Pamela Thiele Art Quilts

WOW O WOW

Yesterday we went to the Denver National Quilt Festival. I have five quilts in various exhibits there. Is that cool or what? Two were juried into the show itself. Two are part of the Colorado Quit Council’s special exhibit. And one is in a SAQA exhibit. I was in heaven.

Whoever hung the show, hung the special exhibits too, and that person likes my quilts. I love you, whoever you are! Thanks for the great placements.

The first quilt of mine that we saw was Summer Solstice in the Rockies which is a simple block, really, but I took great advantage of the huge floral prints that are out there. I think it’s a swell quilt. And the person who hung it gave it wonderful prominence in the CQC exhibit – as you looked  into a section it was the quilt facing the viewer. WOW. I was so pleased, I just beamed. I radiated.

How things are hung is key of course. In previous years, my quilts have been – well –  not in the best light and not in the best spots.

But not this year!

The other quilt in the CQC exhibit, Wild in Sausalito, had really good light and was also very visible.

And then waddaya know but my entry in the SAQA exhibit was also facing the viewer and very – out there. I mean gosh. It was next to a very realistic pictorial quilt which was a fascinating contract. At least to me. I was just bouncing up and down by this time.

Which was a slight challenge because we’d rented a wheelchair for the day because my knees are not yet to the point where walking for hours on concrete feels good. Actually does it ever feel good?

I was grateful for the ride. And for LAuren, who pushed me through the show. Since she is so small and I am so, um, not small, it must have looked a bit like the wrong person was helping the wrong person. But she was wonderful. I am determined to get back to where I was and even better before the fall. But, for yesterday,  I was a beaming, bouncing, wild and crazy, happy quilter on wheels.

And then we wheeled over the main show and found the two quilts which had been juried into it.  They were also in great light and easy to see. My mysterious pal who hung the show had decided to hang these two in the same section, on perpendicular walls. Which was again a very wild juxtaposition of two really different quilts. I enjoyed the contrast. Obviously he or she did too. Neither quilt looks like the same person could have made the other one, if you follow me. (Our Love Was Like a Ruby and Maybe It’s the Acid Rain.)

I am pretty convinced I will never win a quilt show, because what I

do is really not traditional but neither is it ultra weird. Of course I always hope. But I know I won’t win. (I guess.) Anyway the judge of this particular show made decisions that seemed very conservative to me. And with that kind of judge, I’d never win.

But the point of entering is to be seen (I keep telling myself—and honestly I do believe that most of the time. As opposed to winning a ribbon. Who needs a ribbon. Right? Just another thing to dust.).

So it’s really good to have my quilts hung very visibly and not buried in the middle section of several sections in a row that has terrible lighting. This time they were seen. You couldn’t miss them.

Why is being seen so important? Because we work alone for the most part and so it is thrilling to get notice, feedback, and a sense of community. And a sense of where we fit or don’t fit in. I noticed a couple but not more than two – people who are doing what I do. That means there are at least two people who understand what I’m trying to say. And that feels good too. And I also like that mostly I don’t fit in. Because that’s how my life seems to be playing out. At least I’m consistent.

And I have to say, thank you mystery hanger! You have made me incredibly happy and very content. May you sleep well at night and have days of beauty!

I’m the Expert. NOT!

Like most people, I know some stuff about some things. But I generally don’t feel the need to assert my knowledge all that much. I can go with the flow. (Or so I tell myself.)

However there are a few things I think I know really well. So well that I don’t ever have to even think about them. This is when I get into trouble. And I never ever seem to learn from my mistakes: defending my point of view when I am dead wrong, for instance. Or checking back with the source of some information to see if maybe, just maybe, I am remembering it wrong.

Like for instance this cookie recipe I have been making for 30 years. I feel that I know this recipe so well, I never have to check the ingredients or the steps. I open up the cookbook to the page where it’s listed out of habit but I never really look at the actual recipe.

