Lepidoptera finished and off to Quilt Market

Lepidoptera
by Susan Brubaker Knapp (2009)
Cotton fabric, wool/polyester batting, fabric paint, cotton thread. 39" x 39"

I finished this piece, “Lepidoptera,” a while ago, but we’ve had so much rain here lately that I couldn’t find a good time to take nice photos. I usually shoot them outside. This aftternoon, after a day of much fog and gloom, the clouds parted and I ran outside to take a few detail shots. Here they are:



Lepidoptera is the order of insects that includes butterflies and moths.
Can you tell that it started with this photo I took in my garden a few years ago?

This is a Painted Lady butterfly. It has wonderful patterns on its wings, but it is not very brightly colored. I used the patterns and completely changed the colors. My quilt is a bit psychedelic in comparison to the butterfly!

Besides being the first wholecloth painted quilt I’ve ever done, it is the first quilt I faced, rather than bound, and the first quilt I made using batting made of wool and polyester (recommended by my friend Nancy G. Cook, who uses it in all her work). I liked it a lot.


“Lepidoptera” is also the first piece I have quilted with Aurifil threads. I had heard many quilters raving about Aurifil, and purchased some thread from them specifically to try on this piece.

I had used Aurifil Cotton Mako 50 thread for needleturn appliqué, but never for quilting or threadpainting. And I must say that I absolutely LOVED using it on this piece. It is very strong, so it didn’t break or shred, unlike other threads I’ve used. Even when my needle was flying.

I also tried piecing with Aurifil Cotton Mako 50 thread, and I love it for that, too. It is so fine that your seams lie nice and flat. I’m eager to try the Cotton Mako 40, which is a little heavier, and good for places you want your quilting to show up more. That’s my next experiment.

I had heard other quilters say that Aurifil thread leaves little to no lint in your machine, and this is definitely true. I made a point of checking every now and then inside my machine, and there’s no comparison between Aurifil and other brands of thread I’ve used (and I’ve pretty much used them all!) I think I’m hooked!

Aurifil noticed I was using their thread, and asked if they could display “Lepidoptera” in the Aurifil threads booth at Quilt Market next week. I was thrilled. If you are going, check it out there!

Beginning “Lepidoptera”

Here’s a sketch of a new work in progress. I’m calling it “Lepidoptera,” and it is based on a drawing I made from my photo of a Painted Lady butterfly. (Lepidoptera is the scientific order of insects that includes butterflies and moths. ) After painting in the colors, I scanned my drawing and then copied and rotated the wings until I was pleased with the composition.

After blowing up my drawing to full size (40" square), I used it to trace all the lines onto white cotton fabric. Now I am painting in the colors, using fabric dyes and paints. This may take some time, because I don’t have space in my studio for “wet work,” so I am working on a kitchen counter in between meal preparations. Argh.

I’ve never done a whole cloth, painted piece before, so this is a big experiment. I am also using this piece to wander a bit into abstraction. Most of my work tends to be fairly realistic. I thought it would be a good exercise to start from a photo of a real subject, and then try to make it more abstract, so the focus would be on line and color instead.

I’m hoping to thread-paint and quilt this piece in the next month.

“Lepidoptera” on the cover

A slice of my piece “Lepidoptera” is on the cover of the February issue of Genetics in Medicine, the magazine of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics. A friend from my graduate school days at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's School of Journalism, Karyn Hede, is News Editor, and suggested they use my work on the cover. Thanks, Karyn! 

It is based on a photograph I took of a Painted Lady Butterfly. It is a wholecloth quilt, painted with acrylic fabric paint and then quilted. Lepidoptera is the order of insects that includes butterflies and moths.

Art Meets Science

 Lepidoptera and Coleus are on their way to Birminham, England this week. They are part of the Studio Art Quilt Associates’ (SAQA) exhibition called “Art Meets Science” that will have its opening at the Festival of Quilts in August. All of the quilts that are available for sale will soon be listed on the SAQA website (the section is still being built as I write this, so check back in a few days to see all the quilts online).

I love the design of the exhibition catalog! It is a piece by Ita Ziv called Fire Fingers. SAQA always does a beautiful job on their publications.

