Friday, January 13, 2012

The Next Two Art Quilts in the Series

After making "The Angels and Saints Are Watching Us," I decided to make another art quilt with nuns as the subject.  I remembered that the nuns who taught at my school all lived together in the parish convent and that they had only one car, a very big station wagon.  There was one sister who could drive and she was in charge of going out to get the groceries.  She was a notoriously bad driver, but that would not stop her from driving around with a carload of sisters out for a shopping adventure.  If you look at the nuns in the car, the driver is determined, the far passenger is terrified and the sister in the middle must be praying! 

There were quite a few technical problems in planning this quilt.  Since the work I do is three dimensional on a flat surface (bas relief), it was a real challenge in perspective to make the front end of the car emerge beyond the sculpted nuns inside the car without adding bulk to the quilt itself.  The quilt is stitched by machine and by hand, and I sculpted each of the nuns' faces by hand.   This quilt has been exhibited in several shows in New England and in Prince Edward Island.  It is definitely my favorite in this series.  The name of the piece is "Accidental Sisters."






The next piece in the series was inspired by the farm-themed fabric that dominates the quilt.  Of course, not all nuns teach school.  Some even raise chickens on a farm.  This next piece shows a nun feeding the chickens in the barnyard.  It is hand and machine sewn and embellished with a hand-sculpted face and lots of glass beads.  Its title is "Feeding Time."





Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The Art Scene in Lowell and How it Grew

The really great thing about working in a place like Western Avenue Studios in Lowell, MA, is that it is a huge community of artists, spread over five floors of an old mill in a run-down industrial area.  The rent was really cheap, and the space was just bare bones.  Since artists generally don't make a lot of money, it was an ideal spot to build the foundation for what the politicians like to call the creative economy, a concept made popular among urban planners by a professor at the University of Toronto, Richard Florida.  Lowell has long been known as a depressed, mill town dependent on one failing industry or another, not a reputation that will attract the best and the brightest to live there.

However, in the 1990's, the city looked at its resources and at other cities, most notably Boston, and saw that the price of real estate was climbing fast everywhere else, and that many of Boston's artists were being displaced by their own successes in building a vibrant creative community.  Basically, artists move into a place that seems pretty hopeless, usually industrial spaces, and transform these places into somewhere the young, hip and moneyed want to be.  This is great for a city.  When people with money, free time and no kids move into a city, they want to go places, do things and spend their money.  The places they go begin to attract small businesses that cater to these people.  The small businesses grow and the city thrives.  The revitalized city develops a reputation for being cool, hip and the place to be, which attracts real estate development, and more money.  In fact, everyone benefits except the artists who created the success.  Their rents go up and they lose their creative spaces.  They are forced out and begin to look for somewhere new.

People in Lowell saw this happening in Boston and wisely offered their city up as a place artists could go, where rents were cheap and mills were empty.  The city approached developers interested in re-purposing old mill space for artists, and offered them lots of money, tax breaks and encouragement to make new spaces for artists in Lowell.  The earliest result was the Ayer Lofts in the downtown, which was made into condos and an art gallery.  The Ayer Lofts had previously been a downtown eyesore which had been an EPA brownfields site (environmentally blighted).  It was transformed into a beautiful, functional place that attracted new residents to Lowell who were interested in improving life in the city and had the wherewithal to do it.  By all measures, the Ayer Lofts project was a success for Lowell.  New museums, like the Revolving Museum, opened in Lowell.  New businesses like Friends Fabric Arts, the Mambo Grill, and Brew'd Awakenings followed.  Downtown began its rejuvenation.
All this was added to Lowell's reputation as the site of the largest, free folk festival in America: The Lowell Folk Festival.

Lowell's reputation as a hip and happening place for the arts was on the rise.  Once the Arts League of Lowell was established, resident artists had a collective voice. The city government expanded its outreach through the Lowell Office of Cultural Affairs.  This later became known as the Office of Cultural Affairs & Special Events (CASE).  Lowell was now able to show that it cared about art and artists, and that it was willing to facilitate development based on cultural affairs.  Thus, the seed was planted for the development of a dilapidated mill complex in the worst neighborhood in the city. This would become Western Avenue Studios, a showplace for all the best contemporary art that the city of Lowell has to offer.  


Our little fiber arts studio, the Lowell Fiber Studio, was among the very first in the complex, located on the fifth floor, number 512.  There were originally eight of us working there, Maxine Farkas, who had been our teacher at Friends Fabric Arts, Gay Tracy, Gwen Stith, Linda Branch Dunn, Margot Stage, Karen Bettencourt, Laura Gawlinski and me.  Little did we know at the time that we would soon be joined by over three hundred other artists in the mill complex and be a featured studio in Quilting Arts Magazine (Issue 39, August/September 2009).


Western Avenue Studios was a great place to work.  Walking down the halls and visiting friends' studios was always inspirational and fun.  There is a real creative energy in the place, especially on the first Saturday of each month during Open Studios.  Watch the video for a taste of Open Studios at Western Avenue!





Monday, January 9, 2012

How the Series Began

Here is the first of the series of art quilts devoted to nuns and saints.  This art quilt was juried into a show at the 119 Gallery in Lowell, MA.  The theme of the exhibit was dreams; and nuns have been a recurring theme in my dreams since I was a child in Catholic school.  Mostly, the dreams revolved around me, being late to class, showing up on the very last day of school just before the MATH EXAM!!! And, of course, I was totally unprepared.  Have you ever had this dream? 

So, I tried to re-create the scene.  First, by choosing the absolutely right color of yellow paint that is ubiquitous in Catholic schools.  Yes, I also taught in Catholic school as an adult in Lowell, and my color memory serves me well!  I remembered the sisters of my childhood: the stern, the sweet and the bemused.  I also remembered that no matter what, the angels and saints were watching our every move, and knew our thoughts.  This could be a blessing or a curse, depending on what kind of day one was having!  Nevertheless, it was a constant theme. 

Notice the little angels, reflecting their sisters' personalities, sitting only on their right shoulders.  This is because all little children were taught that their guardian angels sit at their right side, and the devil was tempting us on from the left side.  That is, of course, unless one was left-handed like me.  I once pointed this out to my teacher who promptly sent me to the office.  I knew that God made me left-handed, and that I could draw much better and write better with my left hand.  So, of course, God reversed the process in me, and all other righteous, left-handed children.  End of story!

This art quilt is called, "The Angels and Saints Are Watching Us."  It has been shown in several juried exhibits in the United States and here in Canada.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

My 2012 creative resolutions!

We have been back on Prince Edward Island for less than a week, having spent Christmas and New Years in Massachusetts.  In fact, I had been there since early December, helping my mother with going through my dad's clothes and books; a task everyone had been avoiding.  The house is cleaner now, and we are looking forward to a better time in 2012.  I quit teaching ESL in November, and I want to spend that creative energy working on my art.

So, I have lots of work to do!  I will begin by taking a class on art and craft business development next week.  And, of course, I will be posting to this blog as often as I can.  In my next post, look for my collection of nuns and saints, which had been part of my solo show entitled, "Here and Hereafter."