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Languishing: A New Art Quilt Series

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Back in April I read a New York Times article by Adam Grant titled “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing.” At first I didn’t think it had anything to do with me. As an extreme introvert, after all, I thought I had survived the pandemic mostly intact, even thriving in some ways. But the more I read, the more familiar the words sounded.

Yep. I wasn’t depressed and still had energy, but I was kinda muddling through my days, somewhat aimless. Life became slower. Much slower. My breakfasts dragged on, and my days started progressively later. For over a year, the days of the week just blurred into each other, undistinguishable. I found it hard to remember what day it was, or if a holiday was approaching. Nothing felt urgent. And even though I derived much satisfaction from gardening and making art, finding the motivation to do anything at all became increasingly more difficult.

When the article was published, vaccines finally became more widely available, but I still found it hard to imagine post-pandemic life. I had hope, but was also afraid to hope. So many plans, after all, have gotten cancelled in the previous months, and so many aspirations have come to nothing… I felt a sense of stagnation, some emptiness, too. I was OK, but not quite OK.

Whether we want it to or not, the Pandemic was a watershed for all of humanity. For all of us, there will always be a “before” and an “after.” We’ve all emerged from the experience different in some ways. I am not quite the same person I was back in March 2019. The world had changed, and so did I. Something had shifted inside me. My aspirations for life and art took a turn. My priorities, too. Because beneath the calmness and safety of everyday life that those of us lucky enough to escape sickness experienced, there loomed something terrifying, raw and painful, a deep collective trauma. I, and maybe you, too, feel as if I am suffering from PPSD (Postpandemic Stress Disorder).

After reading Grant’s article, I made a series of four small art quilts to describe that in-between blah feeling, the pandemic brain fog. That space between joy and despair, the sensation of stagnation and emptiness mixed with pain and hope. I chose to use light and dark colors to portray the extremes, and acrylic-painted burnt red fabric to convey both positive and negative feelings.

Red has so many connotations, after all. It can express different feelings, based on personal and cultural preferences. Joy and happiness, but also fear, anger and danger. All feelings we experienced during the pandemic.

The quilts are all 10″ square. I created them out of mixed fabrics with some acrylic paint, and incorporated both machine and hand stitching.

Adam Grant predicted that languishing “might be the dominant emotion of 2021.” When I look around, at my family and friends, I realize that he might be right. Because even now, in mid-summer 2021, with a year and a half of pandemic behind us and with many of us vaccinated, new mutations are still spreading, and the illness just isn’t going away. We want the pandemic to end, even act as if it has sometimes, but the newspapers say otherwise…

Life is slowly going back to a new normal, and hopefully the languishing will diminish as we go back to our routines. For those of us wanting to speed that process, in the meantime, here is some advice.

Finishing Unfinished Projects (UFOs) Part 3: Eclipse Art Quilt

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Inspiration

In August 2017 we were privileged to witness The Great American Eclipse. As noted on Wikipedia, this total solar eclipse was visible within a band of the USA that spanned from the Pacific Coast all the way to the Atlantic, something that hasn’t happened since June 1918, and will not happen again until April 2024.

To see the eclipse, my family traveled from California to Madras, Oregon, where we camped for a few days at an eclipse camp. The overall experience was memorable and positive, and the eclipse itself left a great impression, too. What I remembered most were the multiple hallows around the sun. There were also weird shadows that projected circles within circles on all flat surfaces for the duration of the event.

Beginning

When I came home, the circles stayed with me. Shortly afterwards, I started working on my third-ever art quilt (following Give a Hand and Dare!). At that early stage in my art-quit journey, I was still hung up on the idea that quilts needed to be composed of blocks. And  so, like in the two quilts which preceded it, I started this piece by sewing a nine-patch grid as the background. 

One of my goals for this quilt was to experiment with a color scheme I didn’t normally use. I also wanted to try reverse applique for the first time. After some thought, I created a composition of appliqued and reverse-appliqued circles of various sizes. I positioned them inside squares and rectangles. Then I arranged and rearranged them until I the color balance felt right. Afterwards, I spent hours hand-stitching the pieces on, and also adding embroidered details (a slow, arduous and painful process, as hand-stitching through thick home-décor textiles is not that easy…).

