Virginia A. Spiegel

 Phyllis Moore at the opening with with Michael James
All photos courtesy of Harlan Heald

My friend Phyllis Moore recently opened an exhibit, Imperfect Pattern/Relative Embellishment (with Susan Bertino and Rebecca Williams), at the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.  The exhibit runs through April 27.  I knew Phyllis was making contemporary quilts, but I was blown away when I received the postcard featuring Great Aunt Ruth.  What a leap to art quilts using abstraction while still maintaining a link to the traditional quilt form.

Great Aunt Ruth by Phyllis Moore

According to Phyllis, I wanted to honor the great Aunts. It was partly a feminist impulse. Most of the family stories in my family are about men and at present-day reunion the stories are told by men. Four of the aunts in the textiles Maude, Delia, Eva and Sudie, plus my grandmother lived within three or four miles of the farm where I grew up, consequently I had a few substantive (although child) memories of these aunts: of their size; their physical and psychological presence; the house where they lived; the flowers in their yards. I also had the only living niece of these great aunts write for me her impressions and remembrance of these women. I felt a bit like Debra Marquart who wrote in her book, the horizontal world: growing up wild in the middle of nowhere. [Lower case was her choice for the title of her book], “As I get older, I become infinitely interested in everything older than I am–old people, old letters, photographs, and papers ….”

I used mostly traditional cotton fabrics in the Great Aunts series. Great Aunt Ruth has a cotton skirt, but her head, pocket and legs are cut from tree wrap. Her blouse is butcher’s paper, complete with w/word “breasts” written on it by the meat counter clerk at Ideal Grocery in Lincoln.  The background for Ruth is all cotton fabrics. The backing for all the pieces in the series is felt.

The Great Aunts Go for a Swim at Midnight by Phyllis Moore

I had not been working long on the narrative pieces. I had completed a tradition piece called The Great Aunts Go for a Swim at Midnight about a year ago. There was a short gestation period  before I began the abstract figures.

The Great Aunts Gather Flowers for the Church Bouquet by Phyllis Moore

The little paper cat on some of the textiles is my thank you to Harlan for all of his support.  Without him I wouldn’t have had a show.

This is an assortment of fabric that I screenprinted.  After I paint on a first layer of paint, then it’s time to screenprint.  My screens are made from my photos Photoshopped to black and white and burned on a Thermofax machine.  I’ve never shared my screens because, hey, they are very personal.  But I support the work Lynn Krawczyk is doing in popularizing screenprinting and so agreed for her to feature on of my screens for one month only.

The screen called Yellow Leaf (shown printed by Lynn below) is available on Lynn’s Etsy shop only until January 31.

Below is the original photo that I Photoshopped before making it black and white for the Thermofax:

I have printed this screen in gold on blue dyed fabric and silver on green painted fabric – so subtle and elegant.  So don’t think it has to be yellow just because of its origin or Lynn’s example.  The main thing with screenprinting is just to have some fun with it.

Yellow Leaf – Featured Screen of the Month

Lynn Krawczyk’s Featured Screen of the Month on her comprehensive screen printing ETSY site is Yellow Leaf, created from one of my personal photos.  It’s very me as the leaf I photographed and then converted to black and white for burning a screen became a shattered and incomplete image of a leaf. This is just the sort of image that I believe makes a great screen as it isn’t static; there is a story of time and dissolution.

This is an exclusive design for Lynn. I don’t plan on personally ever selling screens even though I create them and use them all the time to create my fabric for my art.  This screen will only be available today through January 31.

The screen is called Yellow Leaf  because that was the color of the original leaf in the photograph from which Lynn created a screen for you.  But you should use your imagination to print your own leaf fabric or even screen print layers and layers of mutlti-colored leaves building a surface on your fabric that resembles the lawn in Fall when the leaves form a vibrant carpet.

Screen printing is easy and one of my favorite ways to “make” fabric.  Lynn also has a great DVD “Print Design Compose,” filmed on the set of “Quilting Arts TV,” that covers:

1. Three surface design techniques: thermofax screen printing (of course!), soy wax batik and freezer paper stencils.

2. Effective ways to USE (not just admire) the fabric you create

3. How to design an abstract art quilt

4. Different finishing methods for displaying your work.

Each month Studio Art Quilt Associates features a curated mini-gallery selected by a SAQA member from the juried Professional Artist Members. I chose Always Women as my theme for the December gallery:

The more I read, the more I realize there are universal experiences women share through the ages.  It seems as though we do more than our fair share of waiting, but we’re also always busy making a living, making friends, making a family, making peace with ourselves and our bodies, fighting our vices, embracing our pleasures, as well as experiencing great joys and great sadness. These artworks represent a small slice of our lives as women.

Included artists are Kate Themel, Joan Sowada, Sherry Kleinman, Lora Rocke, Trish Williams, Pat Kumicich, Judith Busby, Judy Zoelzer Levine, Pamela Price Klebaum, Mary Pal, Susan Schrott, Alice Beasley, Leni Levenson Wiener, Annie Helmericks-Louder, Lura Schwarz Smith, Jayne Willoughby Scott, and Susan Else.

Karen Stiehl Osborn is selling small artworks on her blog to benefit Hands, Hearts & Paws, an all-breed animal rescue in Omaha, NE.  She has just posted a mini-collection including my Black Stone:

Black Stone
Virginia A. Spiegel

This artwork would make a nice companion piece to mine:

Rhody #9
Karen Stiehl Osborn

Karen works hard to benefit this rescue because:

Often they accept the dogs that no other rescue will take, usually because of expensive medical needs. Recently they had a surgical bill of $1000 for a dog that had a prong collar embedded in his neck and a chunk of wood puncturing his trachea. Now they have a dog that has tested positive for heartworms and a dog that needs surgery for a luxating patella. Both of those dogs’ treatments will run hundreds of dollars each. I volunteer with this rescue, because I truly believe that they put the needs of the dogs ahead of all politics and financial concerns.

I am asking for your help to raise funds for these medical bills. I will be selling Artist Trading Cards for $20 each, until I run out of cards to sell. The rescue has several events scheduled for the coming months, and I will be selling the artwork at these events, plus selling them online through my blog and Facebook.

If you are an artist, please consider donating an ATC to the cause. If you are a patron, please consider purchasing a small artwork to support the rescue and enhance your own art collection.