Do you NEED to be an artist?

Driving down to my studio today I heard a great interview on NPR with Sir Derek Jacobi--he was in the Cadfael series and just finished a run as King Lear--I believe.  Anyhow the advice he gave was that you should not become an actor because you want to be an actor but if you need to be an actor--then go for it. Isn't the same true about artists?

Today I spent the last two hours of the day packing my van for the Baltimore show. Now for those who have never done a craft show before--much less such a prestigious one as Baltimore--this is not for the faint of heart. First I have to remove the seats from my Honda Odyssey--doable but they sure are heavy. Especially carrying them up stairs to my studio where they will rest in comfort for a week. I then have to carry my booth--yes it is steel rods--heavy--and the glass for the rest of my display down these same steps and put them carefully into my van. UGH!!! My back hurts.

I need to carefully pack the quilts--wrap them. Pack them in the van. This year I have added pillows. There is no room in the van for me.  Much less my DH who is coming along this time. Where do my clothes and my computer fit? Trivial--right?

So why do I do it?

Simple. I can't think of my life without making quilts. I can't make more quilts unless I can sell the ones I have. So I will gladly drive to Baltimore--oh no--more snow is forecast. Six inches in NY city area. Enough already. Dolly all of this into the Convention Center. Set up my booth. Adjust the lights. And hope that my new pillows sell. Just so I can make more pillows and quilts.

Is this foolish? Is this a waste of my talents? I don't think so--this is what I need to do. And I will do it?

Do you need to make art? Do you have to sell art to make more? Do discuss--and while you are at is--support your local NPR station and make sure your senators and congressperson know how important they are. I almost forgot that now--alas--I have a senator who does need to be reminded.

And yes this is one of my quilts for the show.

 

the promise of spring and pillows

Oh what a gorgeous day it is. This morning the sun rose coloring the sky in hues of rose and peach, magenta and blue. Pink and more pink. It was splendid and so inspirational. I hurried into the studio to start making pillows in these wonderful colors. There is the promise of spring in the air.

Recently I was on a fascinating chat on Twitter. The question was about color. The participants were mainly interior decorators. The ideas flew more quickly than I could type or even read. Color. How vital it is. Is there an ugly color? Or even an ugly palette? What about pink? Pink and brown? Greys. Black and navy. Would it be too much to use all the colors of a pack of crayons?

I thought immediately of my quilt--rainbows of summer. Certainly that uses lots and lots of colors. Think of the accent pieces that could be used. Blues and navy, purple and magenta.

Right now I am fascinated with my pillows. Tiny tiny strips of fabric that combine to create rich colors and wonderful textures. I feel there is so much I can do with this concept. I arrange solid colors on the design board. Make the pillows which I wrote about here. Then I think of stripes. Oh this will be fun. It looks almost retro doesn't it.

Stripes in rainbow colors like this one. Isn't it fun?

I try another one. They do remind me of the fifties don't they. Lawn furniture. Warm days. I can see a couple as accent pieces bringing in just the right color. The fun of deciding what color works. That little surprise of yellow.  I love the possibilities.

Maybe even a wall hanging. The colors must be just right. Chosen with care and knowledge as to what I am doing. A new challenge.  Is this spring? The thought of light and possibilities? Is this the promise?

What do you think? Do you get inspired as the weather gets warmer?

did I get the wrong fortune cookie?

For Valentine's Day my DH and I went out to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate our anniversary.  Yes, we did get married on February 14--very romantic and it makes it hard to forget our anniversary. The food was good--not great--but there was plenty of it and it was a restaurant we wanted to try. At the end of the meal our fortune cookies came. I reached for one--my DH lets me choose first--it read "Love conquers all." Very sweet and romantic.  Perfect for the day. Then he opened his up--it read  "Your hard work will pay off grandly." Oh if that one had been mine. Now in truth I am not a huge believer in Chinese fortune cookies but I will take luck wherever I can find it.