I ended up with a quilt top, which I named Eclipse:

Somehow I didn’t complete this piece, however, and the top ended up in my UFO pile, where it languished for years.

End

When I fished it out in January of this year as part of my UFO-completion goal, I wasn’t sure if I should finish it. My quilt-designing taste evolved since those early quilting days, and if I were to design a quilt around the same idea now, I would probably have done it differently. Eventually, after a long contemplation, I decided to finish it after all, mostly because I had already put so much work into it.

Finding a backing and sandwiching the quilt was easy. Deciding how to quilt it … not so much. I  thought long and hard, but couldn’t come up with a good plan. I consulted wise quilters in one of my Facebook quilting groups. Some people suggested using metallic thread, and I seriously considered doing that. I never used metallic thread, and don’t own any, either. I considered buying some, but realized I probably won’t use it often. And so I decided to stick to thread I already have: my 12-weight solid and variegated threads!

I eventually chose to repeat the theme of circles and sun rays in the quilting as well as in the design. The quilting took a few days and required some re-evaluations along the way, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Here is the finished piece, 23″ x 23″: “Eclipse.” 

Backyard Critters Art Quilt Series

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More than a year into lockdown, I’m finding myself spending a second pandemic spring out in my back yard. My garden, full of flowers and wild critters, seems to provide endless inspiration. Last spring, I was moved to create an Amazing Beetle quilt series, followed by 3D beetles and bird art (both art quilts and 3D). This year, I started my creative journey with the Ode to Spring series to celebrate early blooms.

I felt inclined to also commemorate the wild mammals who share the garden with us. In fact, I already made two mammal quilts in previous years. For months, I toyed with the idea of making a Backyard Critters quilt series, but didn’t find the time. Until now.

Raccoon Quilt

A couple of years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night to a noisy ruckus. It was  summer, and my bedroom windows were wide open. In panic, I shook my husband awake, jumped out of bed and went to take a peek. The night was dark, and I couldn’t see a thing. I could tell, though, that the activity was happening right outside my window, where a large tree is growing. A few seconds later my husband joined me, flashlight in hand. He shone it on the tree, and … a few masked rascals appeared:

They turned out to be a mother racoon and her three adolescent kits. They all climbed our tree to get to the roof.

That was the first time I saw racoons in our yard, and they left a big impression. I thought they were incredibly cute. I was also overjoyed to learn that wild creatures enjoyed our garden while we were asleep…

A few days later I decided to make a little quilt in their honor. I turned one of the pictures I took to black and white, cropped and enlarged it:

I then put it against the window to draw an outline:

And copied each piece separately:

I cut the pieces out, copied them onto fabric, and cut the fabric out. Then, I proceeded to put together a raccoon applique. 

I was quite happy with how the finished piece turned out, and shared it on social media:

Someone commented that I forgot the whiskers. Lo and behold, I did! So I put the quilt in my UFO pile, intending to correct it soon. It waited there, and then waited some more…

In the meantime, the raccoons kept coming. Every few months a mother raccoon (possibly the same mother?) would show up with her kits (usually three). They would make a racket, wake us up, climb the tree, and then stomp on the roof for a while before leaving.

The last time they came, shortly before Lockdown, the mother was accompanied by only one, smaller than usual, kit. The mother climbed all the way to the roof, but her youngling was too scared to follow. If you want to see videos of what happened next, you can click here, and then here.

One day, my husband went up on the roof to check something, and discovered that the raccoons damaged the house. Suddenly, they didn’t seem that cute anymore… We needed to find a way to keep them off the roof. We briefly considered cutting the tree down, but then my husband came up with a more creative solution.

So far so good.

