Virginia A. Spiegel

Once
Hand-dyed cotton, acrylic paint, Tyvek from a lab jacket, embroidery thread.

The opening reception for Art Quilts XIV:  Significant Stitching is Friday, November 20, from 7-9 p.m. at the Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 N. Arizona Ave., Chandler, Arizona . Music will be provided by jazz musician Pete Pancrazi.  The exhibit runs November 20, 2009 – January 2, 2010.  Here is a list of all the artists in the exhibit.

Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and Saturday, noon-4 p.m. In addition, Chandler Center for the Arts patrons enjoy the works before shows and during intermissions.  Call 480.917.6859 for holiday hours.

My artwork subverts the theme as all the stitching, by hand, can only be seen on the back.  The stitching can’t be seen on the front due to layers and layers of screen printing, mainly in metallic paint.  The artwork is my commentary on over-consumerism and waste:

How can we sustain an environment in which Tyvek lab jackets are worn once in a sterile environment and then discarded?  Squares cut from just such a jacket were painted in delicate earth colors, hand-quilted to hand-dyed cotton and then buried beneath layers upon layers of screenprinted paint. Consider all that time spent in hand-stitching which will never be seen except from the back. It’s a small sacrifice made to call attention how the glittery surface of our consumer society hides an ugly truth: our failure to embrace a time-consuming commitment to reduce, reuse, recycle.

You can see the hand stitching on the underlayer in progress of this artwork (when I thought it would be called Discarded) 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.

Once (detail)
Hand-dyed cotton, acrylic paint, Tyvek from a lab jacket, embroidery thread.

This artwork is 35.5″ x 32,” but I prefer not to show the entire artwork until closer to its exhibition debut at Art Quilts XIV:  Significant Stitching at the Chandler Center for the Arts, Chandler, AZ.

The prospectus for this exhibit stated, This year’s theme encourages you to explore what makes your work significant. Is it the statement your piece makes? Is it quilting lines made meaningful by placement? Surface design which speaks to the soul? Amazing quilting or appliqué?

I very much wanted to play against the exhibit title. The quilting on this artwork can only be seen on the back.   Here’s my artist statement,

How can we sustain an environment in which Tyvek lab jackets are worn once in a sterile environment and then discarded?  Squares cut from just such a jacket were painted in delicate earth colors, hand-quilted to hand-dyed cotton and then buried beneath layers upon layers of screenprinted paint. Consider all that time spent in hand-stitching which will never be seen except from the back. It’s a small sacrifice made to call attention how the glittery surface of our consumer society hides an ugly truth: our failure to embrace a time-consuming commitment to reduce, reuse, recycle.

The exhibit runs November 20, 2009 – January 2, 2010.

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.