling is a maverick approach to education.  As a home-schooling mom (and one who never intended to homeschool and ended up doing it as a necessary evolution due to circumstances), I realize this all of the time.  We are way, way off of the beaten path in terms of schooling.  So how to illustrate it?

   I started with the shape of a school desk, and I drew one and then carved a stamp of it.  My thought was to have lightly stamped images on the background fabric for texture and the suggestion of an empty classroom -- the students have left!  Clever, eh?  Well, see this stamp?  It was the best part, as it turned out.  I warn you now: it's all down hill from here.

    I stamped it all over fabric.  (No picture, sorry.)  Then I thought I'd do a collage of the things that Miss C and I have been doing in our homeschooling lately.  I figured that even if they were only meaningful to me, I could at least make them look interesting and cohesive through composition and color.  (Turns out I was wrong.)

    So a big red A, because we just finished studying The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne. (By the way, notice how the stamp looked on fabric ... too dark, but heck, it was identifiable as a desk.)

 
   Then, because our study of the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette was made most memorable when we watched the Sofia Coppola movie "Marie Antoinette," I included a Marie Antoinette style shoe. (There's a great scene in the movie, which beautifully portrays the ridiculous luxury with which the teenaged Marie Antoinette lived, where she and her friends are trying on beribboned, pastel shoes.)

  And then, because Caroline has been working on anatomy, I sewed a tulle overlay skeleton, which I then highlighted with colored pencil.  Ahem.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

   At that point, I had a very odd jumble of items (the A, the shoe, the skeleton).  How to make them look school-ish or show learning?  I figured science-projecty labels might help.  So I printed them out on organza and fused those on.  Because, you know, adding writing and sheers and more little bits can't hurt, right? And I needed to balance the red items on the left side, so I added a red apple to the skeleton's hand on the right. Apple.  Teacher.  You get it.
 

  It still read as a confused mess to me.  (I'll digress here to add that I had the vague sense that there were big problems with color, and scale, and contrast.  But I pushed forward.  When all else fails, keep going.)   I know, I thought, I'll overlay a sheer house shape to show that this is learning AT HOME.  And then I'll tie all of the elements together by having ivy (get it? Ivy?  Ivy league?  Education?) flow out of the house chimney and twine around the various elements.  Maybe that will pull it all together, she thought hopefully (or in full-out denial.)

  I cut a big house shape out of a green piece of organza and fused it down.  And stuck it up on my wall, and here is what I had:

  Oh dear.

  And if you thought I'd wise up and throw in the towel at that point, you'd be wrong!  No! Because when all else fails, do MORE!  Ever confident in the power of my beloved Neocolor crayons, I figured that the problem (yes, still in denial) was that you couldn't see the house shape.  So I figured I'd define it by making it darker.

   There.  That's better.  NOT.  The only thing that became clearer is what a disaster this was.  And that, my friends, was the point at which I abandoned it.  Thank goodness, you say?  Yep, that's just how I felt too.

   Maybe that makes you understand why, when I started Maverick #2, that I went in the opposite direction to pale and simple.  Phew, it's a relief, isn't it?

Art with Needle and Thread

 

     This was definitely a challenging challenge!  When I first started thinking about "maverick" (and got past the James Garner/Mel Gibson image of a gambler in a black cowboy hat) I found myself thinking about mavericks in the art world.  There are plenty of examples we could all name, I'm sure.  But my pondering led me to think about the place that art quilting has in the traditional art world -- and it seems to me that it is not a comfortable one.  We've all read the discussions about whether galleries should hang fiber art, what IS fiber art, what IS quilt art, can a piece of quilt art be treated as a painting, etc.  It's an ongoing discussion where ever people are talking about art quilting.

   So my response to "maverick" comes down to this: a very simple representation (drawn, not made of fabric) of traditional art tools (ink pens, pencil, paint brushes, palette knife) with a needle and spools of thread included -- because while "traditional" artists might not see spools of thread as art media, we do.  They are among our most important art tools.  

  Along the way, I also thought about this: isn't there something "maverick" in responding to a quilting challenge with imagery that isn't sewn, but is drawn with pen and pencil?  (Which led me to contemplate whether one can intentionally be a maverick, or whether it comes from doing one's own thing regardless of what anyone else is doing.)  Ah.  The Philosophy of the Maverick.