When I finally tackled my UFO pile earlier this year, I added whiskers to my raccoon. It is now finished:

Rat Quilt

2020 was the Chinese Year of the Rat, and I decided to make an art quilt to mark the occasion: 

Little did I know that a couple of weeks later we will find a nasty surprise in the attic…

In early 2020 we had a termite inspection. When the inspector went up to the attic, he found rat droppings all over. He suspected that rats went up to the roof that winter to drink water from the gutters. That probably also explained what the raccoons were doing on our roof: the termite inspector suspected that they went up to drink, and also to hunt for rats! No, they definitely didn’t seem that cute any more…

That was how 2020 started for us. Termites and rats followed by a pandemic… Luckily, we were able to deal with the first two right before the Lockdown. The joys of living in California…

Squirrel Quilt

Like many others, I spent most of my pandemic spring and summer (and then the following winter, too, as winter 2021 was dry and warm) out in my garden. I didn’t realize until then just how MANY squirrel we had! Eight or nine of them were running around at all times, chasing each other, digging, climbing trees…

When I came to the USA as a student many years ago, I thought squirrels were adorable. Israel, where I grew up, doesn’t have any. Seeing them climb the trees, bushy tails wiggling, has always been very appealing. I greatly enjoyed seeing them in my garden, too, once I had a garden. Until this year, that is.

During the pandemic,  I spent hours and hours, days, weeks–no, months!–gardening. And the squirrels? They sneaked after me, dug out the new plants I just planted, pulled out the bulbs, ate all my flowers! And they always take only one bit out of each and every piece of fruit…

I still kind of enjoy having them as company while I work, but our relationship is a lot more complicated these days…

Possum Quilt

When I decided to finally make a Backyard Critters quilt series (2021, after all, is all about finishing things!), I knew what the fourth mammal should be.

I’ve only seen them three times in the decade-plus that I’ve been living in my house, but I know that possums are very much here.

The first time we saw them, two possums appeared outside our back door. Although they are usually nocturnal animals, they were there mid morning, in broad daylight:

I haven’t seen possums before. At first, I didn’t even know what they were! They looked really scary, being all scruffy, ugly, and with a pink rat tail! I didn’t let my kids go out to check them out. We looked at them through the safety of the window, waiting for them to leave.

Only later, when I read about them on the internet, did I learn how beneficial they are to a garden.

A few years later, I saw them again, running on the fence towards my neighbors’ house, to eat the cat food they left outside… And last week, for the very first time, I saw a baby possum hiding under one of my bushes!

Here is the quilt I made in their honor:

It took more than two years, but I finally finished my Backyard Critters quilt series:

Ode to Spring Quilt Series

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 You might recall that I dedicated January of this year to finishing my big pile of unfinished projects. I was plowing along nicely, but the weather didn’t cooperate.

When I decided to embark on the UFO-busting project back in December, I imagined myself sitting in my sewing room on cold, wet winter days, looking at the rain and enjoying the warmth of hearth, hot beverage and cloth. In reality, however, January was dry and warm, spring like. Some days the temperature even went up to the higher seventies. So I couldn’t just stay inside the entire time. The garden was calling. I went out to garden.

When in the sewing room, though, I stuck to UFOs. Until February came by, that is. Another month of warm and dry. I kept finishing UFOs, in between gardening days, but the spring flowers blooming in my garden–in the middle of winter, no less–also propelled me to start a new quilt series. I worked on it in between UFOs, and called it Ode to Spring.

Ideas for quilts come about in different ways. Some quilts I plan long in advance, and take even longer to execute. Interdependent, for example, took almost six months to complete. Sometimes I plan a quilt series, but it takes several years before I actually get to it, if at all. I’ve been meaning to make a series about The Seven Lives of Trini, following the quilt I made for my sister, to try different techniques. I might eventually get to it. Or not… Some quilts happen quickly. Something triggers an idea, and I have to make it a reality right away. Let the Mending Begin jumped into my head while listening to Joe Biden’s victory speech, for example, as did Enough!, which followed yet another mass shooting. They both came together rather quickly.

