Upcoming Solo Shows

I'm pleased to announce that I will be exhibiting my work in two solo shows this fall.  First up will be "Fantastic Foliage" at the Jonal Gallery in Columbia, PA, showcasing my botanical work and including "Sycamore", above.  The exhibit statement:

"Fiber artist Sue Reno takes a closer look at the incredible variety of foliage shapes and forms that surround us in the lush environs of Lancaster County. From plants cultivated in her organic garden to the wild vegetation of the woods, she uses a variety of textile surface design techniques to record and interpret the leafy wonders of our world."

It's worth stopping by the gallery just to see the care and attention to detail that the owners  used throughout in renovating the building.  The hardwood floor in the Labyrinth Gallery has been painstaking embossed and stained in a complex pattern--hence the name--and I'm excited to be able to hang my work in such an aesthetically pleasing space.

Next up in October is my "Flora and Fauna" exhibit at the Arts Orientation center of the PA Arts Experience  on 114 N. Prince St., Lancaster, PA, including "Groundhog and Green Bean" (detail above).  The exhibit statement:

 "Fiber artist Sue Reno debuts work from her new series, Flora and Fauna, where she examines in detail animals and plants commonly encountered in Lancaster County. Using digital images of animal skulls combined with cyanotypes, monoprints and vintage textiles, her work explores our relationships with the life forms that share our environment. "

I'll be posting more details about the works included in both shows as they draw closer, including dates and times for the receptions.  And now it's back to work in the studio to prepare.

PNQE--Judge's Choice

I made a quick trip to view the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza in the Philly area on Saturday, where my Fireball won a Judge's Choice ribbon, awarded by Sonya Lee Barrington. You can see I am feeling rather chuffed about it!

Also at the show was Sycamore, which always looks so much better in person--there's a lot of beading and detail that doesn't photograph easily.

I wish I had had more time to explore--there were a lot of great quilts on display, and a huge array of vendors. It seemed like a large crowd of attendees, as well, so perhaps it's a sign that the recession is easing up.

PNQE 2009 Acceptance

Good news in the mail today--both of my entries were accepted for the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza. Both Fireball (full view above, detail below) and Sycamore (full and detail shots further down) will be at the exhibit on September 17-20th.

This show has been at the Farm Show complex in Harrisburg, PA, for the past several years, which was convenient for me, but is moving back to the Philadelphia area this year to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, in Oaks, PA; a bit less convenient for me, but probably a welcome change of venue for many.

I'm excited to have both of these recent works in the same show, and am looking forward to attending.

Hershey and Long Beach

On Sunday I attended Quilt Odyssey in Hershey, PA, where a white glove volunteer was kind enough to take my picture next to my Sycamore. She asked me if I lived in a forest, because that's what my quilt reminded her of, which pleased me enormously! For the record, I live in suburbia, but spend as much time as possible in the woods, and I'm glad that's coming across in my work. It's a difficult quilt to photograph; the contrast of the pink and green seems to confuse point-and-shoot cameras. Below is a better picture, and there are detail shots on my website where you can see the beadwork.

My friend Pat Dolan was at the show a few days earlier, and posted extensively about it on her blog. She concurs with my opinion that this is real gem of a show, not vast in terms of quantity, but excelling in terms of quality. I love Pat's work, in all media, for the keenness of her vision and delicacy of expression--do check it out! She is a very astute observer and interpreter of the wonders of the natural world. I was also delighted to see that Kathy Nida included my Prickly Sow Thistle in her blog post about the International Quilt Festival at Long Beach, CA Kathy's blog is one of my regular reads; her work is so unique and so emotionally honest. I admire the way there's no pretense or attempted manipulation of the viewer's response, it's just her straight-up expression. I got to see one of her pieces at a exhibit in Lancaster a few years ago, and was so impressed.

Prickly Sow Thistle was part of the Celebrate Spring Exhibit at the IQF festival in Chicago, and is now traveling; after Long Beach, it will be going on to Houston.

Quilt Odyssey 09 Acceptance

I'm pleased to announce that Sycamore has been juried into Quilt Odyssey, July 30 - August 2, in Hershey, PA. I like this show because the work is always of such high quality, and it's close enough for me to attend easily.

Mid-Atlantic acceptance 2009

I'm pleased to announce that two of my quilts will be exhibited at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton, VA, Feb. 26 - Mar. 1. It will be the first time Sycamore is on exhibit, and I'm excited to send it out into the world.

It's a large work, 69" wide by 45" high, and a lot of intricate work went into it, including some extensive beadwork. You can track it back as a work in progress by clicking on "Sycamore" on the Labels sidebar at the right.

Also going to Mid-Atlantic is White Mulberry. Both quilts have good colors and a good energetic feel for a springtime show.

New Work - Sycamore

Over the next three days I'm going to be unveiling three new major works I completed earlier this year. (For a sneak peek at all three, go to my website, suereno.com )


Today I am featuring Sycamore. I'm a sucker for large leaves, and make prints of them at any opportunity. This quilt has two cyanotypes printed on cotton on the right, and a heliographic print on the left. I made these prints back in 2005. I like to keep a hand embroidery project around for spare moments while watching tv or waiting around for something, so I worked on embroidering the leaf veins on the three prints from time to time.

