New "Sculptures" Series

Good Morning,
I've been trying to get this entry done for several days now - but time has been getting away from me! Now after spending hours (really) on the phone trying to set up routine doctor and dentist appointments, I've got a few minutes before I sit down with my good friend and CPA to do end of the year taxes. I will be sooooooo happy to get all of the Wild Heather Quilts loose ends taken care of!

This quilt titled "Sculptures #3; Green on Blue is from the new series I've recently begun. I have never felt more alive, more artistically energetic or more involved in my work until I began this new work. I've finished two more pieces since this one. Depending on the size, I can make one from start to finish in 12-18 hours, with two dry times added in.

The style combines two of my favorite things; bold color - in this case with paint and silk and machine quilting. The work is very fluid and exciting. I'm finally beginning to feel at home in my studio and am trying very hard to keep regular hours.

I will host my first 1st Friday open studio next week on the first Friday in February. I hope to have at least five new pieces and will showcase them along with 6-8 older pieces. It's exciting to think of myself as finally being a "Studio Artist". It makes it feel real and valid - now if I could just start selling in this depressed market it would be wonderful!

Till next time,
Heather

Fallin in Love with Paul Klee, Again

Crucifers and Spiral Flowers, 1925 and Before the Snow, 1929 both by Paul Klee

One of the things that I'm enjoying about having more time to pursue art and art making, is time spent looking at art made by some of my favorite artists.

I've just finished reading Six Bauhaus Masters then I found a great retrospective on Paul Klee and spent this morning looking at about 50 of his paintings. He is one of my favorite painters. Though I enjoy his non-objective abstracts, I appreciate his figurative abstracts the most. Most of his work was done in watercolor with pencil and ink, usually on paper mounted on cardboard. He worked in oils too, but not too often.

I really appreciate his use of color. He was a minimalist, working in dark, saturated shades and lighter tones and pastels eschewing pure hues. His shapes are fanciful and unrealistic as though everything exists in a dream world. They are easy on the eyes, drawing you in, yet leaving you filled with questions.

I have been spending some long hours in my new studio. Some time spent on preparing for teaching, some on preparing for video shoots and some on creating new art work. Working on the new art work is the most stimulating time I've experienced in a long while.

I'm calling this new series, Sculptural Collage Quilts. The work excites me so because it mixes my old favorite, machine quilting, with my new favorites, wet collage and painting. This past Thursday and Friday I prepared four new collages that I will begin quilting next week.

I've commited myself to spend Tom's off hours (weekends) with him, but it's really hard not to go over to the studio today and start quilting. It's a three day weekend for Tom and I'm going to spend it with him - relationships are like making art - they need care, serendipity, creativity and dedicated time too.

Fandango

As always, left click on the image to see larger.


Hi Gang,
It's been awhile, I know! Here is one of the many things I've been working on as of late. It was the Mystery quilt that I taught last weekend. It's called Fandango and it's a new pattern of mine that features two types of free style piecing along with dimensional, folded piecing. The pattern will be one of the five new patterns we will debut at Quilt Colorado, next month in Estes Park. It comes with instructions for this big 'ol throw or a Queen size. It was easy and fun to make, but due to the dimensional part - really ate up the fabric!. I love the hot, hot colors with the cool blue thrown in.
We have so much going on here at the store. I've just started working on the new newsletter for summer. If you have any suggestions - now's the time to let me know. We have our one year anniversary coming up. I can't believe it's been a whole year all ready! Then we will be in Estes Park for five days for the Quilt Colorado show, then we have our summer open house. We're busy developing some quick and dirty Make and Take mini classes for our open house. I'll let you know all about it in a couple of weeks via email.
As summer approaches, I'm reminded of the fullness of my life. Aren't we lucky that we get to follow our passions, that we can, if we try, find time for all of the fulfillment we can possibly stand - be it the garden, long hikes in the wilderness, or hours in our studio creating art !
Here's to following our bliss,
Heather

May 13, 2008

(Left click pictures to see larger)

Good Afternoon Gang,
Is it really the middle of May - It feels like mid winter in the mid-west. It's Ugly, with a capital U out there. Here's a photo that Tom took of my old kitty, Quimby, sitting in the sun. Click on her to make the photo larger. Her tongue is sticking out about 1/2 an inch! Silly thing.


This quilt is my latest in a new series I'm calling "She". It's called "She Was Lucky". I'm exploring new ways to draw and paint on my work. The whole thing is made of Dupioni silk. The flowers are stenciled using my own stencil designs and Shiva paintstiks. The pale purple panel is machine quilted with my own musings on being a lucky woman and the background is heavily quilted with swirls and 1/8" - 1/4" wavy lines (click on it for a closer look). I'm very pleased with the work and getting over being bothered when folks comment that it is "pretty".
For a long time, I, like a lot of contemporary quilters I know, considered the word "pretty" as a description of our work to be a put down. I've spent so much time trying to keep up with the big girls and wanting my work to be taken seriously, not just as decoration, but as art and not wanting my work to be merely pretty, but wanting it to be meaningful, cutting edge, professional. Now, I think I've come to a new understanding of both my creativity and the word pretty. It makes me feel good to make something pretty, beautiful, feminine. I'm happy to find yet another voice.

How's your voice sounding these days?
Till next time,
Heather

Mystery Quilt

Hey Gang,
I finally finished this quilt I've been working on - one of the many reasons
why I haven't written on my blog as often as I'd like to!. I finished an art piece too. I'll show you a photo of it soon. I feel like I've got my mojo back - yee ha!
I'm really very pleased with this quilt. It's the first Queen sized one I've done in over a year. I love the hard graphic edge that the pieced blocks provide mixed with the wonderful, almost delicate Japanese prints in, lets admit it, such a weird, unexpected colorway! Left click on the image of the quilt to see it larger.