Somewhere in my very messy sewing room there lies an actual list, pen on paper, with quilt ideas I want to try. Some have been on the list for a while. I thought I’ll refer to that list (if I can find it, that is), once I complete the UFOs. But then the Ode to Spring series popped out, as if from nowhere, and pushed itself to the top of the list. I wasn’t planning to make this series. I’m not exactly sure where it came from. All I know is that it was there one day, forcing me to take a break from the UFOs, becoming the first new series of 2021.

The quilts in this series are flower-inspired yet abstract. They are all 13″ x 17.” While making them, I enjoyed playing with vibrant fabric colors, and also indulged in my new, colorful 12-weight thread. All four quilts incorporate a strip of yellow silk I had left over from one of my UFO totes. They all have six repeating leaf shapes, and are all quilted in various-sized straight grids. One day I will mount them all onto canvases…

Magenta Arctotis

Amethyst Centaurea

Golden Arctotis

Red African Daisy

And here they are, all together. Ode to Spring quilt series, my first series of 2021.

Which of the four do you like best?

On Abstract and Narrative

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I went to an arts high school, where I learned drawing, painting and sculpting from teachers who were artists themselves. We learned art history, too, but our art history teacher was also an artist. She taught us to look at art from the point of view of artists: to analyze a piece by looking at its composition, colors, proportions.

In college I majored in art history and East Asian Studies. My art history professors had an entirely different approach to art. They looked at art, and tried to find hints to traumas in the lives of the artists who created it. They tried to apply stories and shallow psychoanalytical interpretations where they didn’t belong. In other words, they tried to enforce a narrative on something that addressed entirely different concerns. I never warmed to this approach, and so I ended up specializing in Chinese history.

Now, as a textile artist, I feel most comfortable with abstracts, but some of my pieces have a narrative, too. Many (though not all) of my abstracts are just that, however: a play with the different components of art. One such series was the Spark series, which I blogged about a while back. I had no underlying story when I created this series, no big idea I tried to express. It was all about colors, shapes, lines, play. I didn’t even name the different pieces, just gave them numbers.

The Question

I shared parts of this series on social media. When I came to Piece No. 7, something interesting happened.

Spark Mini Quilt Series, Quilt #7

Someone commented as follows: “It reminds me of an opulent bedroom in a castle somewhere in Europe. 🏰”

I never thought of Piece No. 7 as a bedroom in a castle, but once this person said that I could see what they meant. All of a sudden, this piece made ME think of Elsa’s ice castle in the movie Frozen. After that, whenever I looked at it that’s all I saw.

So I decided to share it in one of my favorite Facebook textile artists’ groups. I posted the picture and asked a simple question: “What does this make you think of?“

I expected fellow artists to talk about colors and shapes, but got none of that. People were looking at my abstract piece, the little game I played with myself and my scraps, and saw different things. Surprisingly, many of them agreed on what they saw, and the great majority aligned with that first comment above.

The Answers

More than a hundred people commented on my post. I found their answers so interesting, that I decided to analyze the first 100 responses. I copied them all, and divided them into general topic groups.

Dwelling

Of the 100 people, the great majority–87 people–saw a dwelling of some kind in my abstract. This included a house generally, a bedroom or bed (with a significant minority seeing Van Gogh’s bedroom), a dwelling associated with water, other kinds of dwelling or a trailer/caravan.

General Room or House

Of the 87 dwelling-seers, 37 saw a general room or house. A few didn’t project any emotions onto the houses they saw:

“An old house.”

“House with the window. Actually just the side.”

“Student living.”

“Room with a view.”

Some attached a positive feel to the house they imagined:

“A cozy house.”

“A door and a window to something lovely.”

“An empty house with possibilities.”

“Home, the acceptance of things in life not being perfect, the familiarity of the imperfections of your own life – they are yours, you own them and accept them. Peace.“

“A house, worse for wear, but home, a refuge.”

I include in this groups the four people who were reminded of an elderly relative’s house, mostly a grandparent.

Others saw sinister tones:

“Abandoned house.”

“Broken home.”

