The Next Piece

Truth be told, I spent much of this week "harvesting" images from magazines for my collages. I came into a slew of National Geographics and Smithsonians recently, and sometimes there's nothing I like better than paging through magazines, cutting out photos, and listening to Wayne Dyer CDs!

At the end of the day, though, I laid out my next quilt, the first of several "black" shibori quilts. I've been thinking recently about whether there's an overriding theme to my quilting, an organizing principle, if you will. And there is -- the fabric itself dictates the piece. I'm more intrigued with the pattern and design of the cloth I've created, and what I can do with that, than with representing anything pictorial. This isn't really news to me -- in fact, I use similar wording in my artist statement. It's more confirmation to me that I am following what I'm inspired by, doing what I say I'm doing, applying my own unique take to the artform.

For a while now I've been wrestling with the best strategy for quilt storage in my small studio, and I finally got it. Bed & Bath now sells clips for those slimline non-slip hangers and they're perfect for hanging quilts. After investing in several 8-foot lengths of pipe insulation and rolling quilts on that, I found that I don't like that method of storage. And I don't have a bed or other soft flat surface to stack quilts on. These hangers are perfect, and the soft clips don't make indentations in the fabric.

I had a call today from a gal I never met before, who saw my solo show this morning in Eureka. She was really excited about my work and the printing and dyeing I'm doing. She'd just been to a workshop in the Bay Area and wants to learn much more about creating fabric, and she urged me to teach classes. So I'm thinking about that now, for the local market, and will research possible workshop venues in the next few weeks. Her call was a real boost for me, at the end of a lull-type week!