I may have posted this quilt before when I made it for my local quilt groups 2010 quilt show challenge but it has been chosen for inclusion in the Fabrications III: Art Quilts of the U.P. at the Bonifas Art Center in Escanaba, MI. The exhibit runs from March 29-April 36, 2012 with an artists reception on Thursday April 12 from 7-9EST. This exhibit is every other year and this is the third time the Bonifas has done it-in 2010 my Tina quilt was entered and I won second place!!This quilt began with three fabrics-the gold crackle, the dark green batik and the small floral print. I kept seeing the Green Bay Packer colors and couldn't get insprired. One of the local quilt shops got in a line of fabric with greens, browns and yellows and I had a plan. I used Ricky Timms' convengence quilt as a background and did a raw edged fused applique technique for the image of the earth mother. It has a very naturey feel to it and I added rhinestones, silk and felt flowers, leave buttons, silk leaves, and a decorative button as part of the necklace as embellishments. When I look at this quilt it is very calming to me.
The second photo is a close up of the face area.
Studio Art Quilters Association is having an exhibit titled "I'm Not Crazy" which explores mental health issues. I think the title is offensive but whatever. It is the perspective or someone with mental illness, a caretaker or friend or family member of someone with mental illness. I have a very close friend who is Bipolar and is medicated to have balance in her life. This quilt is my interpretation of being bipolar-one minute she is happy, hyper bouncing off the wall and the next sad, depressed and angered. I used muted sad, dull colors to represent being depressed and, of course, the frustrated facial expression. I used bright colored fabrics with lots of chaos for the manic side's clothing, make up and jewelry. Her hair is out of control and her facial expression shouts "manic." I used lots of desciptive words on both sides of the personality in a subtle way in the background. I purposely went subtle because in society we don't want to talk about mental health issues and they are subtle and quiet in our discussions. I found there is a two sided smiley face which symbolizes Bipolar Disorder and I added it to the quilt in the lower center of the quilt.
This photo is a closeup of the depressed personality.
And this is a photo of the manic personality. She's kind of "out there!" Her expression deminds me of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland!!
Cloeup of the Bipolar symbol and a few of the background words.I embellished the manic side with hand made Sculpey clay beads, a beaded earring, rhinestones for pierced earrings, orange lame' in the hair to symbolize being wired, and some fabric paint. The intent was for excess and chaos in hair, make up, clothing and jewelry. The depressed side has a necklace made to buttons made from leather (pretty cool from a quilt show!), a few beads for the necklace and a rhinestone for the nose piercing. Both have a little fabric paint for details.
Well I am having a month of rejections!! I applied for an article in Quilting Arts Magazine and was rejected earlier in June. My piece for the "I'm Not Crazy" for SAQA was not selected. They had 128 entries and only chose 20. I'm very bummed about this one because this subject is very personal to me and I put alot of emotion into that piece. Then I entered the Quilting Arts Magazine's Reader Challenge on Signature Color and there were over 150 entries and only 15 were chosen. I had a blast on this little 8" x 8" project including the beading around the binding. This will be a cute addition to my studio and it makes me smile. I'm just a bit unsure if I want to participate in these things for a while. It seems abstract art is trendy at the moment and representational art is on the back burner. I still love to made art and will continue.
I have not been in my studio much because it is summer and my garden is calling me and I am doing an art fair in my hometown on July 29th and prepping for that. But at my July quilt guild meeting a member asked if I would make two of my fabric postcards for her friend (and my neighbor) who will be 95 yrs. old in August. Now that's a landmark!!This woman is a petite little spitfire-always happy, an art appreciator and she wears her white hair in a bob with the trademark black headband!! She has suppored the local art community and I enoy visiting with her when I see her. My quilt guild friend wanted 1 card for the birthday girl and one to keep for herself.
Many of you may be aware of a new 24" quilt block named Swoon by Camille Roskelley. Her business name is Thimble Blossoms and she has a fabric line from Moda Fabrics called Vintage Modern-both the fabric line and the Swoon pattern is very popular locally at the quilt store I work at and my local quilt group. I discovered Camille's blog and she had made a scrappy Swoon bvlock which gave me the idea to use the color wheel colors in a scrappy Swoon because if sounded fun and I have some color theory teaching and thought it would be a good visual tool. It is an easy block-squares, flying geese and half square triangles (no Thangles just a line drawn diagonally through squares, sew and cut apart.) I did a minimal of stitch-in-the-ditch quilting and some radiating lines in the dark background. It killed me but no embellishments were added to keep it simple. Fun and easy!!
So then I decided to make the same quilt block using "tints" of each color. I used the same color placement just tinted the color. I learned that I rarely use peach (light orange) because there was little of it in my stash. I used grey in the background since black with white added is gray. I quilted the piece with all curved and round lines. Not a grey fan but it is a teaching tool.
After the tint block I made a "shade" block in which all the colors have black added to them to darker them. I found out I had no burgandy in my stash and had to purchase some for this quilt. I think it represents a primitive/country/old fashioned look in quilts which is not my thing. But the finished quilt is nice even though one wouldn't use all dark colors in a quilt because there would be no contrast and the design lines and motifs would not show up much. I quilted this quilt in a combination of curved and straight lines and prefer oodles of quilting and like this quilt the best because of it. I hope it is useful to me when I teach color theory. I love embellishments and my rhinestone supply is calling me out "glue me on to those new quilts!!"
Supplies & Tools: 
A. Decide how long you want your ruffle and cut strips TWICE as long. Fold in half, so the fold is on the bottom, and make marks along the top edge. For this project I am making a mark at intervals of 5" followed by 2" sections. Make marks the entire length of the strips.