Exhibit Day at the Surface Design Conference

Exhibitions at the Belger
A wonderful warehouse space in itself, complete with old fashioned freight elevator and loading dock for trucks. Here's a list of all the shows I attended.

Stitches in Time: The Art of Ray Materson: narrative embroideries that reveal a poignant story of renewal through creative work. A fifteen year sentence for drug related armed robberies, unraveling socks for embroidery on new boxer short fabric, minute stitching. Creative work became a source of power within a prison community. Importance of support for prison art programs.

• Surface Matters: SDA Members' Show featured 18" square format pieces by 200 members. This show included a wide array of member styles, competencies and techniques and allowed all members an opportunity to participate in a conference exhibition. (image at left and below. Shown: Stone Silence by Luanne Rimel, cotton flour sack cloth dishtowels; digitally printed, collaged, layered, stitched.)
  

El Anatsui, Three Pieces, 2009. This Ghanaian artist and teacher at the University of Nigeria, is now world known for large scale installation pieces using aluminum (from cans, etc) and wire. These are powerful, awe-inspiring pieces.





Jennifer Angus, Small Wonder, Secrets of a Collector, Nova Scota native now teaching at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, installations using dead insects from around the world, choosing those only in abundant supply. These mirror the beetle art of 19th century.

Alice Kettle, A Pause in the Rhythm of Time, from the UK: large-scale figurative machine embroideries, dyed backgrounds. Also collaged fabric portraits, very cubist, embroidered. Astonishing work.

Elsewhere in Kansas City:

Teresa Cole, Full Circle, another strong show at the Blue Gallery, relief & screen print on hand-dyed tarleton, BFK Rives paper. Trained as a fiber artist, now a professor of printmaking.

Teresa Cole's Full Circle, -she trained as a fiber artist and now teaches printmaking. Printed tarleton, below.

Also notable:

• Jerry Bleem shows that provocative sculptural forms can involve materials of humble origins, such as the staple. Bleem gave a stunning performance in a lecture later in the conference.
• Daniella Woolf, Away with Words, featured encaustic mixed media works of great interest to surface designers with more of a mixed media bent.
  
• Memory Cloth, Leslee Nelson's embroidered vintage household linens, Lynda Barry-style.
• Regina Benson, On the Curve, Dimensional Works from Nature's Studio, rusted and discharged fabric in sculptural format. (Byron C Cohen Gallery)
• Landscape with Floating Biology, mixed media installation by weaver Wendy Weiss, & Jay Kramer, Cocoon Gallery at the Arts Incubator.
• Evidently, the Dolphin Gallery's show of Anne Lindberg, Asiatica and others drew gasps of praise- I was unable to see it.
  
• I would have liked to see the International Student Show, Points of Departure, at Pi Gallery but didn't make it.
• Likewise, HEather Allen-Swarttouw's Transition in the Community Christian Church chose several themes executed in different media (fiber, clay, etc) and was said to be a strong show. When I tried to attend, the Church was closed.
  
• In the trunk show later that evening, Mary Hark's indigo and walnut dyed papers.

my view from my piece of pie: can't escape the spool of thread!

Day One at the 2009 Surface Design Conference

Regional Meet-and-Greet breakfasts highlight the many accomplished longtime members and new attendees at this event. Morning keynote speaker Harmony Susalla, gave a fascinating talk, "Organic Cotton: Beyond Oatmeal and Granola Colors." Susalla is a designer of colorful, interesting printed fabrics on organic cottons. She cites many reasons for choosing organic cotton: cotton production takes up 3% of farmland and 25% of insecticides used globally. Worker injuries are legion. In a nod to what consumers will actually buy, she uses synthetic dyes to develop fabric designs with striking color. Check out more statistics on her website. By the way, she mentioned that in the last four years, one in three textiles jobs has disappeared in this country.