So yesterday when I was making a double batch of the dough, I thought to myself, as I have for years, and I mean YEARS, this dough is so dry. It’s such a pain to roll out and cut out the cookies. And the cookies tend to flake apart which is tedious.

Because I thought I knew this recipe so thoroughly,  I have even made the cookies without even having it on hand, like when I was on vacation in my former scary sister-in-law’s place in Boca. And those cookies were dry and flaky too.

I need a new recipe, I thought. (That it has taken me maybe twenty years to reach this conclusion does not say a lot about me.)

Then, after the first batch of dough was finished, and shaped into three very crumbly rounds to cool, and placed in the fridge — for the first time in 20+ years, it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe,  I should double-check the ingredients.

And waddaya know. I have been using too much flour. For years and years. ARGH!!!!

So the second batch of dough, with the right amount of flour, was beautiful. Nice pretty rounds to refrigerate. Easy to roll out. No flaking cookies. And the cookies tasted the way I remembered them from my early adulthood. When people craved them and actually ate them.

Sigh. Maybe I have learned something here. Geez, I hope so.

An Orange and Blue Ball

Yesterday we had a crisis here. Luka, our labradoodle, loves to play fetch. Sometimes she accesses her inner poodle, but not on fetch. When it comes to fetch, she is all labrador.

Your basic poodle (not that any poodle is basic but you get my drift) doesn’t really see the point of fetch. But a labrador! Ah, for a labrador, fetch is Nirvana.

However, according to Luka, there is only one ball that is good for fetch. It is a blue and orange colored ball. The colors honor our Denver pro football team, the Broncos. And so the ball is called, BRONCO BALL!

Now we have four Bronco Balls. But only ONE of them is THE ball. We have no way of telling which is the good one. But Luka knows. And that is the only one she loves to play with. The others apparently suck.

Yesterday Luka and Lauren were playing Bronco Ball, and Luka managed to hit the ball with her nose, unintentionally, and it bounced over our fence and into the neighbor’s yard.

The neighbor also has a dog, a sweet small puppy named Winnie. Small though she is, she is clear on that yard being HER yard and we didn’t want to upset Winnie by going uninvited over the fence. Plus our neighbor is recovering from an illness and takes naps, so we didn’t want to call her in case she was asleep.

So I emailed our request. I said  that the world’s best Bronco Ball was under the bush on the rear left side of her yard and asked if would she would  toss it back over the fence sometime. And if some creature had already stolen it (like a Bronco Ball-playing fox or coyote), please to not worry.

Later the four of us went out again. Button, the poodle, could care less about the whole thing. But I immediately went to see if the Bronco Ball was still under the bush. Alas, it was gone and I didn’t see it in our yard.

I turned to Luka and said, well Sweetie, maybe you can learn to love another one of the Bronco Balls, sucky though they are.

And she said WANNA PLAY BRONCO BALL? HUH? DO YOU? HUH? WANNA PLAY? and tossed the ball from her mouth to my hand. She had spotted the ball and scooped it up so fast neither Lauren nor I even realized it was back in our yard.

She was thrilled! I was thrilled. We ran – well, okay maybe Luka ran and I walked fast—to show Lauren. Lauren was thrilled. Lauren threw it and Luka caught it, and the world was back on its axis and the sun returned to the sky and life was gooooood.

And I got to thinking how I wished all my concerns and worries could be solved by an orange and blue ball. Maybe it’s time to play fetch again.

Second Thoughts

I’ve now assembled The Water is Wide…or rather the center of the quilt because this is a quilt that really REALLY needs something more. But what?

I have put a border of striped fabric around it but uh huh. Doesn’t work. At all.

This is my second border, actually. The first, also a stripe, was gorgeous. Way too gorgeous. It overwhelmed the quilt. It was a more insistent stripe with metallic thread. Stunning. What quilt?

So I think I am back to Plan A which was to make a piano keys border. Which I do a lot of. This works with most of my quilts. Adds color without overwhelming the center. And yet.

