Artist Profile: Leslie Tucker Jenison

cotton broadcloth by Leslie Tucker Jenison

Allow me to introduce you to Leslie Tucker Jenison. I met Leslie for the first time last August, when we were both in Cleveland to film segments for Quilting Arts TV. I was fascinated with her art and her process.

Leslie’s passion is surface design; she makes quilts, art cloth, and mixed media pieces that are a combination of paper and cloth. Although most of her work is on the quilted surface, she has been introducing paper into her work increasingly in the past several years.  

 

“I love to juxtapose paper with cloth,” says Leslie, “as it adds additional textural interest to the work. It is also a way to create more personalized imagery.”

“Shreds of a Story” (18x40")
cotton broadcloth, paper laminated to cloth, silk, photo transferred to cloth

Leslie shares lots of her surface design techniques on her new DVD with Quilting Arts – officially available on June 28 – is called “DIY Surface Design: Printmaking Made Easy with Everyday Objects.” The price is $19.95, and you can purchase a copy on the Interweave website. A video download is also available for $14.95.

On the DVD, Leslie shows how to create patterns and marks on cloth and paper using everyday objects. Demonstrations include:

• preparing thickened dyes
• screen printing
• batching
• laminating paper to cloth
• soy wax printing
• gelatin monoprinting
• stamping

cotton broadcloth

Leslie demonstrates each technique using the same group of household objects throughout, so you can see how to achieve different effects using the same object. Here’s a clip from the DVD:



I wanted to get the inside scoop, so I asked Leslie to chat with me about shooting the DVD.

ME: What did you like best about shooting your new DVD?
LESLIE: I loved the entire process of preparing, then filming the DVD workshop. In my former life as a registered nurse, I did a terrific amount of community health education. I have always loved to teach and facilitate workshops. It has been an exciting challenge to bring that skill set into the world of mixed media surface design. As a writer and instructor, one of the toughest bits is to edit information down to an understandable “capsule,” and I love that challenge!

“Night Garden” (42x72")
art cloth: cotton broadcloth and silk organza

Night Garden (detail)

ME: Was there any part of it that was hard?
LESLIE: Organizing supplies and samples for transport to the production facility was a bit scary, because I was afraid I would forget something important. With many surface design supplies one cannot simply run out and pick up this or that at the local store! So, I obsessed a bit about my materials. I enjoyed making specific samples for the workshop, and I packed quite a few quilts because I was encouraged to personalize the set, which was super fun!

“Fire: Urban Inferno/Urban Comfort” (17x22")
Cotton broadcloth

ME: Did anything memorable happen during the shoot?
LESLIE: Thanks to my teaching partner, Jamie Fingal, there is a special set of props in the shelving behind me. The viewer might want to pay attention to the many moods of Barbie from one chapter to the next during the workshop. I'm just sayin’…

ME: What is most interesting or unique about what you cover on the DVD?
LESLIE: As an artist I am interested in the possibilities of everyday items as mark-making tools. This is certainly not unique to me: many surface design artists use found objects to make marks on paper and cloth, as well as create their own unique tools. Silk screens, thermofax screens, and hand-made stamps: these are great ways of creating personalized work. In addition, we as artists can use a variety of objects that are intended for another purpose to create beautiful marks on cloth and paper, and this was the focus of my workshop.

I did not invent this wheel! Chad Alice Hagan, a wonderfully talented artist who specializes in felted constructions, once told me that if you think you have invented a new technique, you probably just haven't done enough research! One of my main themes in the workshop dvd is to demonstrate how the same tool can be used in several ways to create marks. For example:  I use the top and bottom of a plastic tomato container to apply soy wax to create a resist on the surface of cloth and paper, to manipulate paint on a gelatin plate for monoprinting, and as a stamp for paint.

My goal is to invite to viewer to look at objects for their potential as mark-making tools. One does not have to invest a lot of money in printing tools in order to create unique cloth and paper.  These things are a way of building visual depth and texture to cloth and paper.

ME: What you like best about teaching?
LESLIE: I feel honored and humbled to have been asked to develop a workshop DVD. I enjoyed the challenge of creating a visual workshop to share with viewers. Creating unique cloth and paper to use in my work has become an essential step. It has afforded me the ability to embed personal meaning into my quilts and mixed media work, and I am happy to share that with others. Nothing is more thrilling than offering information to a student and watch them get excited or have a big AHA! moment.