The venues for this exhibition that have been announced to date are:

• Festival of Quilts, Birmingham, England, August 19 - 22, 2010
• Pfizer, Inc., New York, New York, Sept. 16, 2010 - March 16, 2011   
• Visions Gallery, San Diego, California, January 1 - April 1, 2012   
• Global Health Odyssey Museum of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, June 1 - Sept. 1, 2012    

The juror for this exhibition was David W. Fraser, MD. He is research associate at The Textile Museum, and a consulting scholar in the Asian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The curator was Jill Jensen, a professional fiber artist from Virginia  who works with cloth, paint, printmaking and stitch. She has worked extensively as an artist-in-residence throughout Virginia, and holds degrees in Chemistry and Metallurgy. Surely both of them are a perfect combination of art and science! You can read Fraser’s and Jensen’s statements about the exhibition here. 

 Lepidoptera

Coleus

My Aurifil threads have arrived!

My much-awaited shipment of Aurifil threads (Cotton Mako 50 weight) arrived today … and they are absolutely luscious! I ordered these colors to use in “Lepidoptera.”

It’s funny how much I am crazy about thread these days. I must admit that when I just made traditional quilts, I barely thought about thread. Now that I am making art quilts, the threads I use are much more important, because they define and enrich the surface of my work. I am starting to have a thread stash, just as I have a fabric stash. When I go to quilt shows, the thread booths interest me now.



Aurifil threads are not carried by my local quilt shops, so I have not used them much until now. I got these threads to really test them out, and so far I am very impressed. I’m going to try to quilt all of “Lepidoptera” in the next few days, and then I'll post my opinions on the Aurifil threads with photos of the piece.

I have been busy with several other projects that I am not allowed to post yet (because I want to enter them in contests that make not publishing them beforehand a rule of the competition; and for other reasons I hope to be able to reveal soon!), and it’s driving me kind of crazy. Patience, patience …

View SAQA’s Portfolio 17 online

SAQA’s Portfolio 17; the cover image is by Pat Durbin

For years now, Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) has been producing a printed portfolio of the work of its Professional Artist Members. The latest is Portfolio 17, and this year, everyone can see it without purchasing the printed book. The whole thing can be viewed online here. Just click on the little book icon. My work is represented in this portfolio by my piece Lepidoptera.

Lepidoptera
by Susan Brubaker Knapp
39" x 39" (2009)

You can search the portfolio by genre (abstract, color work, conceptual, figurative, nature, representational, sculptural, or still life) or by the location of the artist (including U.S. regions and international regions). I found it incredible how diverse, beautiful and inspiring the work is.
The printed version was distributed to thousands of collectors, interior design firms and museums that collect art or commission it for their customers. If you want your own printed copy, it is available in the SAQA Bookstore for $26.95.

What is SAQA?

SAQA is a non-profit international organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development and documentation. Founded in 1989 by an initial group of 50 artists, SAQA now boasts over 2,400 members: artists, teachers, collectors, gallery owners, museum curators and corporate sponsors.

SAQA defines an art quilt as a contemporary artwork exploring and expressing aesthetic concerns common to the whole range of visual arts: painting, printmaking, photography, graphic design, assemblage and sculpture, which retains, through materials or technique, a clear relationship to the folk art quilt from which it descends.

Lepidoptera painting done

I have just finished the painting on “Lepidoptera.” It is pretty wild! Here are some shots of sections of the painted fabric. I do not think that I want to bind this in a traditional way. I think I am going to do a pillowcase turn, where I layer the top (the painted fabric), then batting, then the backing fabric, then sew the fabric layers together, and turn it right side out.

Then I'll start the quilting, first going along the blue lines to secure the areas to be more heavily quilted inside each band or section of color. I am going to use Aurifil thread, mostly varigated, on this piece. I love Aurifil thread for needleturn appliqué, but I’ve never used it for machine quilting.

I am very excited to begin!

Quilt Expo en Beaujolais

Ooooooh la la! Très fantastique!

I was very pleased to see my piece, Lepidoptera, featured on the cover of the program for Quilt Expo en Beaujolais, where it was exhibited in Graves sur Anse, France, earlier this month in SAQA’s Art Meets Science exhibition. The exhibition will travel next to the Visions Art Museum in San Diego, California Feb. 3-April 22, 2012, and then to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, June 11 through Sept. 14, 2012.

Well, lookee here…

My piece, Lepidoptera, is featured in Quilters Newsletter magazine’s current issue! I didn’t know about it until some of my Facebook quilter friends told me. It is featured in a newsbrief in the eyeQ section about two current Studio Art Quilt Associates’ exhibitions, Art Meets Science and Small Works.