In 2007 I had another spasm of inspiration and cut and sewed the Seminole patchwork strips that ended up on both sides of the quilt, after painting some fabrics in the colors I wanted. A little later I made digital prints from an original photo, then made transparencies of the photos and did some small cyanotypes on silk. I also found some raw silk yardage in bright acid green and hot pink that made me very happy.

At this point I had gathered all of what I think of as the components for the work. I didn't have a definite design in mind, I just knew it was important that I have these particular parts for it. I set aside a weekend and worked obsessively putting the top together. That is the really exciting part--I am always a bit surprised at how it turns out, but simultaneously satisfied that this was the only possible configuration.


From here you can track back on the work in progress by clicking on Sycamore under Labels on the right. This is a fairly large quilt--69" wide by 45" high--so the quilting and finish work took some time and effort. The beadwork especially was extensive and time consuming, but very worthwhile. I think it effectively conveys the textural feel I wanted to evoke. I used a lot of large scale, chunky beads made from semi-precious stones and shells, as well as a variety of glass beads.

No matter what my original intentions--here I was going for stately--or my frame of mind while working, my quilts always seem to end up looking very cheerful and encouraging, and this one is no exception.

Step Away From the Beads

Sometimes the tricky part is knowing when to stop. I've been spending all my time, not otherwise taken up by the necessities of life, for the past week adding beads to the Sycamore quilt. I would add some beads, put the work up on the design wall and look at it for a bit, then take it down and add more beads. It's a relatively big quilt, 69" x 45", so it takes a lot of beading to make an impact on a area that large.

I enjoy doing beading, in a somewhat obsessive/compulsive way, despite the difficulty of working on a piece of this size and the havoc it wreaks on my wrist. I'm not impatient about it, and I like watching the patterns unfold. I think in this instance it works very well to convey an impression of the tree bark.

But at some point, I realized the right balance had been achieved, and I put the beads back in their containers and shelved them so I wouldn't be tempted to add more. It's time to move on to other projects.

Binding, Beads, and a Beetle

I've got the binding on the Sycamore quilt:

And I've started on the beading:

It's a fairly large quilt, so it involves a LOT of beading. I don't often do beadwork on a quilt this size, and my wrist and shoulder are reminding me why....But I felt very strongly that it needed it, and it's really adding to the textural effect of the sycamore bark that I'm aiming for. Plus it's a very meditative kind of activity. I'm just focused on which bead should come next, and where it should go. It's very restful.

I've added a Sycamore label on the right so you can bring up the series of posts so far.

And now, apropos of absolutely nothing, a spiffy looking American Carrion Beetle - Necrophila americana- I came across on the path down at the lake this morning.

More Sycamore

I spent most of the weekend hunkered down in the studio, watching the rain pour down outside, and adding stitched texture to the sycamore piece. Here's some quick snapshots showing the results so far.

Sycamore update

We've had lots of lovely rain for the past few days. As a gardener, I never complain about the rain. Even when there's an excess, it is still far preferable to drought conditions. And the timing is good, with all the trees coming into leaf. My world is astonishingly green right now.

But it is too wet to work outdoors, so I'm taking a break from the gardening and working in the studio on my Sycamore piece. I'm at the point were I am planning out what I want to do with the quilting. I'm using the fabulous textures and patterns of sycamore bark as my inspiration. I don't want to replicate it exactly, even if that were possible, but to interpret and reference it with the lines of stitching. It's fun to look closely at the bark patterns and get a feel for their shapes, spacing, and repetition.

I'm starting by defining the larger shapes with perle cotton thread. I lay it on the piece, manipulate it, pin it in place, and then couch it down. It's a bit picky, but very satisfying as the shapes begin to take form.

The Elegant Sycamore

I am an amatuer naturalist, a sort of self-trained botany dilletante. I know a bit about classification, a lot of trivia and fun-facts-to-know-and-tell, and am pretty good at distinguishing what's edible and useful from what's poisonous and not. I can identify many common and some uncommon garden herbaceous plants, native plants, and introduced invasives here in the gardens and woods of Pennsylvania. With trees, it's a bit trickier. When they are in leaf I do well, but in winter, when you need to rely on habitat, size and form, bark, and so forth, I can be at a loss.

I can always spot a sycamore, however, and I suspect most people can. Their branch structure is elegant and unique, but it's the lovely mottled bark that's the dead giveaway. As an added bonus, to my way of thinking, they have large leaves. I'm a sucker for large leaves; I can't resist making heliographic prints of them:

With a big leaf like this, it's important to make the print on a hot sunny day with low humidity, so that the paint wicks out from under the leaf quickly and leaves a good image. You can see I was successful in this instance; the leaf is drying out and lifting up from the fabric, and you can see the outline of it, especially on the right side of the photo.

I'm currently working on a large quilt featuring the sycamore tree, and utilizing the print shown above. Here's the same print as part of the work in progress. The heavier pink lines that define the veining are done with hand embroidery. I do the bulk of my work by machine, but I still enjoy sewing by hand. It's very meditative, and the minute variations from stitch to stitch provide a lot of texture and interest when you get up close to the work.