I have been very fortunate to learn from some truly wonderful teachers, many of whom I have the honor to count as friends.  It seems to me the more we give generously of our own knowledge, the more we all receive.  Each artist will put their personal mark on the work they make, consciously or not.  We might have similar tools, but it is how we use them that makes the work our own.  My goal as a facilitator is to get others excited about the possibilities and mentor them so they can find their own path.  If I can do that for even one person, I'll be happy. 

“Butterfly Airmail” (6x4")
cotton broadcloth, mixed media,

“Heartland: Scattered Landscape” (detail)
paper laminated to polyester sheer, cotton facial cloths

silk and cotton cloth

“Warehouse 104” (18" x 10" x 8") part of an artist collaboration,
“An Artist Village” that will debut in Tactile Architecture 2011.
Corrugated plastic, facial wash cloths, plastic packaging, grommets, paper laminated to cloth.
This structure can be opened up to fold flat, though it is constructed into one unit.

“Childhood Garden” (27 x 18 ¾")
silk habotai and organza, cotton broadcloth, lutradur 

art paper laminated to polyester sheer

"Nesting" (9 x9")
mixed media on paper

“InVitro #5:  Microscopy” (27 x 50 ½")
cotton broadcloth and silk organza

“Hummers” (10 x 8")
Mixed media page from an art journal. Original watercolor.

silk charmeuse

silk organza and cotton broadcloth with soy wax batik

“Heartland #5: Field Burn” (24 x 12" framed)
bamboo batting, silk organza, cotton facial cloths

“Mail Art” (7 x 5" framed)
mixed media collage

“What Remains” (36x48")
paper laminated to cloth, felt, bamboo batting, silk and cotton broadcloth

“What Remains” (detail)

“Japanese Tea Garden” (49 x 27")
silk charmeuse, silk organza

Leslie co-curates exhibitions of fiber art with Jamie Fingal. Together, they formed Dinner at Eight Artists, which has brought spectacular exhibits to International Quilt Festival in the past few years. The latest, “The Space Between,” will debut at International Quilt Festival in Long Beach, California, in July.

I’ll have a post about Jamie and her work in the next day or so.

Find out more about Leslie here:
Leslie’s blog: http://leslietuckerjenison.blogspot.com/
Dinner at Eight Artists’ blog: http://dinnerateightartists.blogspot.com/

You can pre-order my book now

My second book will be here very soon! If you want an autographed copy, and you want it as quickly as possible, you can pre-order it on my website here now. I'll ship the books out as soon as I get them!

Point, Click, Quilt! Turn Your Photos into Fabulous Fabric Art will be released by C&T Publishing in mid-July. It includes 16 artful projects inspired by my digital photographs. I teach how to compose and shoot dynamic digital photos from a quilter's perspective. There are lots of fun exercises to help you become a better photographer, and step-by-step directions to help you turn your photos into small art quilts, both realistic and abstract. Most of my projects use fused batik and hand-dyed fabrics, but four projects include innovative materials (paint, Tyvek, Angelina fibers, and foils).

The book is 112 pages, and retails for $27.95. My shipping prices are $5 to the U.S. and Canada, and $11 to anywhere else.  

“Modern Blocks”

I am proud to announce that I have a block in a new book by Stash Books called Modern Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks from Your Favorite Designers. The designs in the book include “new ways to think about the classics, plus some brand new blocks you have not seen before.” All are 12" blocks, include complete cutting instructions. Most are beginner-friendly. This will be a great book for block swaps. It includes pieced, appliquéd and embroidered designs. The book will be available in October 2011. 224 pages, $24.95

Jane LaFazio workshop at Random Arts

I just spent a relaxing, inspiring day with Jane LaFazio at Random Arts in Saluda, NC. I was there to take Jane’s “Recycled Circles” workshop. That’s my project – in progress — above. I’m definitely going back to Saluda soon; it is a charming little town in the mountains. Jane Powell, the owner of Random Arts, reported that it will soon be in a new location on the main street of Saluda.

