Memory, Family, History Opening, Plus a Detour

The Memory, Family, History art show opened at Coast Collective last Saturday afternoon. This was a great opportunity to meet other local artists and see what people are doing.
Only two fibre art pieces are in the show, my "Enuff on My Plate," and Laine Canivet's "Rock, Paper, Scissors." Laine wasn't in town, so I was the sole fibre artist in attendance.
I was amazed at how impressed everyone was with the idea of making art in fabric. One lady said "So you painted the chefs onto the fabric?" I had to tell her it was all in the shopping. Which is true, someone else might not buy that fabric, and another person might buy it and just make napkins and placemats.
The painting below my piece, "Womens' Work" by Suzanne Jensen, also deals with similar concerns. The painting is of a young woman in a construction site, but Suzanne gessoed doileys made by family members onto the canvas before she started painting, to reflect different types of womens' work. Several women said they could relate to my title!
One neat thing about this particular exhibition was that the artist statement prompted everyone to write a narrative explaining about their work and its significance to them personally. This added a lot to the show and encouraged lingering and paying more attention.
Artists who impressed me, in no particular order:
Imke Pearson, Kate Seymour, Sheryl Gusauskas, Robert Anderson, Vicki Postl, Karen Furey, Suzanne Jensen, Lorraine Thorainson Bettes, Deborah Czernecky, Radmila Gorjanovic Nunez, Rachel Windson Lawson-Gurevitch, Lisa Riehl, Linda Simrose, Marcela Strasdas, Rose-Anne Matte-Munro.
My contribution to the refreshments was applesauce gingerbread from Joy of Cooking. This was the first time I made it and it was all eaten up. At home we are seriously trying to cut back on refined sugar and starches, but as cakes go, I would think this is fairly healthy.
The afternoon was enjoyable and somewhat compensates for the disappointment that my piece for the Elements show was not hung. I need to make smaller pieces I guess. And that is a question of developing the techniques to be able to do that.
In a discussion on size with painters at the opening I pointed out that larger pieces are harder to sell because they are harder to display. It's not just a matter of price but of having a space that you want to transform with that particular piece. Both the artists said that had not occurred to them before! Maybe it's because quilting and fibre arts are so linked to decorating and home-making, that gives us that more practical perspective.
Of course no trip is complete without a detour and Saturday was no exception. My strategy was to go as far west as possible by bus and then take a cab. The bus stopped right by Cloth Castle and I was in TONS of time, so of course I got off to explore, YAY! This was my first time there, and I was pleased to see they have some items not available at other local stores, plus the bargain attic.
The fabric I bought is shown above. I've already used some of the blue and yellow stars in the baby quilt. It's a batik-style fabric. The multicoloured fabric has machine stitching on it, that is not printed loops. And I have in mind to use the top one for backing. I'm a big fan of unconventional stripes.

New Business Cards

Good news ~ my piece IS in the Memory, Family, History show at Coast Collective. So tomorrow afternoon, off I go to meet people! Realized that I need business cards for networking, so came up with this simple method of creating unique cards without getting too precious or spending inordinate amounts of time/money.

As you can see, each individual card is one of a kind. Hopefully this conveys fibre and a sense of playfulness combined with good taste (that would be the gray cardstock ~ I've always had gray business cards).

This is simple to do. You start with the sheets of cards that will go through the printer, set up the information in a Word document with two columns, making sure the blocks of text line up with each other in the two columns, test print (which may take a couple of attempts) and then run the card stock through the printer.

After that, I took watercolour ink from my EZ-Tintz on a q-tip and ran wiggly lines across the whole sheet of cards, then separated them.

The other advantage is you can have as many or few as you want, unlike with commercial printers who can only do small quantities for a high price. I understand why, but this is an ideal solution for me.

A Step Forward, hopefully

My "Enuff on My Plate" wall hanging has been accepted into the juried art show at Coast Collective, Memory, Family, History.

They do say that acceptance does not guarantee that the piece will actually be hung, which I can understand given that submission was via e-mail photos. But this is the first time I've tried to be in a juried show, so it's all pretty exciting.

It's especially exciting because this is an art show so most of the pieces will be paintings -- I feel like I'm on the cutting edge (make that the rotary cutting edge!) of working for acceptance of fibre art as "real serious" art.

HOURS/PRODUCTIVITY

Last week: 38.40 hours
week before: 34.40 hours

I don't expect anyone else to take much interest in that, but having it out there for all to see encourages me to keep making the effort, even on the days like yesterday when everyone's schedule went to #~!! in a handbasket!