The Business of Craft

I just finished taking a course last night offered through the PEI Crafts Council and Holland College.  The instructor/facilitator was Michelle MacCallum, a potter from Breadalbane PEI (pronounced Bread- AL -bin, for those who don't know).  The course was ten weeks long and covered the business aspects of running a crafts or fine arts business, because even though we are all artists, we still need to eat!  There was an enormous amount of talent in the room: painters, sculptors, chefs, fine woodworkers, potters, photographers, writers, jewelry artists, etc.  Everyone shared their thoughts and helpful advice with each other.  We learned about copyright, web design, marketing, writing a business plan, taxes, billing, keeping inventory, grants, legal issues, hiring workers, craft and trade shows, etc.  It is so strange that most art school don't offer these kinds of courses.  If artists were taught early on that they would likely be working for themselves and be given the means to make a living doing what they love to do, fewer artists would feel compelled to give up their dreams to make money at something they would rather not do!

Artists shouldn't have to starve.  So much of our daily culture is tied up in images.  Someone has to make these images.  Artists need to learn to make a living making art.  Art is not valued when it is looked upon as just a hobby or past time to fit in when every other bit of "real work" is done.  How many times are artists told to "get a real job."  HURRAY for the PEI Crafts Council for giving this course.  I look forward to taking the next course offered.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

 Detail of Our Lady of Guadalupe, 2007, mixed media art quilt

Our Lady of Guadalupe, copyright 2007 Sharon Sawyer

Our Lady of Guadalupe came about when I asked my Spanish class at St. Michael School in Lowell to work on a project on this theme.  Our Lady of Guadalupe is the favorite image in Mexico.  She brought hope to the native people who were oppressed by their Spanish conquerors.  She is dressed like an Aztec princess and Aztec people of the time recognized her this way.  Her feast day is December 12.  On her feast day in 2007, I was in Mazatlan, Mexico during the celebration.  People dressed their children up in traditional clothing and took them to the cathedral where they left flowers in the church and took photographs of their children in front of backdrops of Our Lady of Guadalupe as she appeared in the desert.  I followed the traditional description of how she appeared in my art quilt.  She is dressed in red and deep green with gold stars and trim, standing on a half moon with the sun shining behind her.  I added polymer clay roses to a gilded frame and LED lights all around her figure.  The background is hand-dyed silk damask and gold lame.  Her face, hands and feet are sculpted from Model Magic clay. 

Ode to Gees Bend

"Ode to Gees Bend" copyright 2009 Sharon Sawyer   30" x 20" mixed media quilt

Chickens!

This quilt which I called "Ode to Gees Bend" is my chicken quilt.  Before I left Massachusetts, there was an exhibit of quilts from a small southern rural community called Gees Bend.  The women who lived there were very poor, but yet they created some really beautiful quilts from materials they had on hand.  I reached into my own stash, grabbed some leftovers, and made the quilt.  I embellished the chicken, and it always makes me smile.  Here is a link explaining the story of the Gees Bend quilts: http://www.quiltsofgeesbend.com/

Memories of Western Avenue Studios: The Lowell Visiting Nurse Association Quilt

Before I moved away from Lowell, our last collaboration at the Lowell Fiber studio www.lowellfiberstudio.org was this lovely quilt:

This was a commission commemorating the 100th anniversary of the VNA of Greater Lowell.  It is a collaboration between 10 quilt artists working together and in pairs (each pair responsible for the design and execution of their panel) and the nurses, patients, families and other health professionals associated with the VNA.  The quilt now hangs in the VNA corporate headquarters in downtown Lowell.  The scene includes photographs of houses in Lowell as well as a photograph of the downtown seen from the top of Christian Hill.  The quilt reaches from night into day, and includes quotes by the patients and families of the VNA expressing their appreciation for the care they received.  The quotes are written in six different languages spoken in Lowell.  The artists were Linda Dunn (who coordinated the quilt project), Cathy Granese, Gwen Stith, Ann and Sonja Lee-Austin, Margot Stage, Merrill Comeau and me, with some additional help from Laura Gawlinski and Susan Webber.  This piece took over six months to complete, and is quite large, taking up most of the conference room wall at the Lowell VNA. 

