New website

Please join me at my new website  http://gail.baar.us/  I will be adding new work there in the coming months. My blog will no longer be updated, but will still be a good way to see older quilts.

Not This One

Yesterday I was thrilled to find out one of my ColorForm quilts was accepted into Quilt National 2015. But not this one- that's OK, we are enjoying having it hang in our dining room. This is my second trip to QN, and I am looking forward to seeing all the wonderful artwork at the opening in May.

Another piece of mine was accepted into a fiber art show, Multiplicities, at the Imago Gallery in Warren, RI, which opens October 17th, curated by Elin Noble.

Right now my studio has been emptied out as we will be getting new carpeting upstairs tomorrow. I have found some hand sewing that needs to be done that will keep me busy in the meantime. I am looking forward to getting it all reorganized at the end of the week.

More experiments

Here is some of the fabric I have made recently, experimenting with flour paste as a resist, and also using soft scrub with bleach to disperse the dye. I have done it over several times, to get layers of interesting results. I am still working on how to use these fabrics: getting too busy with details is not in my nature, but using the whole cloth doesn't seem right yet either. I think I have to keep it in the back of my mind while I come up with ideas.

Some things happen during the process: that orange streak, where did it come from? I love the way it looks.

Totally new

I have been experimenting this summer, with some new techniques. In the first photo, I used paint and stamped using cardboard. The second photo shows paint applied to heavy canvas. I loved the texture of the fabric, and painted, stamped, and used various objects to apply paint to the fabric. Sometimes I sprayed water on it, and once even painted with coffee. I used several pieces of fabric that I would come back to and add more. I drew with pen and pencil, sewed the pieces together and did some machine quilting. In the last picture I used flour paste as a resist, and then used thickened dye to paint over it when I had dried. The circles were made using soft scrub.

It was fun and freeing to try something different. I let myself become a different person, in a way, because all those details can't be me! I had to figure out new rules as I went along, and am still trying to see what worked and what didn't on all the fabric I made. Here is a quote I ran across yesterday, when I was looking up improvisation in jazz:

(by Brian J. Kane)

Creating Within Context
"Freedom in jazz improvisation comes from understanding structure. When people listen to jazz, they often believe that the soloist is "doing whatever they want." In fact, as experienced improvisers will tell you, the soloist is rarely "doing whatever they want." An improvisational soloist is always following a complicated set of rules and being creative within the context of those rules."

I don't know a lot about jazz, and never learned to improvise in music, but I can see how improvising is not just playing anything, or it wouldn't make sense. It is interesting that when we make something in art that is improvised we are following some rule, whether we realize it or not.

Now I am back to solid dyed fabric, and it feels all new again.

ColorForm 70

This is ColorForm 70, 60"H x 70"W. I finished this in March, when I was first starting to focus on bigger work. Now when I look back on it, only a couple of months later, I feel more comfortable in bigger sizes. I can figure out how to start, and am finding that it is not that intimidating. Bigger work takes longer too, and is harder to photograph. And those long lines of quilting take forever!

More Yellow

I have started working with yellow and have been figuring out ways to work with it-what goes with yellow? I found I have a lot of nice shades of yellow, and they go with lots of other colors.I like the dark, almost gold shades.  Here I used blues and grays, but have started a big piece using some dark orange/rust. I thought I didn't like yellow, but I just didn't know how to use it. And it has added some brightness to our dark, cloudy days lately. This is about 31"H x 34"W. And I have been trying out a different camera, which has turned out to be a big improvement!

Desperate for Sunshine

It has been so nice out lately when the sun is out. Even though we have lots of snow left, I enjoy hearing it rushing down the storm sewers as it melts. When I go for a walk, there are big puddles of water to walk through on the sidewalks. I must have been desperate for sunshine when I made this one-I usually don't use much yellow! This one is 14"H x 19"W.