Finally getting these to where I can spell words. However, these are actually the only letters I have enough of to do so. This will be the background for a stencil to be added hopefully this weekend.
Clearly legibility isn’t this style’s strong suit, but I can live with it for a repeated phrase like this. If I ever do longer texts it’s something I’ll have to manage. Perfect for ransom notes though.
-JD
First things: I’ve started a Tumblr to post some of the pieces I make that will go into future quilts, and other progress shots.
This is a test of work I’ve been doing with stencils. I can use individual letter stencils to then create words and more.
Towards that end, here are 1000 Es that I created.
More after the jump. Read more »
I put this together this weekend to try to use up some fabric I had left over, to help make room for other fabric that Toni kindly donated.
I’m not sure if I’m done with it or will continue expanding it.
-JD
This last week I’ve been collaborating with co-Darteboardist Toni to combine some of my collage methods with her collage forms. Here’s a couple results. These are still very early in the process, but I think they have promise.
A similar, second version of this couldn’t be finished on time. We decided this is good enough, but the color choices obscure the form. Fortunately, you can see the form better in this smaller experiment with collaged fabric:
Here is the initial design (shifted into stark black on white):
-JD
This weekend I finished working with the quilts I posted last week.
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Before starting these I had been having trouble getting started with these types of quilts. For a few weeks I’d had several false starts, or completely partial pieces that I wasn’t comfortable using on their own. Finally one night I began idly working the green part of this piece:
Each piece is 26″ x 26″, acrylic and paper collage quilted together.
I actually got a good 18″ x 18″ of it done. The next night I realized it was too green, as I mentioned last week, but the process had put me back in the flow of the process. The form in these is one I’d been meaning to return to. What followed was a relatively rapid process of completing the 3 pieces, cutting them up Friday night and finishing them Saturday.
In the past weeks when I mentioned I was making collages as materials to use in other collages, these are those other collages. Ironically, of the 5 collages used in these, only 2 have been shown on d’Arteboard. All of these are 8.5″ x 11″, mixed media.
Along with the collages, there are also quilts and sewn paintings among the materials that went into these. Those that contain no representation but the formula “A ≠ A” are presented in landscape, while any piece set into a collage with portrait alignment was kept that way so that the intrusion would be more apparent. If it’s still not apparent, though, I’m fine with that.
Now would be a good time to post an artist’s statement for these, but I’m afraid I haven’t written it yet. I may try to write it once I’m better caffeinated, though. I’ll post an update at the top if I do. After the jump, 7 more.
I was laid up this weekend with a twisted ankle so decided to make a quick book for this.
In a hurry, I went to my standby, the target, with a line through it that rotated clockwise over the course of 6 pages. I hadn’t made a book comprised of actual premade quilts before, so this was a nice exercise. The whole thing is about 8″ x 8″ I think. Maybe 7″. It’s made of Acrylic on Canvas, drawings and pre-printed collage materials sewn together.
Here’s the progression:
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I’ll post larger images after the jump.
Here’s the covers. I had to take these while at work.:
Front Cover
Back Cover
Ready to ship. In theory. In practice I had to buy a huge sticker that covered up my handwriting and got smudged and may not have fit right.
So there’s a healthy chance this never ends up anywhere.
Bigger images of the inside after the jump.
Read more »
These combine fabric, paintings and collage together, which is an important element for me to learn with what I’m intending to do going forward. I don’t care if they’re pretty or not, they’ve already served their purpose
This is a standard, poorly shaped mini quilt, but the center is cut out and replaced with a ring of paper collage on canvas with a ring of painted canvas in the center.
This is 2 painted strips sewn together with the center of the above quilt sewn into it’s middle. The quilted part is a full 3 layer quilt. I added the binding just to fit in. Hastily.
This is the collage on canvas mixed with the ring from the painted canvases, with another quick binding to fit in.
-JD
I just realized I need to reshoot this at a better exposure but it’s too late tonight. There’s an uneven shadow over it. Oh well.
