Lola Jenkins comes to Pelham Quilters!

As a TQS (The Quilt Show by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims) Star Member, I get to watch all the available shows.  To be honest I watch some and not others, all depending on how interesting the subject 'sounds', or if I know the featured quilter.  Well, when I saw the intro for the show featuring Lola Jenkins, I almost didn't watch it.  In fact, I think the show had been available for a couple of months before I did.  Boy,  was I glad I did!

First, Lola was a very entertaining guest on the show.  She is energetic and bubbly, with this interesting voice. Yes, interesting is the only way I know how to describe it :-).  But what really got me was her personal story, how she came to quilting and how she tackled each step along her journey.  It is a very moving story!!  Please watch if you can.

But what got me to reach out to her, was when she said she had a goal of visiting every guild in the country.  So I emailed her and asked if she wanted to visit our small, casual guild in Pelham, NY.  She responded immediately, saying she would LOVE to come and that she was presently scheduled to be in NY in September, 2012.  So we booked her, and boy was that a smart move.

Yesterday, Lola taught her Fantasy Landscape workshop to the Pelham Quilters, or at least 9 of us and 3 guests.  We had a ball.  Lola shared her secrets of looking at fabrics with an eye for the scene we have in our minds, vs what fabric as a whole.  She shared the 1/3's principle of design and guided us to our own, COMPLETED, top of the day.

That is right, everyone in the class completed a landscape top and earlier than we had expected!

Let me share with you some pictures from the day....

First, pictures of the quilts she brought with her as inspiration...

This first piece is from Lola's online Art Deco class.  She uses it as a sample for the class.  It is a whole cloth style quilt, with black thread as the basis of the design and then the fabric is "colored" in with colored pencils and other coloring aids.


Each of the following pieces are done using Lola's collage approach.  I tell you, I will never look at fabric the same again!

It is amazing to see what can be done by clipping pieces of fabric from many different pieces of material and pasting it down!













Here are some of the pieces that were completed in this one day workshop...

Barbara and her Apollo Jazz scene.  To you recognize her sky from one of Lola's quilts.  Funny they had a lot of the same fabrics!

Cheryl's piece with her fire sky...




















Donna's, City meets Africa cityscape...  As always Donna listened to the instructions and thought out of the box.  This was supposed to be a 'fantasy' landscape.  I think she captured the essence of "fantasy".

Doris, one of the doll ladies joined us and did a serene, calming landscape...

 Doris Green and her gorgeous water scene. I love the boys running by the river bank.  Sorry Doris, it is prettier than you think....


















Dorothy's inspiration fabric had these gorgeous fall tree's...



















Jacqueline another of our guest for the day, did a wonderful desert scene...



















I love Lorraine's New England scene with a lighthouse and sail boats...



















Here I am with my second Sister Chat piece or as I will call it, Sister Chat II !


















And a former member of Pelham Quilters, Gwyn, a doll maker and Doris's sister as she adds the last rock surrounding the river.

 Now, the queen of landscape collage, Ms. Sandra herself. Her birds are lovely as usual.  Sandra and Donna would ruin the class curve if this was a real art class :-). 

I love June's farm scene.  It looks like a little bit of Tuscany. 

It was a wonderful day, with a wonderfully group of talented women.

A special THANKS to Lola for traveling all the way from Oklahoma City in her PT Cruiser, with her sister Darlene as her co-pilot!

Mermaids and Merwoman in Black Folklore: A Fibert Art Exhibit

Well I am back from the Artist Reception and our little vacation to Charleston and Savannah.

Oh was it a wonderful experience.  First I want to say Thank You to Torreah "Cookie" Washington, for letting me participate in such a wonderful exhibit, full of magnificent quilts and dolls, made by some very talented artists!  Second, I want to Thank Donna Chambers, who pushed me to get my piece done and submitted by the deadline.

But, I must say, the exhibit was AWESOME!  There were 109 pieces of art, made by over 70 fiber artists.  I took tons of pictures and have them all loaded on Shutterfy.  I will post a few here, but if you are interested in seeing all 82 pics, you can try this link...  http://mermaidexhibit.shutterfly.com/pictures#n_5.  Not sure if it will work, if not, just post a comment with your email address and I will add you to the share site.

Besides the quilts and dolls, there were 18 poets who wrote new, original poems on the same theme for the exhibit.  All the quilts, dolls and poems are included in the book, "Black Mermaids in Vision and Verse", edited and conceived by Torreah "Cookie" Washington.  The book includes both pictures and artist statements of all the quilts and dolls in the show.  This is the first time a compilation of poems, quilts and dolls has ever been published for a gallery exhibit.  And to think, my work is included!!  So exciting :-)....

Here is the piece I submitted...  the Pelham Quilters Round Robin quilt that I did the last round on and then quilted.  I submitted it under all 3 names:  Donna Chambers, Doris Green and myself..

 I posted close ups of the piece in my last post.

Here is a picture of my friends, Donna's submission.  Tell me it isn't awesome :-)...

These two were also done by NY quilters, although the artists were from all over the country.

This piece by Bianca, is exquisite.  It is mostly painted, but look closely at her mermaids tails.  They are real fish scales that she got from the fish market and then cleaned and glued each scale on one by one....

Doesn't it look like her hand is coming right out of the quilt top?  ..

Wow.. is all I can say....
















Look at the fierceness in this mermaids eyes....  don't mess with those souls :-).


I have decided to make an effort to learn how to do faces after this exhibit.  So many of the quilters had such strong emotion in their pieces, all expressed through the facial characteristics.













And I have to share with you some of the dolls that were made.  The details....

I was truly amazed that you can ask 50 artists to submit their work around a single theme and end up with over 100 pieces that were all so different.  Each artist interpreted the theme as individuals and the result was one FABULOUS show.

If you want to see the exhibit for yourself, it is open until October 28th at The City Gallery at Waterfront Park, Charleston, South Carolina.

Hope you get a chance to see it....

I know you will enjoy it!!

Renee