Archive for March, 2007
Four members of Uncommon Threads had work juried into the 12th Annual Senior Art Exhibition, held at the Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts and sponsored by Missouri State University. Carol Bormann’s “Il Duomo: Firenze Sunset” and “Discovering Nature”; Cathy Jeffery’s “Transferring the Legacy”; Arleta Johnson’s “Tranquility” and “Triptych Challenge”; and Merrilee Tieche’s “Valley of the Kings”, were selected as representative of the theme, “Celebrating Creativity in Later Life” in the mixed media show.
March 31st, 2007
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March 27th, 2007
Donna is the hostess with the mostest…. she invited Uncommon Threads to have our monthly meeting at her house, and cooked us a fabulous lunch, and let us tour her fabulous art collection. And let us sneak a peek at her very orderly studio with fabulous Mola collection on display….
Not to mention those wonderful windows that run throughout the house. What do you see out those windows?
Ozark hills and trees galore. Needless to say, Lettie was snapping photos right and left.
It was a rainy spring day, but that only make the subtle colors of the still-leafless trees more vibrant.
And, someone’s in the kitchen with Donna, someone’s in the kitchen, I know…
Actually once again the roving camera has missed the elusive Donna, but we did capture Christine, Merrilee, Arleta, and Lily chatting it up in Donna’s kitchen.
After lunch and more chatting about a top-secret project concerning a show in a wonderful gallery juried by a famous person yet-to-be-announced, the meeting came to our favorite part - show and tell.
Cathy Jeffery showed her newest project. She’s very productive and always surprising us with new directions for her art.
Donna Fairbanks shared her newest project and tales of woe regarding the struggle of creative process. Looks like she pulled out okay, don’t you think?
Lucy Silliman had a particularly interesting display of inspiration to product. She showed the original photograph she took in Ireland on the left, and the finished art quilt on the right.
Check out her hand-painted fabric, wonderful machine-quilting, and the accomplished manner that she finished the irregular edges of the piece.
This little gem is one of Susan Leslie Lumsden’s newest series — small framed pieces for the beginning collector — a way for her collectors to start small, later to progress to acquiring her larger art quilts.
And here’s Susan herself, presenting her latest masterpiece which you can see more of on her blog Rebel Quilter. Maybe she’s smiling so big because she just won the Niche Award at American Craft.com.
Or maybe she’s smiling because she was chosen as the cover artist for the Missouri Art Awards poster and invitation. Whatever she has up her sleeve, you know it’s going to be good!
Maureen rhymes with jean, and that’s what she did. Showed up in these “to-die-for” custom embroideried jeans. How’d she do it?
Don’t tell I told, but she opened the inside seams, embellished with her own embroidery design, then sewed the inside up. How clever is that? And how can I get some?
March 26th, 2007
I’ve just presented a Trunk Show to two quilt guilds in Enid and Edmond, OK. While touring downtown Oklahoma City, I saw this building of reflective glass.
March 23rd, 2007
OK, time to bite the bullet and learn how to post here - I finally have something to say!
After so long I’d nearly forgotten about it, “Tibia or Not Tibia….”, was accepted into the eMotion Pictures: an Exhibition of Orthopaedics in Art. The mixed media show will open on March 7, 2008 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco and will travel for two years. A book of the artwork and the artist’s stories will be produced and will be available at the exhibit. The show will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
“Tibia or Not Tibia….” by Merrilee Tieche
March 18th, 2007
Carol Bormann and I, Emmie Seaman, were accepted into the She Made Her Mark exhibit at the Quilters Hall of Fame in Marion, IN. The show is up now and until June 27. The museum is in the Marie Webber Home; a famous quilter and successful pattern designer in the 20’s and 30’s and apparently, this is their first “Art Quilt” exhibit. Most exciting, I won the Juror’s Choice award. WOW!
Doppleganger by Emmie Seaman
Aviation Pioneer Amelia Earhart
by Carol Bormann
March 13th, 2007
Thursday at noon, our local PBS station ran the documentary The Art of Quilting, so Uncommon Threads members were invited to Christine’s house for lunch and a wide screen viewing party. Cathy Jeffery brought some work in progress to share, there’s a detail photo above. As always, Cathy’s work shows skill with color.
For lunch Christine cooked up all kinds of wonderful things, including Okonomoyaki, a kind of family style Japanese pancake with mayonaise, sauce, and seaweed on top.
Christine serves up the sauce, and Emmie and Kathy enjoy it!
Christine lived in Japan for several years, so her home is filled with all kinds of wonderful Japanese dishes, arts and crafts. We’ll have to go back sometime to get more photos, but wait, look at those great spring rolls Christine has laid out on a hand-made platter!
And finally, there a few moments between show segments to run upstairs and take a peek at Christine’s studio…
March 10th, 2007
Still just lurking but had to give it a try.
March 8th, 2007
Dianna Callahan at Driskell Gallery at Southwest Baptist University
Review by Merrilee Tieche
Dianna Callahan’s use of found objects, discarded by some as unworthy, shows resourcefulness as well as a talent for seeing extraordinary beauty in ordinary things.
Four distinct types of art are featured in this exhibit, but the art quilts by far outnumber the other types of work in the gallery. While making art quilts is a relatively new endeavor for Callahan, we can see the progression of talent and skill through this exhibit. It is obvious from framed pieces such as House Plants, created solely from rescued scraps of upholstery fabrics highlighted by gleaming Angelina, that Callahan’s newer works are taking a less constructed view of an ancient art form.
Geometrics is filled with bright and springlike colors of aqua and lilac, with shiny lame’ catching the light throughout the piece. This leads us inside to experience other facets of Callahan’s mind.
Harmonious Augmentation is as mysterious as its title. Interestingly confined in a shadow box frame that celebrates the raw edges of its perimeter, the complementary shades of purple and gold glisten with the texture of frayed threads.
Two fiber pieces are different from the rest, being charcoal drawings on fabric stitches. The black and white simplicity of Isabel and Misty Lake make the viewer come close for a better look at the detail shown by the skillful permanent charcoal drawings.
Several well presented oil pastels grace the walls. They are lovingly executed drawings of the artist’s daughter and granddaughters that evidence Callahan’s fondness for the subjects. We feel we have met Danette, Anya and Kimmie after gazing at the portraits. Her pastel work glows with the joy she seems to take from her family.
Several vessels, both porcelain and fabric line one side of the gallery. The glazed porcelain bowls are decorated with natural fibers such as vines, and touched with gold paint. These are juxtaposed with more recently created soft fiber vessels. Dianna states that the fabric bowls were created in response to a 3-D challenge issued by her art group, but one can surmise that the shape itself has been long favored. One in particular, Spirit Bowl, is a porcelain bowl filled with varied soft fabric shapes creating a meditation on both media.
This small but charming gallery on the campus of SBU showcases one artist’s growth through the varying phases of her chosen profession. Dianna Callahan has invited us on a journey along her path as an artist, a mother and grandmother, and a caring citizen of the world, making the viewer look forward to seeing what’s next along Dianna’s path as an artist.
For a web gallery of Dianna’s show, please go here.
March 1st, 2007