Today is my Grandmother’s birthday. My Grandmother is a wonderful woman. My sister runs a blog about her, transcribing the love letters my Grandfather wrote to Grandma. My grandmother herself recently wrote her memories of the day her father was murdered. It’s still a very powerful subject for her.
My grandmother
4 feet x 7 feet
For her birthday, and to practice some of the basics of quilting on a larger scale, I made her this blanket. The other side is a nice green The binding is white, and is hard to see in the photograph. I’m terrified it’s going to fall apart in 3 weeks but it seems pretty sturdy so far, and the binding is still held together with pins
Details after the leap.
Read more »
I’m working on some new stuff for a show next month 
But here’s an old collage I’ve been thinking of a lot lately while working on quilt piece for the show.
These quilts are each 3″ x 3″ or smaller. I need to practice before getting to the major task of quilting and binding the larger quilt I’m making so these are good exercises.
These are bigger on your screen than they are in life. My rush job to scan and editing last night didn’t do them much justice either.
Not much decoration here, but the binding is hand sewn.
Machine applique, with machine binding.
My first attempt at hand applique. Not quite circular, but whatever, I’ll get better, and the small size made it more challenging. This will be hand bound but is currently held with pins.
-JD
(Get it? Minnie? Mini? I’m hilarious?)
If you saw my post last week, I created a blank book as a test of book making methods. It is the exception to the rule of judging a book by its cover, since that was all I really was trying to create.
In order to fill the book, I’m going to try to send it to people to trick them into filling it for me. In order to convince them to do so, though, I figured I should add a few pages myself, so I make a couple very different quilts for the cause:
This is the first page. I think it’s very welcoming.
“Youre Wrong” 4″ x 7.5″
This is a play on my tendency to get into arguments on the internet. I even got into a minro altercation regarding my omission of an apostrophe. The background is made of quilted paintings, the words are made of arty gallery mailers moutned on canvas.
For my next trick, I made my first ever fabric quilt, with 2 sides and binding.
Front:
“Quilt 1″ 4.5″ x 8″
Technically it’s awful (note the corners of the shapes don’t line up and I had no idea what I was doing with the binding), but it’s my first try, so get over it.
Back:
-JD
This weekend I taught myself how to bind a book and the not hard to learn practice of Applique. Both resulted in completely random works of art that I have no clue what to do with.
First, the book:
This is the piece I’m more proud of, though I made it second. I sewed together some paintings for the cover and left 32 “pages” of canvas blank inside. I like it because it looks like the Necronomicon. I wish I had some good incantations to write inside it. I might actually make one of these illustrating an HP Lovecraft story in the future.
Here’s a pickture of the inside:
The circles aren’t actually attached, I left everything blank but wanted the photo to pretend something was there. The canvas is primed with acrylic medium, so can be used anyway canvas can be used- except for further quilting. The binding prevents that. My ultimate goal is to bind books of thematically linked quilts. We’ll see how that goes.
Here it is open:
My other foray, into Applique, was largely done while drinking during the NBA all star game. That might explain how it turned into a very un-ironic portrait of Monta Ellis.
This thing looks like something a 10 year old kid would hang in his room after his aunt made it for him. I woke up the next day half amused and half horrified by it. The applique worked well enough, but WTF?
-JD
Getting this image has been a challenge. Ideally, I’d restretch it and photograph it in better conditions.
The intent of this piece is a bit of a pun. I’ve been thinking about the difference between ‘pure formalism” v. “Conceptual art,” for instance. These have been topics on twitter lately, and while I have a lot to say this is an early stab at it in the form of what I’m jokingly calling ‘Conceptual Formalism.” The “Spheres” in the title are actually the formula to determine the volume of a sphere (4/3 pi r^30) visible, but not overpowering on the face of the quilt. Spheres are one of the fundamental ‘forms” you must know if you are going to represent things in 3 dimnsions. As a result, you have the formal object being represented by one of it’s definitions, a la Joseph Kosuth. yadda yadda, it’s mainly a pun.
