Old Baldy #2

Old Baldy #2
12.5 x 21"

 

This piece is based on a photo I took many summers ago on a family vacation to Bald Head Island. 

The brick structure is called “the oil house.”Here is information about it from the Old Baldy Foundation’s website:

“The federal government built the oil house to store kerosene when lighthouse fuel changed from the noncombustible whale oil to the highly explosive kerosene. The exact date of when this structure was built is unknown. Our educated guess is that it was built after 1879, as at that time, funds were allocated to the United States Lighthouse Service to build oil houses. When Old Baldy was deactivated in 1935, the Coast Guard repurposed this structure as a radio house in WWII. This was the last time this structure has an official use, except when they were repurposed in the 1970s as a restroom for lighthouse visitors.”

The lighthouse, built in 1817, is nicknamed “Old Baldy.” It has 108 stairs, and the base is 36 feet wide. The top is 14 feet wide. It is constructed of brick and painted with plaster on the exterior; maintenance over the years has given it a patchy look. The “lantern room,” the structure at the very top that once held the light, is offset from the center of the tower.

 

Fuchsia

My first piece of 2025. I threw myself into this one last week to help deal with my distress over the state of my country. Painting is always an escape for me, and the heavy quilting on the gray siding behind the flowers was very repetitive and meditative. This piece is based on a photo I took several years ago, while teaching in the Pacific Northwest.

“Fuchsia” (© Susan Brubaker Knapp 2025) 16.25 x 21". White cotton fabric, acrylic textile paint, interfacing, cotton batting, cotton thread. Wholecloth painted, free-motion machine quilted. 

Have questions? There's lots of info on my technique and materials here:
https://wwwbluemoonriver.blogspot.com/2014/01/faqs-wholecloth-painting.html

Work continues on "Friends of Baltimore"

About 8 years ago, I started working on Susan Garman's “Friends of Baltimore” quilt.  

You can see the whole quilt, and purchase the patterns, here: https://www.comequilt.com/shop/c/p/Friends-of-Baltimore-Complete-Pattern-Set-x1942297.htm

When I’m upset and severely stressed, I often find it difficult to produce original art, so I turn to other people’s patterns. And applique keeps my brain and my fingers VERY busy. I finished the first five blocks during the early years of the first Trump administration.

The news is very upsetting again, so I got out my materials and have already finished two more blocks this month, and started another. They are 15" blocks. I appliquéd so much that several of my fingers have been ragged and bleeding.

Crows!

 

I love crows (I feed a small family group that lives in my neighborhood, and they now recognize me and come to my house sometimes to ask for a snack!)

I’ve made several crows using a pattern by a wonderful artist named Ann Wood. Her website is https://www.annwoodhandmade.com/ This past weekend, I helped a friend make her first crow. She also purchased Ann’s darling owl pattern, which I want to try, too.

I love how they turned out. The most recent one has an open beak, which I carved from a forked oak branch. I used some purple feathers to imitate the iridescence of crows’ wings. They are stuffed with wool, and you make the legs with floral wire. Each crow has taken me about 10 hours to construct.

I’ve also purchased and made a robin (using her Songbird pattern) and a mushroom. You can download PDFs of the patterns, or purchase paper patterns. The patterns have a lot of photos as well as written instructions, and they are very easy to follow.

Bluesky

Have you heard about Bluesky? It’s a new social media platform, and if you are looking to avoid support of Elon Musk (Twitter/X) and/or Mark Zukerberg (Meta/Facebook/Instagram/Threads), or to avoid the numerous problems on those sites, it’s the place to be. You can use it on your desktop computer or on your mobile phone. You can post photos and videos. Check it out here: https://bsky.app/

You can find me there under the handle @susanbrubakerknapp.bsky.social

I’ve disabled my Facebook page (and may delete it permanently), and will be posting mostly on Bluesky (and still on Instagram, for the time being) I’m also going to be blogging and sending out my e-newsletter more often.

NEWSLETTER SIGNUP: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/oH4sgMP/SusanBrubakerKnapp

“Say Gay” commission delivered

 

Just delivered this commission piece to its new owners. It’s a wholecloth painted art quilt, free-motion quilted, then stitched to a mat and ready to frame in a shadowbox.

Want to learn how to stitch an art quilt to a mat so you can frame it? You can download my instructions “How to Frame Fiber Art” – for free! – on my website here: https://susanbrubakerknapp.com/tutorials

In 2023, I made six small “Say Gay” quilts in response to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' bills restricting LGBTQ rights, including his “Don't Say Gay Bill.” I raffled them off to raise money for The Trevor Project.

The Trevor Project is the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people. I believe in their vision to build a world where every LGBTQ young person feels safe, loved, and celebrated. Trevor’s research has found that having at least one accepting adult can reduce an LGBTQ young person’s risk of suicide by 40%.

The Trevor Project provides free, accessible, 24/7 crisis counseling services via phone (TrevorLifeline), instant messenger (TrevorChat), and text (TrevorText) to young LGBTQ people in crisis.