Look a this great wood and metal door! Jane rusted it herself. Behind that door is a cute little courtyard that leads to the back door:

We started by building our backgrounds. Here’s Mama Crow working on hers: 

Mama Crow (her nickname) has been a wonderful supporter of my blog – and a Facebook friend – for a long time, so it was wonderful to meet her at the workshop! She was wearing a cool shirt she had embroidered (and in this photo, I'm wearing one of Jane Powell’s aprons):

This is the background that Jane LaFazio made to demonstrate her techniques:

And here she is demo-ing one technique. While she looks rather somber in this photo, Jane has a very warm, sunny personality, and the workshop was laid back while each student worked at her own pace.

This shows some of our backgrounds out in the sun to dry:

Isn’t this one fab?

In the last half hour, Jane spent time with students making suggestions for improvements, and playing with the way the four quadrants of the circles could be arranged:

Jane is teaching at some amazing retreats in Mexico and Italy in the next few years. How I’d love to do her Mexican one Oct. 27 - Nov. 4, 2012! Check out the georgeous photographs of the last retreat there on the Tesoro del Corazon blog. You can buy Jane’s artwork at her Etsy Shop.

Random Arts has all sorts of lovely flowers and plants around the building, like these hollyhocks:

and these daylilies:

a lacecap hydrangea:

and blackberries almost ready to pick and eat!

Many thanks to both Janes for a fabulous day!

On the radio!

What do hairy backs, Pittsburgh, and my new book have in common? They are all things I talked about with Mark Lipinski today on “Creative Mojo,” his online radio show! 

Miss hearing the show live? You can hear the recording here: http://toginet.com/shows/creativemojo

Just click on the "Recent Shows" sidebar on the right side, then on "Creative Mojo 06-08-2011." My segment is at the start of the second hour. 

You can read more about the guests featured on today’s show on Mark’s blog.  

Thanks, Mark! It was a lot of fun.

Aurfil’s June Designer of the Month and a give-away

Annie Smith

Annie Smith of Simple Arts is the Aurifil Designer of the Month for June. Annie loves sampler quilts; she says they are “the ultimate instructional quilt” because you learn a different construction technique with each block. She is a lover of appliqué, too. Her free project for this month is this beautiful circular appliqué:

Annie’s free project

You can read more about Annie, and download her free pattern on this Aurifil blog post.

To learn even more, check out:

www.simplearts.com
www.simplearts.com/blogs
Facebook: http://facebook.com/quiltingstash
Online Classes: http://simplearts.com/blogs/classroom/index.html
E-mail: annie@simplearts.com

Aurifil’s fan page on Facebook is:

https://www.facebook.com/aurifil.quilt.thread

GIVEAWAY!

Each month this year, I’m going to be giving away a pack of Aurifil minispools (like the one shown above) when the new project is announced. Just leave a comment after this post telling me if you have tried Aurifil thread yet, or what you think about Annie’s project. I'll pull a name at random on Monday, July 4 at noon EST. The sampler pack includes great colors in different weights. We have a winner! Sallie from Texas won this month’s sampler pack.

Trouble in the Pumpkin Patch

“Trouble in the Pumpkin Patch” by Susan Brubaker Knapp

I got October again! This will be the third year in a row that I’ve been featured in the Quilting Arts Calendar for the month of October. (I love October, partly for Halloween, which is my birthday.) The 2012 edition will include this piece I made of my black cat, Trouble. It was painted on white fabric, then thread-sketched.

“Trouble in the Pumpkin Patch”(detail)

Trouble has the most beautiful celadon green eyes. We adopted her from a shelter, where they had named her Trouble because she had been in trouble, not because she was trouble. She was attacked by dogs as a kitten, and has a broken, kinked tail that she can’t feel about an inch below the base. Perhaps as a result, she is an incredibly skittish cat, easily spooked, but also very affectionate (often to the point of being annoying!) She also walks all over us in bed, and wakes us up at all hours for reasons we have never completely determined.

“Trouble in the Pumpkin Patch” (detail)

I love the iguana piece they selected for the cover! It is by Jill Packard. The theme for 2012 was “Feeling Pet-ty,” and artists were asked to create a 12" x 12" art quilt using stitch, fiber, surface design and embellishments. 