“A room that a tree crashed into.”

“A derelict abandoned house.”

“The texture and feel has a very camouflage kind like something wants to hide in greens or mountain and the roughness of edges gives a very broken feelings for me it reminds of war times broken houses and people in camouflage suits.”

“It reminds me of a still from a scene in an Alfred Hitchcock type movie … an attic bedroom with the bedhead, and a dagger.” 

“Bombed out houses with remnants of domestic life exposed.”

Bedroom or Bed

Twenty six people saw a bedroom or a bed. This number includes seven people who were reminded of Van Gogh’s painting of his bedroom. Six people saw a poster bed. Once again, some associated positive feelings with this bedroom or bed: “A bed surrounded by tapestry in a movie set in medieval times…,” “A warm, comfortable bed to snuggle in when it’s stormy outside.” Others had more negative associations: “Fear of the marriage bed.”

Water Dwelling

Eleven people imagined dwellings near or on water. These included entire cities or towns, like Venice or the Philippine town of Ukay on the island of Bohol. Others saw a cottage by the sea, a shipyard, a boat house or a cabin on a boat.

Other Kinds of Dwelling

Eight people were reminded of other kinds of dwellings or structures. Those included the South African city of Soweto, a Chinese village, a fishing or hunting cabin, a barn or a yurt.

RV/Caravan/Trailer

Finally, five people thought of a caravan/trailer/RV. Here, too, opinions ranged from positive (“looks cozy to me. Maybe in an RV“) to more negative (“Trailer abandoned“).

Other Associations

The reminder thirteen people thought of other things. Those included positive things like aerial/drone views, landscape, or the Golden Gate Bridge, and negative things like winter, life’s obstacles, Godfather Part 2, and murder. One person was especially nice and wrote : “It makes me think that you’re a great artist.” Thank you for that!

Thoughts

I found all the answers really interesting, especially as they were coming from artists. I was wondering what made people see things in my own work that I myself never thought of. Was it the question I asked, that implied there WAS something to see? Or perhaps it was our inherent human need to reflect our own narrative on art? Could it be that people see their own experiences even (or especially) in abstract? It could be me. Maybe my college art history professors were right after all, and it was MY experiences, as an artist, that were reflected in my work, to be seen by others but not myself?

I don’t have answers to this. But here is a thought: I created this art in December 2020, A year plagued by Covid 19, marked by lockdown after lockdown. Most of humanity was locked up at home for nine long months by the time I created this piece, and almost a year by the time I shared it in February 2021. Is it really that surprising that most people saw my work and thought of dwellings? Could people have reflected their own enclosed experiences, both positive and negative, on what they saw? Did I, sub-consciously, reflect my own lockdown experiences in this series, too? Would people’s answers have been different had I showed them this piece during a normal year? In summer?

I’ll leave that for you to decide 😉

Spark Mini Quilt Series

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What do you do to get yourself motivated?

2020 was a challenging year, with lots of ups and downs. Locked up at home, I often found myself turning to art as an escape from the world. There were times during the year, however, when I couldn’t muster what it takes to create at all. When this happened in spring and summer, I went out to the garden and kept myself busy there. But in winter things got a bit more difficult.

After I finished my Desolation series at the end of the year, I was left with a kind of deep emptiness. I often feel this way after completing bigger or harder projects. I went into my sewing room, and … wasn’t sure what to do next. That, despite the huge UFO pile and the long list of projects in my head… 

In the past, simply organizing my scraps helped ignite my creativity. But in December I didn’t feel like doing even that. And so, after several days of doing absolutely nothing, I decided to give myself a little creative challenge, just for fun. A small game to spark my creative juices. Hence, the Spark series 🙂

I made up some rules:

  • Nine days.
  • One mini quilt a day.
  • Each piece will be 6″ x 6.” Small and manageable.
  • Use only scraps.
  • Use the existing shapes of the scraps (but cutting them to fit was OK).
  • Each quilt should use at least one fabric from the previous quilt.
  • Use only black thread to outline shapes.