Now, it's up to you guys to name the pattern. I wrote about this little contest several weeks (maybe months) ago. Here are the guidelines for proposing a title;

• I've posted a finished photo of the quilt - pick a title for the pattern and post it in the comments section of this entry. Include your first name (no last names please) and your email address.
• Names sell patterns. Make it quirky, rhythmic and memorable. No more than three words please.
• The quilt uses easy cuts from just three widths of fabric, 1 1/2", 2" and 2 1/2" which create the five different small blocks that form the one large block.
• Don't include information about the colors or fabrics used in the quilt top as lots of folks will use very different colors and fabrics in their version.
• Two weeks after I post the photo of the finished quilt top, I will review all of the entries and choose a winner. The chosen title will be used in the published version of the pattern and the winner's name will be noted on the pattern. The winner will receive a free copy of the pattern along with a $25.00 gift certificate from Wild Heather Quilts or wildheatherdesigns.com.
• You may enter as often as you like.

I hope to hear lots of great titles from all of you - Naming a quilt is a difficult thing! Naming a pattern you hope to sell tons of is even harder!

Till next time
Heather

A Big, Creative Slump!

Good Evening Gang,
I know it's been weeks since we've chatted - sorry, but I've been in a really, really big creative slump and haven't felt like I've had anything to offer. Buying the quilt store has put into place lots of changes in my life. Store owners have been telling me over the years how having a shop squashed their artistic endeavors - I was so arrogant that I thought it wouldn't happen to me, but alas it has!

The day to day demands on my time and energy along with great financial struggles have managed to bleed dry my desire to create. I'm even struggling with teaching - which has been my life's blood for so long.


So, I've been turning to my friends, colleagues and students to help me find ways to re-kindle my creative fire. Everyone has been in an artistic dead zone - I'm certainly not the first, worst or last. What I've learned is that discovering what lead to the artistic death will help discover roads that lead to art's rebirth.

I'm so overwhelmed that all of the old tricks that I used to use to entice me to work are no longer working. What I've told my students about staying away from "eye candy" because it mucks up our artistic vision has certainly hit home. All day, 6-7 days a week I'm surrounded by and searching out the new, unusual and cutting edge books, fabrics and goodies to fill this wonderful store with. The hunt for things that will entice my audience and customers. Somehow, I've managed to be totally and completely buried in it all. So much so that I don't know where to go - artistically that is. I feel like I've been stranded on an island with all the ingredients for a fabulous feast but without an oven or stove to cook it in! Have you ever had that feeling?

So - I'm not looking for answers, rather I'm just trying to get by, ride out the storm and find other ways to get through these big life changes. I know the creative spirit will return when it's good and ready - when I'm good and ready. For now, I'm just gonna do what I need to do to relax, resolve and regenerate.

One of my favorite ways to rest is reading. I love the written word, and a great story filled with humor and grit. I just finished reading two wonderful books. One by my favorite author, T. C. Boyle called East is East and the second one called The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead. Boyle writes incredible novels with historical or current settings about everything from the inventor of Kellogs cereal to the sex guy Kinsey to a Japanese illegal trying to survive off the Florida coast. He has a way with words like no other man I've read - I suspect he even makes some up! (my kind of guy!). Whitehead has written three novels, the Intuitionist was his first. It's about the made up world of elevator inspectors and it's ripe with racial intrigue. He too has an amazing way with language. Some of his sentences are so good that I had to read them out loud to Tom.

A day of nothing but reading, a few errands, some laundry, cat petting and left overs was just what I needed to get re-vamped for another week of product overload! This week I must cull my fabric designs down to just 40 SKU's (out of a possible 432 options), start a series of short articles on my fabric designing journey for The Quilt Show, finish a quilt top and write it's pattern, teach a few classes, run a quilt shop, celebrate my baby's 18th birthday (does that make me officially old?) ....on and on.... life is full, life is good!

I hope you all treat yourselves to relaxing days!
Until next time,
Heather

Artist Trading Card Group

Hey Gang -
So sorry that I didn't get around to writing last week. Wow - it was a doozie!Every time I turned around there was another pressing thing I had to do. Not to complain - life is full, just like I like it, but some days I wish I had a clone!.
This first photo is of six different ATC's (artist trading cards). They were
made and or collected by Liz Kettle. She is heading up our new ATC Trading Club that begins this Saturday. If you have never made one of these little beauties, you're really missing out on a great way to try new
techniques without big time and money investments. (Left click images to see larger)
Here's the jist of the whole trade thing; make any number of ATC's (we suggest 5-20) that are 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" (the size of a standard baseball trading card). They should be flat enough to fit in a collectors album, but can have lots of embellishments. You can use paper, but the bulk of the card should be fabric. Stitch, iron on
with adhesive, glue - have fun and be creative. Bring all of your cards (all can be the same, or
each can be unique) to the swap on Saturday, April 12 at 10:00 (or bring them beforehand if you
can't make that time) and exchange them with all of the other participants. This is a great way to get wonderful, delightful, whimsical, gorgeous bits of art from other fabric artists.


Here is a photo of our booth at the Pueblo Quilt and Stitch Expo last weekend. We had a really great show and would like to express our deep appreciation for everyone who showed up. We saw a lot of old friends and made some new ones.