  

It is in stock now on the Quilting Arts website. The price is $14.95. Featured artists are:

LuAnn Kessi

Faith Cleary 

Nancy Brown 

Sue Clayton 

Susan Brubaker Knapp

Susan E. Connor 

Lisa Encabo 

Nancy Hayes 

Loreen Leedy 

Amber McIntosh 

Joan Sowada 

Nanette Zeller 

Jill Packer

Parrot Peek-a-Boo

Parrot Peek-a-Boo (25 x 20.25") by Susan Brubaker Knapp

This is Parrot Peek-a-Boo, a piece featured in my upcoming book, Point, Click, Quilt! Turn Your Photos into Fabulous Fabric Art. It is scheduled for release in mid July.

I took the photo on which this piece is based (below) at Silver Springs in Ocala, Florida, a few years ago. We were on a family vacation, and my husband had gone there as a child, and remembered it fondly. We took the glass bottom boat trip out into the “99.8% pure waters” of the Silver River, where you can see straight to the bottom. 

 

The park also has animal displays, where I found these affectionate parrots playing peek-a-boo:

Original photo by Susan Brubaker Knapp

I eliminated the background because I thought it would focus attention better on the parrots. There is a ton of thread sketching on this piece to make the feathers look dimensional and to add the cool wrinkles on the birds’ faces. I just love the bright colors of these Blue-and-Yellow Macaws.

If you would like to get more information about when my book is available, just e-mail me at susan@bluemoonriver.com and let me know. (Or click the “sign up for my e-newsletter” button on the right sidebar of my blog, or on my website’s home page.) I’ll add you to my mailing list and let you know when you can order it.

 

I’ll have a pre-order button on my website here in about a week. The price is $27.95 (plus tax, if you live in North Carolina, and shipping, which will be $5 in the U.S. and Canada, and $11 for everywhere else). I try to keep my shipping costs very close to the actual cost of mailing, plus a bit for the padded mailing envelopes.

Joplin, Missouri quilt guild needs our help

Deb McConaghy, one of my friends from the Charlotte Quilters’ Guild, contacted me today to ask me to publicize this. She had been looking at photos of the devastation caused by this week’s tornado in Joplin, Missouri. The list of the dead topped 130 today, and she started wondering if Joplin had a quilt guild. Turns out that they have two. She was able to get in touch with one member of Joplin’s Town and Country Quilters Guild, who reported that 4 of their 70 members have lost their homes. 

Photo courtesy KOMU News

According to Gloria Park, the contact for the Joplin Town and Country Quilt Guild, the guild provides lots of quilts for the needy, but one of the houses lost in the tornado held all their supplies for making these charity quilts. Gone were rotary cutters, cutting mats, batting, fabric, irons, everything. 

Can you help? If so, please ship materials to:


Gloria Park
2921 N. Hickory
Joplin, Missouri 64801 

They have storage provided free by U-haul so they can store items there. If you ship things to Gloria, she will make sure that they get to the guild. The need is now greater than ever, and as you know, quilters will pitch in whenever there is a need or a crisis.

Gloria says that they would welcome checks made out to “Bed Bath & Beyond” or “Block by  Block Quilt Shop” where they could purchase the bigger items that would not make sense to ship. Finished quilts and quilt tops would also be welcome, and will go to those affected by the tornado.

Since my mother died in January, I have been wondering where to donate some of my mom’s quilting supplies that are duplicates of my own. Now I know. I’ll be packing up a box to send next week. I hope you will join me. 

UPDATE (June 13): The Joplin guild reports that it has been absolutely buried in fabric and supplies, to the point that they can’t accept any more right now. If you have already donated supplies, thank you SO much for your generosity. If you have not donated yet, but would still like to help, please consider a monetary donation to the American Red Cross earmarked for the Joplin tornado relief fund. All my thanks to my generous, kind, wonderful blog readers! – Susan

Got a dog? Stitch a dog bed!

 

This is my dog, Sophie (above), resting on a dog bed I made for her. The project is featured in 101 Patchwork Projects + Quilts, a special publication by the publishers of Quilting Arts magazine. There are directions for a bed for a medium-sized dog (40-50 pounds), and one for a smaller dog or cat. It is very easy to make. I call it “Dogbed of Roses,” because of the big roses that are raw-edge appliqued on top. All the fabrics are from Bari J’s “Country Lane” line for Windham. 

Here is the project in the magazine:

Sophie loves her bed, and it is nice and comfy. I bought a cheap-o dog bed at a pet store and used it for the insert. The smaller bed has a gusseted standard queen bed pillow inside.