   I have to confess that after I had this idea and was mulling it around in my mind, I had another idea about homeschoolers being education mavericks.  I went off with great excitement and made what is surely my worst, most disastrous piece ever.  (I kept hearing Tim Gunn's voice in my head saying sternly, Edit! Edit! and then hearing Michael Kors say "That is a HOT MESS."  It was.)  I'll probably post about it later in the week.  But trust me, it was an absolutely Epic Fail.

  And that brought my back to my first, and simplest idea.  I wanted it to be drawn in sketchbook style (because really, that's pretty much all I can do anyway) and have a sense of lightness to it.  So I drew  on plain muslin and used inktense colored pencils for color.  After the big fussy complicated mess I'd worked on for a few weeks, it was a relief to do something so... plain.  

 
  I've finished it with a simple facing. It makes me happy to look at it and know that those little spools of thread hanging out with the "real art" supplies are subversive and "maverick" in their own quiet way.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Wow,  can you believe that it was FIVE years ago today that this e-mail landed in my in-box?!* And the 4th of September marks the five year anniversary of Diane's inaugural post on this blog. In that time, we have collectively created 324 "official" challenge quilts (plus a multitude of bonus works and a special set for our generous angel Del Thomas); exhibited at 10 international quilt shows and galleries, with more outings coming up; co-authored a BOOK; and written more than 1250 blog posts.  I could rattle off other stats but the biggest rewards cannot be measured - the joy of friendship; the goose bump thrill of real life meetings; the development of creative voices and the quiet but certain knowledge that together we have accomplished something rather wonderful. Thank you Diane for inviting me to play and thank you to all the other Twelves for making the experience so much fun.  Happy anniversary to us!

*Actually, it went to a spam folder but fortunately Helen alerted me to its arrival for which I am very grateful.

Shape-Shifting

The mythology theme has really been a challenge for me.  While it spurred me to read a lot of different myths from a lot of different cultures, I wasn't finding any one myth that felt like the right inspiration.

Meanwhile, as a wholly separate task one day, I pulled out some work in progress that I've been storing in my closet, pieces that had stalled for one reason or another.  One of them, the core of the piece you see above, is something I was working on a year ago.  I'd started with a piece of hand-painted fabric, the multi-colored piece with doodly black lines.  I liked the effect of the city-like aerial view, which caused me to silk-screen birds over the top ("Of course! Put a bird on it!") But something about it wasn't working.  Despite my playing with different cropping options (which you can read about here) it just didn't feel right to me.  So, into the closet it went to marinate a bit.

When I pulled it out that day, the birds made me think of the myths I'd read about crows and ravens.  And one of the common traits attributed to crows in various cultures' myths is that of shape-shifting.  Some Native American tribes believed that Crow was the keeper of the sacred law and could shape-shift.  He was seen as an omen of transformation.  Crow can move through space and time, they believed, and has the ability to move in the past, present and future at the same time.

One source I read about "Crow medicine" said that when you meet Crow, he could be telling you that there will be changes in your life, and that you must be prepared to let go of your old thinking and embrace a new way of viewing yourself and the world.

Suddenly, this piece resonated with me on a number of different levels.  I'm going through a period in my life where the lessons I am faced with are all about transformation.  I started playing around with cropping my unfinished piece to 20x12, and suddenly, it felt just right. And that's shape-shifting of another, literal kind, isn't it?

It got me thinking about how we as artists and quilters may start with an idea or image in our heads, and sometimes we carry the "myth" that things have to take a certain progression, that we need to push things to where we think they are supposed to go.  Maybe it's the expectation or myth of a tidy beginning, middle and end.  I'd love to think that as an artist, I can envision what I want to make, jump into the process, and end up with a piece that is just what I pictured.  But it doesn't happen that way to me -- in my art process or, really, in my life in general.  So as I adapted this piece for the Mythology challenge, for me my piece is about embracing transformation, being open to things changing in new and unexpected ways.
 

Driving by Number

    Growing up in California, I've spent a lot of time on California freeways.  Although I've lived in other states, I've not encountered any place in which travel is identified by numbers as much as here. Sure, other places have numbered roads and highways -- but maybe by virtue of the size and density of California, so much travel here involves taking one freeway to another to another.  While I was thinking about how to approach this map challenge, I had occasion to take a road trip with my daughter to Los Angeles from our home north of San Francisco (101 to 1 to 280 to 85 to 101, in case you're wondering) and that caused me to settle on this concept for my piece. 

