Upcoming Exhibits - Houston and Chandler

Lots of excitement in the weeks ahead, as my work will be on display in some wonderful venues.  The center of the quilt universe will be in Houston, TX for Quilt Market, October 27 - 29, and The International Quilt Festival,  November 1 - 4.   The invitational Studio Art Quilts Associates exhibit “Seasonal Palette” will be unveiled at the Festival, including my work “The Organic Landscape”.  The exhibit will hang in a special hard wall gallery space. Each quilt will be accompanied by a gallery book with pictures, text, and samples detailing the process by which each artist created their work.  The roster of artists involved in this project is pretty fabulous, and it should be an outstanding exhibit!  There will also be a catalogue available, and gallery talks will take place Friday, November 2nd at 11:00 and Saturday, November 3rd at 2:00.

I’ll put “The Organic Landscape” up on my website after the debut, but for now there’s a teaser detail, above, and you can track back the work in progress by clicking the Seasonal Palette tab at the top of the blog. 


Also at Houston, my Columbine will be part of the “In Full Bloom” Exhibit.  There’s a lot of wonderful texture in this one, with cyanotypes on silk, and silk, cotton, and wool patchwork.  Like most textile works it is best appreciated in person so I am delighted to have this opportunity to share it.
 

My Watt & Shand #9 will be part of the “Tactile Architecture” Exhibit.  All three exhibits will travel on the  Quilt Festivals in Cincinnati, OH and Long Beach CA in 2013.

Watt & Shand #9 is also included in the feature article on this series, The Structures in the October issue of The Quilt Life magazine, on news stands now. 


My Houston cup runneth over with the inclusion of two of my macro photographs in “The Quilters Eye” exhibit.  I’m keeping them under wraps for the moment as well by showing a similar photo, above, but they were previously published on my Facebook and Instagram accounts.   Instagram is my newest passion; if you are also there, feel free to follow me @suereno.  I post lots of insects, flowers, landscapes, and architecture shots, and get boundless inspiration from the beauty of the images that I scroll through each day in my feed. 


I am equally excited and honored that my Squirrel and Locust is part of “Art Quilts XVII: Integrating a Paradox”, opening Nov. 2, 2012  and running through Jan. 19. 2013 at the  Chandler Center for the Arts, Chandler AZ.  This is a premier venue, and again I am in the company of some amazing fiber/quilt artists.  Stella Belikiewicz has done a excellent blog post about the exhibit; you can read and enjoy it  on her blog, The Art of Inclusion.  Thanks for your work in putting this together, Stella!

Reed Run Nature Preserve Hike

The weather was just perfect for hiking, so we headed out to a perennial local favorite, the Reed Run Nature Preserve, part of the Lancaster County Conservancy.  The trailhead is former farmland that is being managed on a transition back to native woodland.  I had my macro lens handy, and captured this shot of a Canadian thistle seed pod:

A portion of the farmland is being used for experimental chestnut plantings in association with the American Chestnut Foundation,  as part of the quest to breed a blight resistant American chestnut. There are other saplings and young trees mixed in the plantings, such as this hawthorn, with ripe fruits and impressively wicked looking thorns.

Approaching the mature woodlands, we spotted a log covered in small button mushrooms.

In the bottomland the trail follows the meanderings of Reed Run, a small  gurgling stream, lined with patches of pawpaw trees.

Several years ago I made an art quilt about Reed Run, using pawpaw leaves for the imagery.  It remains one of my personal favorites.  It’s very textural, with silk, wool, and cotton that are heavily stitched, and it’s embellished with beads and semi-precious stones that reference clouds and the streambed.  It’s a quiet and tranquil piece.

The trail winds up the hill, and a turn reveals the Balance Rock.

I love its shape and semi-precarious perch.

In 2006 I made a small piece, Balance, that I felt remained very true to the experience of the granite in the the late season sunlight.

A bit further uphill, and the trail reaches an unnamed overlook, marked by twin pines.

It’s a good spot to pause and enjoy the view out over the Susquehanna River.  I was eating an apple when I spotted this:

I didn’t have time to change to a telephoto lens, but I hope you can still tell that it’s a bald eagle!  I’ve been hanging out around the river my entire life, but this was my first eagle spotting.  It was swooping to and fro, presumable scanning for fish, and the white head and tail were unmistakable.  I was just thrilled to see this evidence of their comeback that I’ve been reading about.

I switched back to the macro lens  to capture something considerable smaller and more earthbound:

Switching over the the Conestoga Trail, we headed to another favorite spot, the House Rock overlook.  I never get tired of this view, captured here with a fisheye lens:

The View from House Rock has also served as inspiration:

I hope that wherever you might find yourself, you have a chance to get outside and experience the world around you .  Thanks for reading and commenting.

Silk Mill #3 - Work in Progress

With Silk Mill #1 and Silk Mill #2 finished, I still had some great images from my photos shoots of the former Ashley and Bailey Silk Mill that I wanted to work with.  I remain deeply fascinated by the idea of a structure that is in transition and partially open to the elements, where the blue sky shows through the empty portals of the windows.  I chose a photo that I thought beautiful, and felt had a lot of potential for expressing my enthusiasm.

I love the strong lines and vertical thrust of this image, and fooled around with it digitally until I had reached this black and white rendering, which I had converted into a thermofax screen.

I used dark brown textile paint to screen the image onto cotton fabric.  I like the stark, graphic simplicity of the images on plain white fabric.  I really love the movement and emotive potential of the image screened on fabric that I had first painted with earthy, brick red mottling.

I also reduced the initial photo and had it printed as a repeat on silk yardage by Spoonflower.  I put it all up on the design board and lived with it for a bit while I contemplated further design possibilities and color schemes.