The hefty 196-page magazine ($19.99) is available on newsstands (such as Barnes & Noble) or on the Interweave website.  Think that nearly $20 seems like a lot to pay for a magazine? Once you flip through it, you won’t feel that way. There are a ton more projects than you’d find in most quilting books that cost a lot more. There are at least 10 projects in this magazine that I absolutely have to make. 

Oh, and my business card case project is featured, too! 

 

Indian Corn 2

“Indian Corn 2” by Susan Brubaker Knapp – 15" x 20" (2010)

This is Indian Corn 2, a piece featured in my upcoming book, Point, Click, Quilt! Turn Your Photos into Fabulous Fabric Art. It is scheduled for release in mid July.

The photo on which this piece is based (below) is my mail basket (an old oyster basket I bought years ago) with some Indian corn in it. I love the juxtaposition of the man-made pattern of the basket with the organic pattern of the corn kernels. I bought this Indian corn at my favorite local farm stand, Carrigan Farms in Mooresville. They always have the most gorgeous Indian corn, and I love going there every fall to take photos and pick out my pumpkins and gourds. 

Original photo by Susan Brubaker Knapp

I am often asked how I decide what to thread sketch and what to quilt. The thread sketching takes place on the top layer (the quilt top) and goes through this layer and the interfacing (usually Pellon 910) only. The quilting takes place later, and goes through all the layers (quilt top, interfacing, batting and backing fabric). This piece is a good example of why I do what, and when.

In this case, I wanted to add the strands of corn silk, and I wanted lots of detail and color on the kernels. I did this at the thread sketching stage, because if I had quilted it, those areas would have receded, and they needed to come forward. I quilted the lines defining the kernels, because those areas needed to recede. Make sense now?

Detail of Indian Corn 2

If you would like to get more information about when my book is available, just e-mail me at susan@bluemoonriver.com and let me know. I’ll add you to my mailing list and let you know when you can order it.

Fall Farm Stand, Part 5

Detail shot of quilting, just started

I’m just about to call it a day, so here’s a progress report on Fall Farm Stand. Today I painted and melted Tyvek pieces and added them to the orange pumpkins. I hand appliqued all the gourds and pumpkins to the black background. I painted a few areas on the background (and may do more after I do some stitching). 

I did some threadsketching on the orange pumpkins, while I was stitching down the Tyvek pieces. But I didn't do too much; I want the bumps on these pumpkins to be very dimensional, so I’m going to do most of this detail work in the quilting stage. 

After cutting batting pieces to go under the three gourds in the foreground (the big orange one, the gray one and the speckled black/reddish one), I pinned these pieces to the back of the quilt top. I am hoping that this extra layer of batting will make them come forward from the background a bit more. Then I placed the quilt top on top of the batting and backing fabric and basted it with quilters’ safety pins. 

Then – finally! – I got to do some free-motion machine quilting. This is always an exciting part of each piece I do, because it is when it starts to come alive with the detail and dimension that the thread adds. 

I also don’t think I mentioned the size of this piece. It is about 24" x 36", which is bigger than a lot of the pieces I’ve done lately.

Time spent today: 6.5 hours. Total hours: 18.75

Fall Farm Stand, Part 4

Here’s what my latest piece, Fall Farm Stand, looked like before I went to bed last night. I cut out all the pumpkins and gourds from the white fabric on which I painted them, and positioned them on the background fabric. The white around each one will be turned under when I hand applique them to the background. The piece is based on this photo:

I am going to do some painting on the background, and add some melted Tyvek pieces to the  bright orange pumpkins today. Then I’ll do the applique and some thread sketching before I quilt everything with the batting and backing fabric. 

Time spent today: 4 hours. Total hours: 12.25

Donna’s wholecloth painting project

Donna Ramsey, a woman who took my Wholecloth Painting class earlier this month, e-mailed me a few days ago to show me what she’d done with her piece. Look at this darling little bag she made!

“It was such a pleasure to take the class with you last Friday,” she wrote. “I was not good at paint by number either,” she wrote (I had told my students that my process was a lot like painting-by-numbers, so there was nothing to fear!). “However,” she continued, “I love my finished product. One of the best things about a project is the enjoyment in doing it, and the pleasure of calling it done. I made my block into a bag and love it.”

Thanks, Donna!

C&T’s latest catalog

C&T Publishing chose to put my work, “Rusty Chevys,” on the front of its Fall 2011 catalog! What fun!