Virginia A. Spiegel

Boundary Waters 44

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

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.

Chicory 2

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.

Green
Two photographs that I took at a Coast Guard yard in Homer, Alaska have been accepted to the Eye of The Quilter exhibit to premier at International Quilt Festival – Houston.

Coordinator of the exhibit is Wilma Hart, Vice President of Corporate Projects for Quilts, Inc. Ms. Hart is herself an avid photographer and stated, “Photographs have the power to invoke a lot of feelings in their viewers— everything from unbridled joy and intense anger to sheer wonder and heartwarming poignancy.”  Of course, photos have long served as inspiration for quilters and other artists.  (Case in point:  my latest Boundary Waters photos.)

I don’t want to spoil the surprise of the photos that will be shown, but above is another photo from that same location.  I am always interested in color, in numbers, in texture. The yard was an amazing and inspiring conglomeration of buoys, chain, metal and concrete.

International Quilt Festival – Houston is October 15 – 18, 2009 at the George R. Brown Convention Center.  More information here.

Fiber Art Alliance, a new group to promote the fiber arts, has now added the second artwork from each of its ten artists for the exhibit Natural Lines.

Boundary Waters 43

My artwork is joined by that of Natalya Aikens, Jeanne Beck, Rosemary Claus-Gray, Karen J. Cooper, Jacque Davis, Becky Howdeshell, Karen Shiehl Osborn, BJ Parady, and Laura Stangel Schmidt.

All the artwork may be viewed in a slideshow with size, price and artist statement.

My first artwork for the exhibit, Boundary Waters 42, is now in the collection of Mary Wise.

These artwork are part, of course, of the ongoing Boundary Waters series. I’m very pleased with these small artworks as they are some of my Boundary Waters themes made visible: the passage of Nature’s time, the brevity of human lives, and the beauty and serenity of a unique world narrowed to tree, rock, sky, water.