My Insomnia piece did not make it into the Quilt Visions juried show. I admit I am a little disappointed yet it also gives me an opportunity to think about other ways to show this work. I don't have many pieces that represent my latest directions in stitching. This is one of them and I have several others I want to pursue. I think I may take some time to work on other pieces with the goal of creating a show. For now I am taking a break from all of it. Returning to the studio in April.
I spent a delightful weekend in Little Rock meeting many SAQA members (and potential SAQA members) at the Southern Voices regional exhibit. The folks there were gracious with their praise of my work and eager to talk about art and quilts and how sometimes they are the same thing.
Upon my return I walked into my studio to see this work in progress with slightly new eyes. It's about 80% done...I think...but still lacks something. Not sure what that is yet. So I wlll let it stew for awhile. Many of my pieces go through this rest time. It is always a challenge to reinvigorate my excitement about a piece after I leave it for awhile. There are times when the piece gets put away for months only to reemerge with new life later. This one may be one of those.
I do love those scallop edges though.
work in progress, Connections, Paula Kovarik
I'm preparing for a speaking engagement in Little Rock this weekend and designing and redesigning Powerpoint presentations. Always a challenge.
So yesterday I took a little break and brought out one of my earlier patterns and experimented with a new colorway. I uploaded the tile to Spoonflower and ordered a test swatch. I may start offering the fabric for sale through that site as an experiment.
Here is Geometry in Spring dress.
Geometry, ©2014 Paula Kovarik
Everything's connected, ©2014, Paula Kovarik
Inspired by that game we play of naming the shapes in clouds, several of my drawings have new colonies of these simple outlines of cats, dogs, gears, cars, clouds—whatever pops into my head. Using that as a starting point I started making shapes that nested into each other on this quilt. It looked like nonsense to me but I wasn't too worried about it. Trusting the process was part of the fun. Then I started wondering why these particular shapes showed up in my experimentation. Why was I compelled to draw a chicken, or a gear, or a tractor, or a headed blob? What point was I trying to make? Then, last Saturday, I went to see A Fierce Green Fire, the Battle for a Living Planet. It is a documentary summarizing the environmental movement. One of the narrators explored the concept of connections. Simply, Everything is Connected. Even if we don't see it. That's why I added these dotted lines.
twisted bowties, ©2014, Paula Kovarik
I resolved what I want to do with the cloudlike piece in my previous post but just can't face the work. So, as usual, I escape by working with pattern. Here is the bowtie pattern I created a couple of years ago, with a different colorway (you can never have too much orange right?) and a twist. I think I like them both. Illustrator allows me to twist my patterns automatically but to create a tile that works for reproduction I would have to start from scratch to redraw it. Not sure if it is worth it.