Here is the result: The Spark Mini Quilt Series. Can you find the fabric/s in each piece that I also used in the piece before it? (Hint: the very last piece also uses fabric from the first, closing the circle):

Did you find it/them? Which is your favorite?

Hopefully this will inspire you to create a Spark Mini Quilt Series of your own. It’s fun! And it does help rekindle creativity 🙂

Desolation Quilt Series

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In March 2020 we went into a pandemic-induced lockdown and everything closed. For months, places which were once crowded and bustling were suddenly deserted. The streets were empty, as were shops, movie theaters, libraries, places of worship. Everything remained abandoned for months. Then some places opened, only to shut down again when case numbers spiked .

Desolation prevailed wherever you went. Inside and out.

In September, the California wildfires restricted everyone further. Unable to go outside, I went back into my sewing room and tried to lift my spirit up with some bright colors. A small quilt formed, but it was all sharp angles and confined spaces. I tried to soften it with some lace, but the lace, too, ended up as a border, restricting. Mazes within mazes, escape routes blocked, small, confined spaces, sharpness. And yet, there was also some beauty in it all, just like in the real world…

This is Fenced Garden. 10″ x 10.”

In the following months, slowly and painfully, more quilts in this series emerged. Emerged in-between other projects, as if on their own, designing themselves. Some took weeks to complete. This was not an easy series.

These quilts evoked abandoned streets, taped-up play structures, empty squares, and boarded-up shop fronts. They portrayed cities that lost their citiness.

This is Eerie Streets. 10″ x 10.” The emptiness of streets in that first lockdown, deprived of both people and cars, was one of the most striking differences between the “before” and “after.” And the quiet that accompanied it. A deep, screaming quiet. The quiet was nice, actually.

The quilts in this series shouted barred cathedrals, churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. They whispered of locked museums and closed schools.

Here is Locked Cathedral. 10″ x 10.”

These quilts hinted at abandoned structures, quiet public spaces and things falling apart.

For my family, one of the hardest aspects of the March Lockdown was the closing of theaters. Both of my daughters were in a youth theater production at the time. They practiced for months, getting ready to perform over two consecutive weekends. The first weekend still happened, albeit in front of smaller, spaced-out audiences. By the time the second weekend rolled by, however, we were already in full lockdown. The disappointment was bitter.

Fittingly, the last quilt in this series is Shattered Theater, 10″ x 10.”

And yet, each of the quilts in this series contains some beauty, too. In pleasing colors, the softness of textures, or in rounded shapes. In each, there is some hint of nature, in the form of leaves or the silhouette of mountains. And each has the silver lining of lace, pretty even when constricting, bringing hope…

Looking Back at 2020: An End-of-year Summary

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2020 is about to end, which means it’s time for that end-of-year summary, by now a tradition. It turns out that this is my fifth end-of-year post. ANY Texture is now five years old! 

How do you summarize a year like 2020? A year in which the sense of time itself has been compromised? The world as we knew it shifted. Time got warped. Our lives were turned upside down and we all went on a wild emotional roller-coaster ride. Many of us emerge from this year somewhat altered…

Life Changes

For me, this year led to both physical and lifestyle changes. The physical changes were relatively quick: We had to adjust our house to accommodate distant learning and everyone being home all the time. We moved large pieces of furniture, rearranged rooms, assigned new functions to old spaces. My kids confiscated the glider chair that sat in my sewing room for years, and which housed my huge pile of unfinished projects. That forced me to try my hand at reupholstering… 

There were changes in the garden, too. After several years of neglect (ANY Texture’s fault!) I finally managed to spend a lot of time outside, digging, pulling, pruning and planting to save my sanity. The garden almost resumed its pre-ANY Texture glory.

The lifestyle changes have been more gradual and are still ongoing. My life slowed down. I’m in less of a hurry. More and more, I’m enjoying the small things, the little moments, the here and now (perhaps because the future is so unpredictable, and any plans are susceptible to change). I’m finding more time to read books, to watch movies, to practice yoga, to learn new things. I have a better balance between life and art making. With everyone home, there’s been more cooking, baking, eating, spending time together. The upsides of a dire situation.

