ART and OLD LACE Exhibit at ARTISTIC ARTIFACTS

I am so excited to display my entries into the Art and Old Lace Challenge sponsored by Artistic Artifacts Annex, Alexandria, Virginia . Over 80 incredible 18" x 18" art quilts were put on display yesterday during an open house at the store (4750 Eisenhower Ave, Alexandria, VA 22304) near the Van Doren Street metro station.

For my part, I created two very different art quilts. The first I titled Koi Pond Art Gallery. My idea was to make the viewer think about how art is all around; both outside naturally and by the hand of the artists; we just need to stop and look to enjoy. The background was created with blue men's shirting, over laid with recycled onion bags, bits of lace and hand painted and torn scraps of gauze (the fish).

    All these elements were free motion quilted with ircles. The art floating on the pond is made from vintage book pages sprayed with alcohol inks.These pages were put onto mat board which was mounted on recycled aluminum from soda cans that I corrugated. To tie everything together, I overlaid the whole piece with a single stran of wire twisted into circles that I machine stitched to the background.

The second piece, titled Victorian Cotton Candy was also made only using recycled materials. I'm not a pink kind of a gal, so this piece definitely does not represent my personality. To me, as an artist, what it does represent is a lonely woman; looking out a window into the world. And in my imagination, she is over coloring a world that she lost or that she never had with images of sweet and happy things.

The background was an unfinished pillow top that I started in the 1970's that I machine quilted with straight stitches. Next I took a large thrift store salvaged doilie; the kind with linen in the center and hand work around the outer edge. I stitched this to the background, and then cut out the center fabric. Next I tucked nylon lace under the handwork and machine quilted both to the background. After loosely gathering the outer edges of the nylon and tacking it down, I covered the tack points with buttons. To finish I added ribbon around the edge and hand stitched a reproduction cameo into the center.

The challenge was sponsored by Artistic Artifacts and curated and coordinated by Cyndi Souder, Art Quilter and Judy Gula, the owner of the store. Participation was open to anyone who elected to accept a packet of vintage lace and fabric. The challenge was to create a small art quilt, using some small portion of the packet materials in order to create your personal vision of "Art and Old Lace".

The quilts will be on exhibit and free public viewing during regular shop hours until September 30. The show includes a wonderful display of family memories, vintage portraits, plays on words, traditional techniques, modern and abstract works.