“Spheres” 26″ x 40″, Acrylic and Collage on Canvas, Quilted. (I may restretch this to 24″ x 40″)
The process of photographing has been problematic. I didn’t properly fit the frame, meaning I had to split open part of it, where I’ll tighten it up again later. The piece is busy enough. It didn’t need more ripples and lighting problems. The result of all this is I’m not too happy with what you see, though the quilt itself is fine by me. Though still busy.
I’m learning the need to really start planning these things ahead of time.
I don’t know if this is far too much or good in part because of that.
-jd
This is sort of a failure.
The idea was to paste magazine pages on canvas then see if I could quilt them like normal. The problem is that despite my best efforts, the pages wrinkled up in a manner that’s ultimately unnaceptable. You can even see it without looking at the detail.
I don’t mind the large scale, overall appearance, but I also don’t think I conveyed the concept that well. I realized that I can mount the pages to bristol flat, then mount the bristol to canvas and sew it, so I’ll likely be using that method from here on out. With that in mind and the other problems, I’ll probably think this through and try it again in the near future.
Detail after the jump. Read more »
My sewing machine died this week. Apparently it had been stored in a cold wet garage prior to my getting it. I took it to the vet and they put it down. But I traded in it’s corpse for a new one Saturday, then put this together to try it out.
“Nope” 24″ x 24″ Acrylic and Canvas, Quilted
If this looks a lot like last week’s quilt, it’s because it was made with many of the same component pieces. However, this one took a lot more work to make. The pieces are smaller and I tried a lot of new things, like building sheets of small scraps to build into sheets I could cut into patterns. And obviously letters and, minimally, working text into my work. I’ve been told to be more conceptual. I still have more to learn, there are some ripples, but I’m moving forward and that’s all that really interests me.
These color schemes kind of annoy me. I may change direction on that front soon.
Detail after the jump. Read more »
I made this this weekend as an exercise to remind myself how to make art after being too busy or otherwise occupied for the last few months.
“Circle Quilt” Acrylic on Canvas, Quilted, 22″ x 22″
I haven’t even had time to stretch this. It’s a quilt of a bunch of paintings I made for other things.
Detail shot after the jump. Read more »
I’m still teaching myself how to sew with paintings. This is my first attempt to use a standard pattern, using the canvases I had available. I think it’s alright. A good frame would benefit the final presentation. Not my greatest work either, but lessons were learned and I don’t feel the need to dismantle it. Ultimately, that’s a success.
“Triangle Stripes” 28.5″ x 28.5″ (20″ x 20″ hung square), Acrylic on canvas
Detail shot after the jump:
*UPDATE* New photograph uploaded.
Last week fellow d’Arte boardist Toni Tiller was in town and taught me some basic tips on how to use a heavy duty sewing machine my friend Sam had given me.
“4 Quilts” Acrylic on canvas, quilted 24″ x 24″
Yesterday morning I started with a drawer of unused scraps of former paintings and managed to make four 12″ x 12″ “quilts” that I then bound together. All in a day, which is kind of shocking compared to how long things usually take.
Unfortunately, I still need someone to show me how to photograph things better. No matter how much I tried to color correct this it still has too much contrast. The whole piece is much more muted and soft in person.
Obviously I have much to learn and allowed myself to make a lot of mistakes I was aware of as I was making them, but the exercise was to get myself repetitions so I became familiar with the machine. Next I’ll take on better planned out designs, curves and such, and slowly build up my competence. Meanwhile I’ll be able to use these techniques with the painting, safety-pinning, collage and wood work I already use in my work.
All in all I’m excited to see where this goes. I’ll post a detail shot after the jump, though it is similarly hampered by poor photography skills (and the fact that I only had a half hour to photo it before having to go to bed).
Read more »
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