I am wondering. How about a design? What design could add to the quilt without diminishing the center? Are there any?

The problem is, something overtakes me at this stage. I tend to want to GET IT DONE. Very VERY bad motive. I have always told myself best thing to do when I feel this way is to start another quilt. So I don’t wreck the almost finished quilt with my need to finish it. Ya know what I mean?

I have hundreds of quilt ideas rolling around in my head. And lots of fabric to make stuff with. My fingers itch to play with my fabric and pick out the selects for the next quilt. I AM READY.

But this — starting a new quilt to “inspire” me to finish the current quilt —  is how I wound up with 18  tops to quilt last year. Now did I learn from that — or didn’t I? I mean, I  learned, didn’t I, to finish one before getting too many more in the works. I HAVE learned this, yes? Earth to Pam, slow down, enjoy the process. Yeah, but….

It’s Done!

I have finished the GrandBaby’s quilt and, as always, I am having thousands of second thoughts. Does this happen to everyone?

I tried to make a quilt that would be extremely graphic and very safe. So not a lot of quilting that could catch baby toes and fingers. In fact, to avoid this, I did zigzag quilting in the ditch. Intentionally small zigzags for safely.

I used red thread and, so the zigzag, by virtue of being a little wider than the basic running stitch, assures that the red thread shows. Good.

I didn’t want to lessen the impact of the large designs in each block so I decided not to stipple or echo quilt them. I dunno. Maybe I should have. I will never know. I do know all this second-guessing is driving me nuts.

So what am I happy with? Well, I love the red binding.

I really love with the prints I used. Talk about visual impact.

And I’m glad I’ve created a sturdy quilt that can be laundered with impunity. This quilt can be used. A very small person can spit up on it and – no harm done. It can go on the floor and be rolled on and crawled on. Piece o’cake.

I’m delighted with the back of the quilt.

Next I need to make a label. Which brings up another question. How do I describe myself – I am the GrandBaby’s stepmother. So who is this quilt from? StepGrammy? StepGram? GramPam?

Surely using my formal name – the way I normally do on my labels– is  way too formal. Thank goodness, this gives me something else to worry about.

But most important, now that I’m finished,  I can start thinking about the NEXT quilt for this GrandBaby.

You Gotta Touch!

We’ve just returned from viewing two of Henry Moore’s massive sculptures at an outpost of the Denver Botanical Gardens. Moore’s work demands to be touched although of course one cannot do that. Signs prohibit it and we all know better.

Seeing his work has the same sort of frustration one experiences at a quilt show, where all those incredible works of fiber art just cry out to be touched and caressed. But of course we know better and we don’t. The white glove ladies are there to make sure we behave.

I understand this prohibition totally. But. Geez. I mean, quilting to me is such a tactile experience. I wonder just how much the quilts would truly be compromised by our gentle stroking…one stroke per viewer. And so ditto the Moores.

To me, his work cries out to be touched. I wonder how he envisioned it. Did he imagine children, and some of us adults, nestled in the laps of his reclining figures? Climbing up and sliding down the curves of his massive abstractions? It feels like he did.

Denver’s Botanical Gardens have pulled off a real coup in getting these and the 18 other sculptures for an exhibit. It was thrilling to anticipate. And soon we’ll go to the main Gardens where the other 18 are waiting for our adulation.

I wonder how the decision was made to split off the two from the other 18 and move them to the less known venue. I mean did someone forget to unpack them from the moving van and so, after all the others had been moved into place, someone said “Oops, we forgot these two,” and someone else said, “Oh never mind, put them in my pickup and I’ll take them down to Chatfield. We have some space there”?

It seems so arbitrary to have just two at a different venue. And bizarrely enough, there are no signs telling you where to go to find these two once you get to Chatfield.  It’s sort of as if the people at Chatfield didn’t want you to find them.