The Art Meets Science exhibition is at the Pfizer headquarters in New York City now through March 16, 2011. After that, it will be at the Visions Art Quilt Gallery in Oceanside, California from Jan. 1 – April 1, 2012. 

I love the quilt on the cover this issue. It is by artist and quilt shop owner Claudia Pfeil of Krefeld, Germany. 

Quilting “Purple Phalaenopsis”

I started quilting Purple Phalaenopsis this afternoon. Here are a few shots. I am using drapery-weight cotton fabric for the backing, and Matilda batting (40 percent wool/60 percent polyester) inside, and it is staying nice and flat, despite the heavy quilting in some areas. I used this combination on Lepidoptera earlier this year and was very pleased with the results. My friend Nancy G. Cook suggested it.



The challenge here is to add interest, color and texture with the quilting, but still make some petals and flower parts appear to come forward. I may go back in with a bit more paint, or even some permanent markers, and add some additional shading, as I am not entirely pleased with this aspect of the piece right now.

Video from Art Meets Science

Alex Veronelli, Product Manager for Aurifil Thread, took a nice video at the SAQA Art Meets Science exhibition at Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England last week. He zooms in on Lepidoptera, one of my pieces! I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Alex at several Quilt Markets, as I am on Aurifil’s Artists’ Team (the A-Team!). He always has mobs of quilters around him, since he is a sweetheart of a guy, and has an adorable Italian accent to boot!  :-)  If you are on Facebook, befriend him and you can see other great videos, get industry scoops and find out the latest from Aurifil.

Quilts featured in Mooresville Artist Guild exhibition

My local quilt guild, Lake Norman Quilters, has work exhibited at the Mooresville Artist Guild this month. Our group started about ten years ago with only 5 members; today we have more than 50 traditional quilters and art quilters. My quilt “Lepidoptera” is part of the exhibit. It is really great to see an artists’ group accepting fiber artists and quilters.

The opening reception will be held Sept. 11 from 6-8 p.m. during the Mooresville Art Walk. The guild building is the Southern Railway Depot at the intersection of Main and Center in historic downtown Mooresville.

Mooresville Artists Guild
103 W. Center Avenue
Mooresville NC 28115
704.663.6661
Open Tuesday – Saturday 10 to 4 and Sunday 1-4

SAQA Frontiers: Art Meets Science

I just got the news that two of my pieces were juried in to the Studio Art Quilt Associates’ exhibition “SAQA Frontiers: Art Meets Science.” They are Lepidoptera and Coleus, shown below.





My friend Nancy G. Cook also had her piece, Southern Hospitality, juried in. There were 147 entries, and juror David Fraser, MD, selected 35 for the exhibition.

This exhibition will travel to the 2010 Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England. Additional venues are to be determined. This exhibit “explores the unexpected intersections of two seemingly different disciplines, Art and Science. The works focus on inspiration from scientific theories or phenomena expressed in new or unexpected ways, from the harmonies of randomness to the dynamics produced by scientific imagery.”

Asheville Quilt Show

I just got back from attending the Asheville Quilt Show at the North Carolina Arboretum, and it was wonderful. One of the best things is that the show is open to any quilter in the U.S., so it attracts a lot of national talent. (But the local quilters are plenty talented, too.) This year, there were 240 entries by 169 quilters from 15 states. Total money awarded was $8,300.

A few miles away, the Rotary Quilt Show, held in conjunction with the Asheville Quilt Show, but in a different location (Biltmore Square Mall), boasted quilts by the Shady Ladies of Waynesville and the Fiber Arts Alliance, as well as more wonderful vendors.

My quilt “Lepidoptera” took a Merit Award for Outstanding Use of Color, and the Pandora’s group quilt “Motherhood” took an Honorable Mention ribbon in the Group category (yea, us!).

Here’s a look at some of my favorites at the show:

Chicory by Ruth Powers of Carbondale KS.

I love Ruth Powers’ work, perhaps because I cannot fathom how she pieces it, or how she manages to make so many different fabrics work together. Here is another:


Lazy Afternoon by Ruth Powers of Carbondale KS.



Lazy Afternoon (detail) by Ruth Powers of Carbondale KS.


Red Art Festival by Deborah A. Morgan of Waynesville NC.
This beauty featured fabric beads tied in each rectangle. Simplicity and repetition, and a very nice color sense.


Rocky Mountain Memories by Wendy Bohen


Baskets in Bloom by Holly Greene and the Foothills Quilters Guild of Shelby NC
This is by the Foothills Quilters Guild. A great bunch of women I met last year when I spoke to them. Beautiful applique, quilting and trapunto!