For the last two months I have been preparing for the Baltimore Craft Show. Now, you might think that after having done this Show since 1985 I would have the rhythm down pat. Shouldn't I know exactly what to do--when? But this show is always different. One year there was a huge blizzard that shut down the city. That of course was the year that I had splurged and gotten a larger booth. Ouch!!! The first Gulf War happened another show. One time a couple couldn't decide which quilt they wanted so they ordered both--that was sweet. Some times I barely make expenses.

For those who don't know, the Baltimore Craft Show is HUGE--physically there are about 700 exhibitors. They say it is the largest juried indoor craft show in the country. Rows and rows of booths each competing for your attention. Sure there is some work that feels duplicative but there are also some amazing artists there. You can't possibly see the whole show in a day or even two. And if you have walked all the aisles your feet ache--your mind is swarming with so much to see.  If you are in the area it is worth seeing--advance tickets and more information here.

Each year I have friends who decide that the show is too expensive to do for the gain--the hours are too long, too many days, too exhausting. Friends whose work I most like and respect. Friends who have found that their work is so good that it does not need the marathon that is Baltimore. This makes me more nervous. I wake up with pre-craft fair dreams. The set-up from hell. The impossible location. Surely you must have these dreams?

I calm down and remind myself the trick is to get enough of these customers to visit my booth, to remember where exactly my booth is--I am Booth 1122 in case you are interested--and make a purchase. I want my booth to look dramatic. Different from last year--after all those who loved my work last year may well already have the quilt they want. But not too different--I also want those who have been thinking about a quilt to come back and see if I have just the work for them. I update my web site with some of the new work--check it out. http://www.annbrauer.com

I do have my new large quilt.  My photographer says it is regal. Royal. Elegant. I can see it on a bed or on a large wall. I can see it made smaller for particular spaces--or in different colors. There is a lot I want to do with these piece.  But I haven't shown it before. It is different from my previous work. I worry. Will it find a happy home? Is this a good direction?

Will I tire of looking at it and put up rainbows of summer instead? Remember in the past I have worried that rainbows of summer dominates my booth. But maybe in Baltimore I need that power--I don't know. See this blog post here.

Summer sky is back from a show. That could be an interesting quilt for one side wall. It has a different feeling--is it too different? Not sure. Is it too blue?  It would look great with rainbows of summer but then maybe the booth is too blue. Oh so many decisions. What do you think?

A couple of smaller wall hangings on the other side. Not sure which ones yet. Maybe autumn afternoon and colors of autumn? Maybe last light? So many choices.

I could add a blue quilt--maybe midnight. Or blue hills.  I haven't shown rainbow hills here yet. Certainly it is a dramatic piece.

But is it too much? So many decisions. So many possibilities. I want to make a quilt that will be just right but I also need to make the smaller pieces that may sell. The potholders and pillows. The runners and placemats. Oh I wish I had more time to make work. But I also want the show to be today. I want to be set up and selling. Seeing how the crowd reacts. 

Will my hard work pay off? Did I get the wrong fortune cookie?  And you--do you get anxious before a show? How do you decide what to show? Do you plan your booth over and over in your mind? Do you have any tips?

Crossing the same river twice

OK--today I am working on a new challenge. You see, I have these potential customers who have kept a postcard of my quilt autumn afternoon for a couple of years. They think it would look great in their new family room and their interior decorator agrees. So what's the problem you might ask?

Well of course the original autumn afternoon has been sold for some time now. I tried making another one--it came out a different from the original although it also has a happy home. And the potential customers  do want to see the quilt at the Baltimore Craft Show before they order it. OK--so what's the problem?

Let me refresh your memory. This is the quilt autumn afternoon as it appears on the postcard. Note how the black makes it pop.

And this is the image of autumn afternoon as it appears on my website. See how different it looks here. Almost unrecognizable with the white background.

So different is the effect that I had to point out the quilt to the customer. OK--but how did I make it? I study the quilt. Look at the fabrics that I used. The colors of the fabrics that I do have are a bit brighter than the images of the quilt. Will the customers like it if it brighter?  I have to try to get into the mindset I had when I was making the quilt.  The color palette is actually quite eccentric.  An interesting combination of rust and magenta with gold highlights. Lots of specific colors and fabrics that dominate the quilt.