So I’ll tell you: one, a stunning reclining mother and child, is over near the administration building. And the other, more abstract and far more massive, is hidden behind some trees to the right off a dirt path once you cross the first wooden bridge after the schoolhouse. This seems almost like a code to me. A secret. Hard to hide a several ton sculpture but the Chatfield people have pretty much succeeded.

For whatever reason.

The college I attended (Mount Holyoke College) had a very small Moore fox in its art gallery. When I went there, the late 1960s, the art was excellent but the gallery was a tad ad hoc. In other words, it was in a series of big old rooms, well lit but unguarded. You could touch the sculptures. Which I thought was part of the point, at least for art students. Which I was not. (Art history yes, however.)

The Moore fox was so real and so alive, it was irresistible. I petted it every time I went in, and I went in a lot specifically just to pet it. It reminded me a lot of my cats at home.

Years later, the college built a genuine art museum with rules and guards. A spectacular building. No touching the art work!  I noticed however that the Moore fox, now safe from us students,  had been so lovingly stroked over the years by generations of us that its head had a smooth worn spot on it.

This didn’t diminish its value to me; it enhanced it. I knew why it had been stroked by class after class of young women lonely for their pets and grateful for contact.

I wonder how much longer our quilts will last if we keep refusing to allow people to experience them fully. To touch them. Will this really pay off in longevity? Or would it honestly be better to shave a few years off their life span and just let people revel in their tactile nature?

And the Moore pieces, which invoke in me the desire to embrace them, to lean against them, to be in contact with them , are they better served by our keeping our distance?

Cary Grant and Chunk Quilting

We just rented, back-to-back, An Affair to Remember and Sleepless in Seattle. Ah, Cary Grant.

I never noticed, in all the times I’ve watched that flick, how much screen time Cary Grant has to spend just standing around, reacting to things.  He’s very good at it  (duh Pam!).

Remember the scene at the end when he goes into her bedroom, spots the painting and realized that SHE is the woman in the wheelchair, that SHE tried to make their rendezvous, that she LOVES him so much she did not let him know she was seriously injured (this is some sort of convoluted Hollywood thinking called plot device but still, it jerks my tears every time) and he reacts, and then he looks so chagrined and in love…ah where was I?

Now that is fine acting. Never overdone. But always very clear.

The same fine acting comes at the end of Sleepless, when Tom Hanks’ character gets his son — who has been waiting all day and evening on the Empire State Building’s observation deck — and Hanks grabs him and says something like: we’re okay aren’t we? Wow! I defy anyone to stay dry-eyed.

But it’s not really the same – because Cary Grant is talking to the woman he loves. And Tom Hanks is talking to his son. And, moving though that is, it’s not romantic. The way all of An Affair is totally romantic.

I thought An Affair would be dated and it was. But it didn’t matter. I know most of the lines and it didn’t matter. I knew what was coming and it only made it better.

How does this relate to Chunk Quilting? in fact, what is chunk quilting?

Chunk quilting is piecing a top together in discrete sections. Preferably sections that reduce the number of long straight seams, since those can get really out of whack when one is thinking about the final scene in An Affair to Remember and how Deborah Kerr wiped the tears off both her face and Cary Grant’s face. Not that he’s crying really. Just that she’s so sweet doing that.

And thinking about how nobody just says Cary. I bet not even his closest friends called him just Cary. It sounds wrong. Don’t you always say CaryGrant? My point exactly. He is CaryGrant. He is not a Cary. I’m not sure who really is a Cary. But he is fully and definitely a CaryGrant.

So I am figuring out what smaller units I can put my quilt together in which will eliminate most of the long tedious straight seams.

And I am feeling appreciative that one of the most important plot devices in An Affair is the hand-made shawl. It’s not a quilt but it IS a handmade work of fiber art.

And that feels swell. There could not have been a movie without a fiber artist making a piece of wearable art. So truly An Affair is all about quilting in the sense that it’s about appreciating fiber art.

Which gives me the umph to get this top pieced and yes, quilted, so I can get the next quilt started. CaryGrant would want me to do this. That’s all the incentive I need.