Logo by Jeanelle McCall.

It’s always great fun to talk with Pokey Bolton, media diva.  She has a wide-ranging interview with me today on her blog about life, fabric, the Boundary Waters, Fiberart For A Cause and ToteTuesday.

As a bonus, and sure to make you smile, is the segment I taped for Quilting Arts TV on paper to fabric collage.  Check on the pearls and jacket thing I had going on that day.  It made ME laugh today.

Wild at the Edges:  Inspiration from a Creative Life evolved by keeping in mind the kind of book I like to take to bed with me (maybe with a glass of wine or a mug of hot chocolate) and peruse as the spirit moves me.

You will find encouraging thoughts about life and art, hidden treasures of poems, close-up photos of art and nature and, last, but not least, a very personal view of the driving forces behind my creative life.

Preview Wild at the Edges here.

25% of all profits from this book will be donated to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause.  Fiberart For A Cause has donated more than $190,000 to the American Cancer Society.

This is the third of three related Boundary Waters pieces. It features one of my all-time favorite photos of me in the Boundary Waters taken by my sister, Nancy.  I know that I have some coffee in my red mug, I have on my lucky blue bandana, and I’m just sitting there with a blank mind seeing what there is to see. If I’m wound up about something in life, I take out that photo and try to be there again in that calm and silent spot.

Boundary Waters 44 is a 13×12.25″ art quilt mounted to a custom-made 16×16″ stretched canvas.  Materials include white cotton fabric, acrylic paint, artist’s photos inkjet printed on silk organa, ink, colored pencil, graphite, and rayon thread.  It is collaged, colored, lettered and stitched.

Boundary Waters 44 – Detail

Boundary Waters 43

The eagle is, of course, a powerful totem.  But it holds additional meaning for me as it has more than once appeared at a special moment in a Boundary Waters trip and seemed to add a type of blessing to our voyage.  Boundary Waters 43 is also available; see my website for details.

Boundary Waters 42 – Collection of Mary Wise

These three artworks contain some of my favorite images from the Boundary Waters.  You can see some of their other incarnations here.

Boundary Waters 48 has been juried in to ArtQuilt Elements 2010 by jurors Jason Pollen, Robin Schwalb, and Deborah Warner. I’ll be sharing more close-ups here closer to the opening.

There were 257 applications for a total of 606 art quilts entered with 26 states and five countries throughout the world represented.  Fifty artworks were chosen for the exhibit.

ArtQuilt Elements’ opening reception will be Saturday, April 17 from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. at the Wayne Art Center in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

The Chicory collages are finished and submitted for distribution in a private swap.  I always make a few extra in any exchange so there is no pressure to send them all.

The background is acrylic paint on watercolor paper with Caran d’Ache artist crayons.  I wrote over the entire background with information about chicory which blooms with mad abandon along the roadsides here.  An odd fact about chicory is that its blooms open and close regularly each morning and evening, even when cut for a flower arrangement.

The collage was made by first layering a small strip of contrasting painted paper over the background. I Photoshopped my own photo of a chicory flower, printed it on Lesley Riley’s TAP, and then ironed it to light blue painted fabric and adhered the fabric to the collage with Misty Fuse.  The collage is 7×5″ mounted to 10×8″ on heavy watercolor paper.

I like having mixed-media collage as a nice contrast to my more “think-y” textile artwork.