And of course I no longer have most of these fabrics. Sigh.

Now I know there are "artists" who claim one should never remake a piece. Indeed there was a long discussion about just this topic on the SAQA forum several months ago. Their argument is that each piece should be unique. Quite frankly, I disagree with them. I think it is much harder to replicate the feeling and look of a piece. Moreover I don't think you genuinely know a piece until you have made it more than once. If I were in charge I would probably have everyone remake pieces until you have learned all that a piece of art work has to teach you.

I think of Georgia O'Keefe. How many times did she paint the jack-in-the-pulpit before she got it right? Although I do think she destroyed many of these earlier works. But what about Monet--so many water lilies, so many bales of straw--each one slightly different? Or Josef Albers--the colors changed but the design remained the same. There are lots of examples out there.

I do a bit of thinking about the phrase "crossing the same river twice". Interesting expression. Apparently it was actually used in the Disney movie Pocohantas in which she sings:

"What I love most about rivers is you can't step in the same river twice; The water's always changing, always flowing"

I always read in a blog post by a writer named Rosemary Hannah who notes that when she is asked to revisit a style of writing that she used to do she wonders if her experiences with her newer style will help her make it fresh or will she just be repeating herself. You can read it here. An interesting question that I associate with since I too will be adding my experiences in making this quilt.

But now enough procrastinating. What do you think? Do you ever try to cross the same river twice?

sometimes size does matter

Recently I have been thinking about large quilts and the works of art that have inspired them. It began when I got yet another call for submissions by the Studio Art Quilt Association. Now those who have been following my blog know that I have a love/hate relationship with SAQA and the "art quilt" movement in particular. I think they do have done a reasonable of defining an art quilt movement and certainly the individuals who founded and direct the group are hard working kind people. But I also think in their efforts there is a push to a homogeneity that hurts the movements.

This time they are seeking quilts for a series of presentations about what an art quilt is--a noble and worthy cause. Some of the work will be permanently included in a museum. I would love to participate but yet again they request that the quilts be no bigger than 12 inches on any one side.  Twelve inches!! Can you imagine what a 12 inch section of my work looks like? Even my placemats are bigger than 12 inches on any one side. Garrumph!! And this is not the first time they have made similar size restrictions. I would love to participate in their annual auction but again 12 inches!!!

To be fair to them, SAQA says this size makes it easy to ship the pieces by Priority Mail. A reasonable concern but.... And this is a big BUT. If the purpose of this particular exhibit is to educate the public as what the contemporary art quilt movement is about, then shouldn't they make arrangements to show art quilts in all the sizes they come in. Now they do have opportunities that I can participate in--the portfolio is just images. Some shows take work of other sizes. But if the purpose of this particular show is to define what an art quilt is aren't they doing a disservice to the art quilt community by having these size limitations? Shouldn't art be the size it is meant to be?

Now don't get me wrong--there are also many smaller pieces that I love. Think of those wonderful Persian miniatures--each so complete and perfect. Can you imagine them enlarged to room size--wouldn't they just be cartoonish? Or the delicate perfect etchings of Rembrandt? Clearly they need this intimacy. There are even miniature quilts so perfect in their stitchery that I come back to them again and again. Made larger they would just be another patchwork quilt.

But right now I am drawn to the power of large--or should I say LARGE--works of art. I think of the  paintings by Morris Louis--huge fearless sweeps of color and movement. Jackson Pollock--so much color and detail. The design apparent from a distance. The installations of Eva Hesse--rows of similar structures dominating the room. One structure by itself is almost trivial. It is the group that adds the power to the piece. Even the Cluny Tapestries at the Cloisters--don't the Lady and the Unicorn have to be larger than life?  

