Quiltfolk Magazine

Quiltfolk

I have had photos of my quilts in magazines before, but I always had to send my own photographs for those. This was the first time someone came to me to photograph my work. In fact, they sent two people. Azuree Wiitala was the photographer, and she spent most of the time running around my house and yard taking photos. Trevor Holloway took my quilts, one at a time, and very respectfully and gently styled them for the photos. He also did a great job of light-shifting, which mean that he held up big reflectors to help move the light to a better position during some of the photographs. I ran back and forth from being the subject of the photo to consulting with the quilts and assisting Trevor.  It was kind of mind boggling, the number of photos and the number of quilts, just to get a handful of really great ones that made it into the magazine. And it was fun!

Azuree Witala, I managed to snap a photo of her in my studio while she was photographing me.

Trevor Holloway, holding up my quilt, One Earth, on my deck and hiding behind it so that he won't be in the photo.

Me in front of my newly completed quilt top, Rainbow Gardens.

Here are a few more of my favorite out-takes. The first three are the required "have the quilter pointing at something" shots.  Although the pointing thing may be interesting, to me it is significant and special because the artists hands are what make the quilts. Love these shots!

My absolutely favorite part of making these batik panels (aside from the colors) were the painting of the hot wax to make the white dots.  From my quilt, Butterflies.

Again, this dotted fabric was made in my batik studio.  I drew every white dot with hot wax.  Very contemplative experience, and I like the way it looks, and I 'needed' it for this part of the quilt, Caterpillars.

A random stack of my journal quilts, which helped me in my journey to become an art quilter. 

There is a picture of my cat, Pumpkin Pi, in the last few pages of this issue, but I like this one better.  The little photo bomber is standing on his cat shelf, next to the little cat quilt, Innocence. 

The antique desk just under the little quilt was a gift from my neighbor, Lucy Milliron. She was also an artist and made the most exquisite watercolors of the natural world.  When she died, it broke my heart. We were very close friends and she had become a part of our family. She was 88 and her husband had died a full 10 years before her. They used to travel a lot and I used to keep a watchful eye on their house while they are gone.  I am still doing that even though they don't live there anymore. 

There is another part of Lucy that stays in my studio, also captured by Azuree. This photo is significant to me because it captures so much in one small photo:

When Lucy died, I kept her paint brushes.  They are sitting in yellow wooden blocks that her husband Walter made for her by drilling in holes of different sizes for her brushes.  Such a sweet gesture, one of love and support.  And, though you can't quite see, there is a framed photo sitting between the rows of them on one of their fishing trips to Rockport, TX.  I think of them both every time I grab a brush.  

In the very front is a framed postcard made by my good friend Frances Holiday Alford. She invited me to join the Art Quilt Bee.  Our bee members used to meet at her house (until she moved to Vermont) and make group quilts together. So many fond memories of our times together! And, it was a nice surprise to see her quilt in the same issue.  She has a quilt in the section on the Texas Quilt Museum. 

The paper figure of a girl was an exercise from a class I took called Lifebook.  I learned a lot about mixed media in that class and have gone on to continue making mixed media pieces to play with design.  After I get a thick stack of pages, I bind them together into books.  Now, I also love making books!

I also like this staged photo of me using a tjanting tool.  It is a batik tool that allows me to put fine lines of liquid wax on a piece.  It is very different than stamping designs with a tool.  It is much harder to control and requires a lot of patience.  It is more fickle to things like temperature control and composition of the wax. In the picture below, I would never use this tool on the piece that is front of me (that one is made by stamping with an object, in this case, a piece of cardboard packing material from something that was shipped to me). I am holding a folded paper towel to catch the drips.  It is THICK with many many drops of wax. 

This tool was used to make the next two quilts.

A Few of My Favorite Things

And, though this one was an outtake, I have seen it in a promotional spot with several other quilt artists on Facebook. The Heron, the Kayak, and the Grebes: Part I

This next set I like because the light, color and angles were so very good!

Diverging Distractions

Just Around the Corner

Two Halves

And, last is a photo of my quilt, Bloom.  It was hanging on the zip line outside when the sun peeked through.  All afternoon we had been chasing the light.  A great photograph is made with a good photographer, a good subject, and perfect lighting.  That afternoon we were fighting intense glaring sunlight.  It finally paid off for this one because it backlit the quilt.  And, we can see the other side which is my quilt, Seeds! Perfection!!

Bloom

That's about it for the photoshoot.  You can see more photos on my Instagram and Facebook accounts. I will say that working with Quiltfolk was a dream.  They were so incredibly professional and the process of putting together a story was seamless.  I really like that they did copy checks/fact checking with me about both the stories and the photos. I have had that go wrong on many occasions with other publishers who skipped this essential step.  I also like that I was included in the social media promotion.  And, I liked that they sent me a free copy of the magazine.  This used to be an industry standard. However, the world is changing, and this kindness and respect is rarely offered to artists. My hat is off to you Quiltfolk! Respect and appreciation!

You can get a discount in April, May, and June if you use the code below! Cheers!