To Buy, To Rent, To Move, To Stay!

Back in September, we became permanent residents of Canada.  Kathryn had become a permanent resident a few years ago, but the rest of us were here on visitor records and temporary work permits.  To those of you who don't know much about immigration to Canada (most, I would suppose), it meant that our time in Canada was officially limited because we would have to leave and go back to America when our temporary work permits expired.  This was a hard situation because we couldn't settle down or make plans for our lives at all.  We couldn't buy a house because we couldn't get a regular mortgage, and we had no assurance we could remain in any house we bought even if we could buy one.  So, we have been renting in a lovely spot for the past three years.  We now have the chance to buy the house we are in, or buy another house close by, or even rent for a while longer.  Now the time has come to make a decision.

Kathryn will be moving back to the USA, to Notre Dame University to study for her doctorate.  Kathryn has been selected as a Mellon Fellow, which is a very prestigious award for outstanding scholarship.  She also got accepted to Oxford University, but she has decided to study at Notre Dame instead.  Aaron will be graduating from Massachusetts Maritime Academy in June, and we have no idea where in the world he will be working next year.  Abigail is going to the University of Prince Edward Island, and Daniel is in high school.  So, we will be down to only two kids living with us in PEI, for the time being.  Abby's miniature horse, chickens and our five cats are here with us, but all our relatives and most of our friends are in another country.

Are we going to stay here forever?  It seems like we might.  In fact, I just found out the other house up the road that we like so much is not for sale, so we are going to stay put and buy this place and the glorious nine acres of woods, pasture and bubbling brook around us.

St. Michael the Archangel I

This is my favorite art quilt in my series of saints.  Unfortunately, I donated it to the school where I used to teach Spanish.  When I left Lowell to come to Prince Edward Island, I also left many students I had taught there in grades five to eight.  I asked the principal to hang this piece in the school where all the kids could see it.  Instead, it was stuffed behind a file cabinet somewhere, and was lost.  When I went back to school for a visit, this piece was nowhere to be found.  This made me very sad, since it was a wonderful piece and went totally unappreciated.  Worst of all, the students never got to see it.   I learned a lesson the hard way not to donate my artwork.

I have since completed another St. Michael Fighting Satan, and you will see it in future posts.  The original was 36" x 20" and was made of multiple layers of the brightest, blingy-est fabric and embellishments I could find.  St. Michael was dressed in shiny layers of stiffened holographic ribbon and sequins with lame wings and halo and a helmet made of silver holographic shreds.  The nebula background was hand-dyed silk damask and all the layers of red and orange fabric were tulle and other transparent fabrics.  Satan's tail was made from acrylic angora yarn.  Heads, hands and feet were made of polymer clay and Model Magic clay.  Satan's body was made of silver sequins.  The quilt was embellished with gold stars, beads, and red polymer hands reaching upward from the flames. 

Satan's other name is Lucifer, which means "bearer of light" in Latin.  Satan is Michael's sibling and equal, one of the archangels along with Michael, Raphael and Gabriel.  Angels have no gender; they are pure spirit, but they are like humans in that they were created with free will and could choose to obey God or not.  Lucifer and his buddies chose not to, and became bent on destruction and evil.  This scene shows Michael defeating Lucifer and throwing Lucifer into Hell.  Michael and Lucifer are both made of silver sequins to show they were created the same, but Satan made only bad choices while Michael made good ones.

St. Anthony in the Land of the Lost

St. Anthony in the Land of the Lost

The next art quilt in the series is St. Anthony.  I especially love St. Anthony because there are so many great legends around him.  This quilt is full of symbolism.  If you are Catholic, you know that St. Anthony is the saint who helps you find lost things.  This is why he's holding a set of my car keys in his right hand. Yes, St. Anthony finds them for me every time! Of course, St. Anthony was a monk, which is why he is dressed in a simple, brown robe.  St. Anthony was such an amazing orator that when he would stand on the beach and preach into the waves, the fish would jump out of the water to hear him.  St. Anthony's words were so sweet that his sermons attracted bees that would circle his head.  Mostly, though, St. Anthony finds whatever is lost.  The treasure chest at his feet is filled with all the little things that people misplace every day.  I loved working on this quilt.  I hope you enjoy it, too.