After a tasty lunch with Iowa fiber sculptor Judy Bales in the inspiring surroundings of the Nelson-Atkins Museum courtyard restaurant (see picture at left), I attended "Creating & Printing Uncommon Surfaces" demonstration by Arizona artist and former art quilter Kathyanne White. This was basically a digital printing demonstration resulting in visually textured surfaces that worked well in books. Fabrics, spun polyester and cheesecloth surfaces were commonly used, all using Golden products. This demo and many of the presentations are being professionally videotaped into DVD format for purchase. This should be a boon for fiber arts groups around the country.

Then came keynote speaker Gerhard Knodel, longtime head of the fiber area and then the graduate program at Cranbrook. His talk focused on reinvention and was enlightening as always. The vendors exhibition opened in the evening following an outdoor picnic dinner; a highlight was handmade sumi-e painting brushes by a Chinese artist.

The Kansas City Art Institute is a lovely, creativity filled school sandwiched between the Kemper Museum of Contemporary American Art (shown below) and the Nelson Atkins Museum. It's a lot of fun to take in various sculptures around campus. Eyes are opened to textures, patterns in new ways.

sculptures and evening at the Kansas City Art Institute

Surface Design Conference, Kansas City

Greetings from the Kansas City Art Institute, where the biennial International Surface Design Association Conference is about to begin. I've been here a number of times already, always with talented, accomplished artists whom I've watched grow and develop over the years. My first year, two of us were trying to wean infants while we came to the conference. Both of us are back for the first time, and those infants are now 24 years old. In the meantime, KCAI is a wonderful place for student creativity, and sculptures abound on the campus, as well as an outdoor walkway of lit up ground squares that change color at night as you walk over them. Cool! Dorm life is interesting- the first time we were not aware the bathrooms were coed. The two middle aged males on our floor moved up one.

The conference consists of multiple sessions on a variety of topics - theoretical, technical, artist-profile, new media, you name it. There's always a day of exhibit openings throughout the city, and this is one of the most stimulating elements for me personally. Look for updates in the coming days.

In the meantime, we also hope to visit the new wing of the Nelson Atkins Museum and its wonderful outdoor sculpture garden. One more view below shows one from the group of sculptures by Magdalena Abakanowicz, a Polish artist who made phenomenal weavings, then haunted sculptures in the 1970s and is now mostly known as a sculptor.

Time for a Road Trip

The Wall Street Journal just posted a piece on traveling the summer "quilt circuit" with all definitions of the word included. That's right, you read it correctly, The Wall Street Journal. Stops Along the Summer Quilt Trail: Major shows highlight the latest work in a booming medium by Meg Cox profiles several types of quilt events across the country.

According an April, 2008 article by Julia Pfaff in Quilters' Newsletter, one in 12 Americans quilts. The most famous and prestigious American exhibition of contemporary art quilts, Quilt National '09 just opened at the Dairy Barn in Athens, Ohio. It's one of the exhibits profiled in The Wall Street Journal. (My work was not accepted this time, but I did participate in the last exhibition, and my piece "A Momentary Place" recently sold after touring.)

Art, airports and the long hours' wait

Last March I passed through the Atlanta airport with several hours to spare. Lodged in the International Terminal, I discovered that each waiting area had permanent installations of work by different artists, many of them regional. All media were represented: artquilts , ceramic, sculpture, mixed media, photography, intaglio prints, drawings, paintings, and children's art. As time goes by and chairs and benches get rearranged by weary travelers, the art surrounding them looks less like an interior designed installation and more like a modestly organized haven for those who wait. Shown at right: Photography/etched metal art, possibly by Vicki Ragan. Apologies- my notes are not complete.

These were remarkable, large-scale portraits by Joni Mabe, combining photography and mixed media items like glitter. The gate "desk" gives a sense of scale. Mabe has made many handmade books and is obsessed with Elvis art, as this link for public broadcasting Atlanta shows.

monoprints and cut out figures by Larry Walker (above)
ceramics and sculptural totems below by a different artist.

Then, some large-scale intaglio cityscape prints (etchings). The installation included detailed descriptions of techniques as well as a framed original etching plate (right.)

And lastly, a grouping of various framed art quilts, the only waiting area devoted to multiple artists.