Art Changes

ANY Texture was born after I got the Bag Bug five years ago. Following a few months of intense bag making, however, I started creating other things, including art quilts. For a couple of years I’ve been meaning to make more fine art, but haven’t quite gotten to it. When my father passed away last year, I realized that life was short, and that I should concentrate on the things I want to do and spend less time on the things I don’t enjoy. So I made less bags, participated in less craft shows, and completed my first quilt series, the Calendar Quilts. Then 2020 arrived.

Jacket

I kicked the year off with a boro jacket to honor my dad.

Right when I was finished, the pandemic happened. Shows got cancelled, online shopping halted, everything closed. I no longer needed to create inventory. Instead, I turned to art as a refuge, a means of expression, an escape from the world.

Animal art

Insects

We entered the first lockdown in the spring. I spent much of it in my garden, where insects, birds, squirrels and the occasional cat kept me company. I found it to be the perfect time to further explore the shape of insects and beetles, something I’ve been meaning to do more of since I completed my Dare! quilt in 2017. I made more butterfly brooches:

Art in Times of Corona: Textile Butterfly

Then the Amazing Beetles series.

Art in Times of Corona: Beetle quilts

And I was finally able to play with three-dimensional beetles as well:

Four fabric beetles

Birds

For several years I’ve been wanting to try Ann Wood Handmade’s owl and bird soft-sculpture patterns. The pandemic gave me the time to get to it. I first made owls.

And also wrote a tutorial for a small owl my daughter made based on something she saw in Japan:

Then I worked on a flock of birds.

And finally created a series of small bird quilts:

Cat

My sister and mother were supposed to visit in the spring. Their much-anticipated visit got canceled like everything else. So I made my sister a quilt of her cat Trini:

Trini the Cat art quilt

Abstract Art

My true passion lies in abstracts, and this year I got to play more with that. Interestingly, I am realizing more an more that even my abstracts are strongly influenced by nature…

Early in the year, I completed the Colors of the Day series, a series influenced by landscapes I enjoyed on past travels.

Later, I created a series of mood-depicting Textile Poems. These drew much of their inspiration from my garden.

I also explored the textural variety of Tree Bark, something that was on my to-do list since my trip to Japan a couple of years ago.

Art Influenced by Current Events

2020 was an unusual year, and I couldn’t but respond to it in my art. This year, I created three of what I think are my most powerful art quilts to date: Interdependence, Ashes and 2020.

I also made Black Lives Matter, Wildfires and Let the Mending Begin.

Other

Early in the pandemic, I made wall hangings of the Jewish Blessing of the Child for my children, just in case…

Before Thanksgiving, I made a textile card for my mom:

Thankful for you, mom

And in the fall, the maple tree outside my window inspired me to make an Autumn Leaf wall hanging. You can find the tutorial here.

Autumn leaf wall hanging

After completing all these art quilts and more in one year, I decided it was time to finally join the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA), something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I’ve been really enjoying all that they have to offer. Check out their website for some gorgeous textile eye candy!

In December, I was honored to be included in an article on recycling in textile art, written by Heidi Ingram for the TextileArtist.org blog. Check it out here.

So here we are, at the end of 2020. Back in a second lockdown, with Covid numbers skyrocketing, but with the promise of a vaccine in sight. My sewing room is still messy. The Unfinished Project pile is taller than ever (I didn’t even touch it this year!), and is now homeless. My scrap boxes multiplied from three to seven, and are all overflowing (even though I used mostly scraps this year… This will remain a mystery).

Next year? Tackle those UFOs, perhaps? I have ideas for more art quilts than I can possibly make, piles of jacket-worthy fabrics, and a long list of things to learn. In other words, I’m excited to keep experimenting, learning, and growing as an artist… The adventure continues 🙂

Thanks so much for accompanying me on this journey!

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year. Keep safe and cozy.