My mind returns to Sky Above the Clouds IV by Georgia O'Keefe--have you ever seen it? Rows and rows of clouds. She had flown above the clouds and tried to capture the feeling and expanse of the sky.  I reread how she painted it in a garage--working nonstop to get it finished before the temperature got too cold.  The work itself is 96 x 288 inches.  That's 8 feet by 24 feet if my math is right. It is so big that when she first framed the canvas with 2x4s--it broke the 2x4s. It is so big they had to make a special door to get it into the Art Institute of Chicago. Wonderful. It is so big that they couldn't move it to San Francisco to show it there. Now, it's been a while since I have seen it--my parents used to live in southern Illinois and I would take the train to visit them A stop over to visit the painting was always a delight. I remember looking at it and feeling dwarfed by it. You can see a picture of it here.

One of those pieces tucked away in the back of my mind.Usually I don't remember exactly what it looks like--but always I am trying to capture the splendor and enormity of the sky that it helped inspire in me.  Just consider prairie sky--it was 96 x 110 inches.

Prairie dawn--a mere 96x96 inches.

Or even endless sky:

Now endless sky is actually only 45 x 45 inches. Not as big as the others but just the right size for this quilt. It conveys the feeling that I want of the sky reaching up forever. Expanding overhead and seeming to dwarf the viewer. It is this power--the power of the repetition of the blocks, the power of the size of the quilt and the fabrics that can be individually examined but then become part of the canvas of the quilt that is important to me. Can you see the influence of O'Keefe in this quilt?

What would these pieces look like if I just included a 12 x 12 inch sample--a mere nothing. Just piecing, patchwork. The individual blocks I use are 8 x 8 inches. Not even worth showing you.

And this is where I think that SAQA by having rules about the size of quilts is creating a status quo of their own. Doesn't this result in work that often looks the same? Now clearly some quiltmakers work in smaller sizes and this requirement is easy for them. Others have work where small sections can stand alone. Or they make test pieces that are small. For them it is probably not an issue.

So why I don't just make a piece that is 12 x 12 with the same amount of detail?  Even if I could technically do it--and I don't think the cotton fabrics that I like would allow it--the piece still would not have that all encompassing power of a large quilt that takes over the space with its size. Changing the size of my quilts--even if I am going from 45 x 45 to 96 x 96--requires me to rethink everything since size is important to my work. The feeling is different. The power is different.

Recently there has been a lot of discussion of the role of SAQA in the art quilt world. In a recent lecture Jane Dunnewold mentions that the quilt world is dominated by women. While there is nothing wrong with that--and indeed a lot right with that--doesn't the requirement of small intimate pieces reinforce this trend and the homogeneity of the art quilt world. Check out her essay here. And yes, probably one of the reasons I love the O'Keefe work is that it was made by one very determined powerful woman.

Quilts also can have this power and importance. Shouldn't SAQA in its effort to define what is an art quilt also try to capture this feeling? After all, if commentators are worried about the art quilt movement becoming something more isn't this precisely where they should focus? Not on sections of the quilt or intimate samplers--not that there is anything wrong with them--but without the larger works can the entire scope of the movement be seen.  If we are going to take ourselves seriously as artists shouldn't the art be the size it is meant to be??

It seems to me there are lots of ways they could do this--they could include larger quilts in their presentation. Sure, it might cost more for shipping but that might be worth it. At the very least they could create a supplemental Power Point presentation. For the Niche Awards I got to send a framed 8 1/2 x 11 image of my quilt rainbow hills. Another easy and inexpensive solution.

What do you think? Do you make large pieces? Do you find a difference between the intimate studies and the larger pieces? Do you feel the size of the work can add to the power of the work?

favorite blogs and snow days never get me down

A snow day--stuck at home. The house is as clean as it is going to get. I have finished shoveling, finished all my correspondence. My studio alas is eight miles away--down the mountain. Tomorrow I will venture out and get some work done but today I get to explore the internet. A treat and a richness that normally I don't have time to enjoy. So let me put up a favorite image of my quilt moonlight and share some of my finds.

 

Where to start--there is so much out there.  I go first to Maureen Doallas's fabulous blog. She is a poet, a writer, a friend of many artists who has such a lust for life and the larger questions that are asked. Her blog is full of poems, questions, facts. For instance I read about what could be the world's smallest periodic table--what fun. Check it out here. http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/

As she says--quoting Mark Twain "When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear
and life stands explained." Isn't that wonderful? Of course she finds a lot of other fabulous blogs.