Bounce

Bounce
56" x 79"
(the back side of Unfinished)

I love how the trajectory of this bouncing ball shows movement. The ball cannot avoid the force of gravity, just like the things we cannot avoid and must eventually accept. Putting a positive 'spin' on it, I like the metaphor of dealing with life’s difficulties with a “bounce”! 

I took a detail photo of the front side of the quilt and manipulated it in Photoshop to make a pattern for the ball.  The apparent weave and colors of the ball are the same as the woven pattern on the other side, just distorted into a sphere.  

Then I printed it onto freezer paper (don't try this!!), and the heat from my printer jammed the wax side of the paper into the printer.  So, that didn't work!!  Next step, tape the pattern onto a glass window and then by hand, trace the shapes onto freezer paper, and cut out all the shapes.  I then ironed them onto the fabric and cut out the pieces with a seam allowance.  Next, I decided the order in which they would be sewn together.  I glued down one seam allowance with the washable glue stick, and then glued it in place on top of the piece it would be sewn to.  By holding it up to the light, I could see when the edges of the freezer paper were nearly touching.  Then I hand sewed the pieces down, one at a time until the entire sphere was sewn together.

When the entire sphere was completed, I peeled the paper off the wrong sides and gently washed the glue out.  Then I turned under the outer edge and appliqued to the quilt.

It kinda seemed like a lot of work for all the little balls, but I have never done a technique like this before and it was fun to learn something new.  And it worked! The spheres were all stitched onto the back after the quilt was quilted. I am satisfied with the design elements and colors.  All is good!

The next step was to photograph the quilt.  How to photograph a white quilt?  It is really NOT easy.  I set this up in my living room.  It required a lot of furniture moving, and a lot of cat hair clean up, all before I started hanging the white drapes on the sides, and covering the rug.  I just really wanted all the light in the room to be white, I didn't want my photography lights bouncing off my shiny blue concrete floor and casting a hue onto the quilt.  I couldn't decide if I should light this scene with the lights on the outside of the hanging sheets, or bouncing off the insides of the white 'box'.  I tried both.  Still it was hard to get even lighting.  Overall, this worked pretty well, but I still think I have some more to learn when it comes to photographing white quilts.

Here's a close up.

Thanks for stopping by!  When was the last time you tried something new?

Gift

Gift 
91" x 91"
photographing big quilts
I finished quilting Gift last spring.  The machine quilting was tough.  I have a Juki with a larger than normal neck, but it was still hard to push all this fabric through it.  Additionally, I decided to quilt in 1/4" lines of concentric spiraling outward squares at the intersection of each block.  This meant I had to turn the quilt many, many times under the sewing machine.  This much quilting also caused the quilt to shrink 7 inches in both directions.  I should not be surprised, but I was!

I found it really difficult to photograph this enormous quilt in a way that makes it look as good in the photo as it does in real life.  My design wall is made of two BIG foam core boards.  I used to carry them downstairs to my living room, move a bit of furniture, set up the lights and shoot from across the room.  It worked pretty well, but now my foam core boards are warped, they bend like a big concave lens.  This makes the quilts look distorted too.  And, it is a bit of an ordeal to set up.
Here's an indoor shot as an example:
You can see what I mean on the right side.  The quilt is actually square, but it appears as though it bends inward slightly along the right edge.  Some of this can be corrected if centered through the camera lens just right.  I have a lot of experience doing that, and this is not my best work.  However, it is still distorting on the sides because it clings to the warped design wall.

I wish I had an easy set up outdoors.  I like the lighting much better.  It shows the colors more accurately and the texture of the quilt sings.  Drawbacks include wind, dirt, and eliminating distracting backgrounds (which you can see on the edges below). Sometimes if you don't need a straight on shot, the wind can make for really great photos.  And, selecting just the right light can also be a challenge as bright sunlight can create overexposure and harsh shadows.

Now that I am comparing the two photos, this is kind of silly, but it appears the first photo was taken before I put a hanging tube on it.  It was pinned to the wall in a different orientation than this one.  oops! For the outside shot, I added the hanging tube, but arbitrarily selected a different top edge. Regardless, I still think the colors and quality of the colors looks so much better in the second one.  Sadly, this one is a bit distorted too.  I did not have a long enough hanging rod. The top edge on both sides creates some wrinkles along the quilt.  And, yet the colors look so much better!  The quilt looks dead in the first photo, and in this one it comes alive!  Here it is in-situ.

I put two nails along the top edge of the playscape.  Fortunately, it was tall enough for this quilt.  It looks particularly good with my aqua picnic table!  :)

Here's a view of the back, with the swing and trapeze bar.  I took down one swing because it was showing in the front.  The swing had the extra advantage of helping to prevent the breeze from blowing the quilt quite as much.  It was all about the timing and shooting when it was in it's most square position.  After I hung it, it was super easy to shoot.  I didn't even need a tripod.  I think I might be getting a bit lazy in my old age!  ha!
Next step would be to go ahead a buy a longer rod, which is easy enough. 
The close up shot of the quilt quilting looks good in this light too!

Last, this was the second quilt I made from these big batiked blocks.  You can see what I did with the leftovers on this post.