Abundant Life by Susan Webb Lee of Barardsville NC
I love how Susan Webb Lee broke through the black borders of her quilt with bits of color.


Sun Bonnet Sue Does Hollywood by Linda Cantrell of Fletcher, NC
Crowds were gathered around this quilt by Linda Cantrell, as everyone tried to guess which movies were portrayed. In each scene, Sun Bonnet Sue is standing in for the heroine. What a riot.


Murphy’s Law by Linda Nichols of Waynesville, NC
According to the program, Linda persevered through many obstacles to make this quilt: “First block was lost, border ran when washed, cockscomb block caught on fire. I didn’t know when to quit but friends encouraged me on!”


Glorious Survivor #1 by Maureen Kampen of Asheville NC
This quilt chronicles the journey of a survivor of domestic violence. The portrait pulls you in, and then you start reading the details and understanding the pain. Beautifully done and very thought provoking.


Icing on the Cake by Linda Roy of Knoxville, Tenn.
Linda’s intricate, hand-stitched quilts are a wonder. This one was inspired by antique wool coverlets. I know Linda has won Best of Show in Asheville at least once before.


Swamp Hibiscus by Judith Heyward of Hendersonville, NC
Amazing thread painting, intricate borders and beautiful machine quilting won Judith Heyward the Outstanding Machine Workmanship award.


Amazing Arcola by Elizabeth T. Miller of Charlotte NC
Many of Elizabeth’s recent quilts feature antique quilt blocks she has purchased at antique stores (in this case, the stars around the outside). She made this quilt after a trip to Arcola Illinois. Elizabeth, who is a quilt judge, has a great sense of humor; I love how she uses commercial novelty and conversation prints.


Room to Breathe by Elizabeth T. Miller of Charlotte NC
Here’s another of Elizabeth’s recent quilts, very different in style and tone from Amazing Arcola above! Those are slices of actual stone in the water (under the blue heron). It is dedicated to her friend and fellow artist, Joan Colvin (1933-2007).

On the A-Team

 A few weeks ago, AURIfil Thread asked me to be part of their A-Team. Woo-hoo! I have been a big fan of AURIfil for years, so I am thrilled to be included in the list of artists, designers and educators that AURIfil selected to be part of this team. I’m going to be sharing with them projects that I do with their threads, and adding my name to the list of some very talented quilters who endorse the AURIfil brand.

They recently sent me this 48-spool thread kit! Here is the front:

and the back:

I selected mostly 50-weight Cotton Mako (orange spool), because it is perfect for thread sketching. I’ve been using it in the projects I’m doing for my series in Quilting Arts magazine on thread sketching, including this one:

 Vanity (detail)

Cotton Mako 50 is the lightest weight Egyptian cotton thread that AURIfil makes, and because it is so fine, it doesn’t cause my work to draw up the way heavier thread would. And there’s no heavy thread buildup, just a nice sheen. It works magnificently in the bobbin, whether I’m using a heavier thread on the top, or the same weight. And unlike some other threads, it almost never breaks, and it leaves practically no lint in my machine.

They even let me pick the colors! What a treat; it’s like having a humungous new box of crayons. Here is just one panel of their current thread card. If you’ve never seen a thread card before, it is what quilt shop owners get if they carry a particular brand of thread so they can pick the colors they want to purchase. Cotton Mako 50 comes in 260 solid and varigated colors, and I want them all!

I’ve said it before: when you make traditional quilts, it’s all about the fabric, really. At least I didn’t pay much attention to the thread when I was making traditional quilts. But now, my thread stash is as important as my fabric stash. 

Here’s a look at the outside of the AURIfil 48-spool thread kit. I think their packaging is very stylish. Maybe it’s that great Italian fashion sense.

Their display racks for shops are spectacular too. Here’s a shot I took at the spring 2009 Quilt Market, the trade association shows for everyone who buys and sells products for quilting. Don’t they look like works of art themselves?

(That’s my quilt Lepidoptera on the wall behind the stand.)

wool Lana thread

And look at their cones of thread!

And last, but certainly not least, AURIfil has top-notch, and exceedingly kind and friendly, people to work with. Here are (from left) Davide Moro, Alex Veronelli, and Elena Gregotti:

AURIfil’s blog (AURIfil Buzz) – http://auribuzz.wordpress.com/

AURIfil’s website – http://www.aurifil.com