   The culture of "freeway-speak" is something that has always intrigued me.  As a child, I liked that freeways had names as well as numbers.  Perhaps it's a generational thing, but it doesn't seem to me that people use names to refer to freeways any more.  I miss that!  I found myself wondering about freeway names, which caused me to look them up, discover so many I'd never heard (did you know there's a Sonny Bono Memorial Freeway?), and hand-write many of them on the fabric for the background.

   As I made this, I added the freeways I've traveled on over my life, with heavy prominence to 101, 5, and 1 which run north-south through the state, and the 80 freeway which crosses east-west and is the route from San Francisco to Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, and points further east.  Almost all of these have strong associations of specific times, places, and memories for me. 

I couldn't help but include a few typical seen-from-the-freeway signs. Oh, shoot -- it just now occurred to me that I could have marked the very spot where my sister and I would shout "There's the Matterhorn!" when we saw its peak from the nearby 5 freeway. 

Here's another thing I always think about.  Up here in northern California, we say "take 101" or "take 680."  In Southern California, they say "Take the 101 to the 55 to the 210."  I wonder why?

I knew I had to include the caution sign showing silhouettes of running immigrants, which I've only seen on the freeway near San Diego. 

 
I wonder if there are other signs like it in other states, on other borders?  It's a clear, if somewhat jarring, warning to freeway drivers of the possibility that people might dash out onto the freeway as they ran to evade border patrols.  There were a number of deaths on the 5 freeway in the 80's and 90's from that very scenario, and that's why the signs were erected.  You can read more about the Immigrant Crossing signs here. 

This is a whole cloth piece.  I drew onto white fabric with black fabric marker, then used inktense pencils (from the Derwent Pencil Factory itself!) and textile medium to color the large areas.  It is machine quilted with monofilament thread. 

Taking a Detour

You know how when you're traveling, you start out following the map, and then you take one side road and next thing you know, you're somewhere you never expected to be?

Well, on the way to my Map quilt for the May 1 challenge, I stumbled onto a reference to the "Hollywood Freeway Chickens."  That led me to the story of how, back in 1969, a poultry truck overturned on the Hollywood Freeway in Southern California, releasing over 200 live chickens onto the road.  Many escaped and fled into the roadside brush, and took up residence in the bushes growing along a nearby on-ramp.  They were even fed for years by a chicken-loving elderly lady, who sprinkled chicken feed through the chainlink fence so they wouldn't go hungry.

Who knew?

You can read all about them here.  

Strange Maps

 
I just love the Map theme for our current challenge (stay tuned!  Reveal date is May 1!).  My problem this time is that I've always been drawn to maps, have the start of a series of large maps quilts going, and have TOO MANY IDEAS.  Not that I'm complaining -- but settling on one, and sorting out how best to use the 12 x 20 inch format, is proving harder than I thought it would be!

I thought I'd share one of  my favorite interesting map sites:  A blog called Strange Maps.  There are all sorts of cool things there, including the world's largest world atlas, a socket map of the world (so if you are traveling you know what kind of adapter you need), a taxonomy of city blocks, where French artist Armelle Caron deconstructed the maps of various cities to create charts of city blocks by size (and creating fascinating and beautiful patterns), map tattoos ... and more and more and more.

It's definitely interesting and inspirational and gets you thinking about the breadth of what a map is!

Mapping Twelve by Twelve

Deborah has selected such a rich and inspiring theme.  Maps, of course, are everywhere! Looking back through the Theme Series and the Colorplay series, there were several "mappish" works. Deborah has already mentioned Everlasting from the Shelter theme. When I was touring with the Theme Series in New Zealand in 2010, I stayed at Kirsty's parents home for a few days. They were travelling overseas and it was my first visit. Yet, somehow, thanks to Kirsty's schematic - it all seemed very familiar.  Here are some other pieces with a map element:

Everlasting by Kirsty

12N 12W by Helen

Terra Incognita by Nikki

Flight Path by Diane

As illustrated in the BBC series The Beauty of Maps (click for map highlights and video tour), cartography is full of art, intrigue and discovery.  I can't wait to see what 1 May reveals!