For instance I can't resist reading about sun halos on Deborah Barlow's blog http://slowmuse.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/winter-light-parsed-or-not/ She is currently spending lots of time examining how we live--what a great question that is. There are lots of reviews of artists--especially older artists and she also has so many great links to other blogs.  Can I resist the blog about Thriving in a Desert--aboriginal paintings from western Australia? Oh it is wonderful. http://thrivinginthedesert.blogspot.com/  Or there are the great architectural pictures on the Eyecandy blog.  http://eyecandy-webcandy.blogspot.com/  At ColorChunks I find North Korean posters which are absolutely amazing. http://www.colorchunks.blogspot.com/

I could go on forever. But then I see the familiar name of Nancy Natale and her fabulous Art in the Studio blog. http://artinthestudio.blogspot.com/ Nancy is an artist making abstract paintings in encaustic, oil and water. It turns out she used to work across the river from my studio--I am sure I met her at the local deli at some point. Now she works in a town just south of me. It is a small world. Her work is wonderful too as is her new studio.


And this reminds me to check out Joanne Mattera's blog and her Marketing Mondays. So much wonderful advice there.  This time I was delighted to see she had a new post on the show Baby, It's Cold Outside at the Kenise Barnes Fine Art Gallery in Larchmont, NY. The pictures she provided were fabulous--there is such wonderful work in the show. Do check it out http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/2011/01/one-from-hearth.html  What a treat. For more inspiration I loved the It's a Plane series of posts. So many different ways of thinking of planes and surfaces--my mind is spinning with potential quilts. http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/2011/01/its-plane-part-3-of-3.html

Well it is almost time to work on dinner--I think I will make a lemon meringue pie. Yummy. But first I have to check out the new Google Art Project. http://www.googleartproject.com/ Have you been there yet--they have wonderful images of some of the art in museums from around the world as well as shots of the layouts of some of the museums themselves.  Check out some of the work at the Museum Kampa in Prague--wonderful pieces. The Starry Night by Vincent VanGogh is at the MOMA Museum. You can enlarge whatever areas of the picture you want to really study the brush strokes. Looking at my moonlight quilt, I bet you can figure out why I like it. After browsing all the art displayed on the site--and there is a lot of it, you can then set up your own "art gallery" of your personal favorites. Which would you like to have? Which have you seen?  I could (and probably will) spend hours here.

What fun. Have you checked out these sites? What other blogs and web sites do you consider must visits? What can you add to my list?






So much here. When will I have enough time to examine all of them?

the quilts of Ann Brauer--February news

As I sit typing this letter, we are just starting to get the snow storm that is sweeping across the country. Did I tell you that I am already tired of snow? Yes, I know it is beautiful--I have had some great snow shoes through the woods--so magical. I have watched the moonlight twinkle on the snow--now that is truly gorgeous. But right now I am getting a bit tired of it.  There are only 46 days, 10 hours and 28 minutes but who's counting.

When I can get in to the studio I am busy preparing for the Baltimore Craft Show February 24-27. I love this show. It is the largest quality indoor craft show in the country. There is so much to see here--long rows of artists--some with very practical work and some whose imagination and skill will stun you. To get more information and purchase advance tickets you can go to http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1046115961?ref=ebtn1 . My booth is 1122. I have just finished a wonderful new large quilt--I can't wait until I can get an image taken of it to show you--though you can read about it on my blog: http://www.annbrauer.blogspot.com

Meanwhile my quilt daybreak is in the No Holds Barred Show at the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA. It is lovely show with work from the Studio Art Quilt Association members throughout the New England region. For further information you can go to: http://www.nequiltmuseum.org And my quilt rivers of autumn is showing at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY--http://www.quiltmuseum.org.

And when I am not snow bound, you can usually find me working in my studio--though call first just to check on it.

Here is a picture of my quilt: colors of my garden to warm you up on this wintery day.

What do you think? How much snow have you had?