Intro to Art Quilt Workshop in Bonshaw PE

On April 20, 2013, I taught an Introduction to Art Quilting workshop at the Bonshaw Community Centre on the Green Road in Bonshaw, PEI.  My eleven students for the day enjoyed painting on fabric, cutting and fusing, stamping, beading and hand-stitching their creations.  This is the first of many workshops, thanks to a grant from the South Shore Arts Council.

Here are some highlights from the day's class, courtesy of Diana Lariviere, our local marriage commissioner and my long-time friend.  (The author, Diana Lariviere, retains all copyright to the photos posted below, and they are used with permission of the author.)

We all learned something new, met new friends and old, and spent a pleasant day stitching together on a cold, spring weekend.

Bonshaw Workshop

On April 20, 2013, between 1-4, I'll be giving a workshop on beginning art quilting, sponsored by the South Shore Arts Council at the Bonshaw Hall.  Cost is $20 per person, including materials.  Everyone who comes will get a kit containing scissors, batting, un-bleached cotton muslin, colourful scraps of fabric, beads and small embellishments, fusible webbing, a Sharpie, a sewing needle, pins and coordinating thread.  Fabric medium, acrylic paint, brushes, stamps, iron, ironing board, and other items will be available for using that day.

Plan to come for lots of fun.  See your friends and neighbors, meet new people and enjoy the day.

Pre-registration is required.  Post a comment here if you'd like to come to the workshop.

Abby's Mini Horses: Photos

Abby and the Little Horses: A Canadian Fairy Tale

Abby has a miniature horse named Willy that she bought nearly three years ago, once we settled here in Prince Edward Island.

Once Upon A Time, there was a little girl named Abby.  Since she was a very little girl, she had always wanted a horse.  Every year, when she awoke on her birthday or on Christmas morning, she would get up early, look out her bedroom window in Lowell and be disappointed.  There was no horse tied to a tree waiting for her to jump on it's back.  The fact that we lived in the city and our postage stamp of a yard was nearly the size of our house mattered not.  Abby wanted a horse.

She was a determined little girl, though, and when our friend Harvey in PEI got some miniature horses, Abby went in search of someone close by who might own such magical creatures.  She found a kindred spirit in her friend Diane, owner of two mini horses, who let eleven-year-old Abby groom, feed and exercise her horses several times a week.  Of course, since Abby was eleven, I drove her to Diane's house and helped Abby with the walking and horse chores.  After a year or so, Diane started to bring Abby along for horse therapy visits to nursing homes and rehab centers.  Abby loved doing this, and really enjoyed interacting with the elderly and disabled people who had been looking forward to their visit.  Diane was a great friend to Abby and Abby studied every aspect of horse care in great detail.  During this time, Abby also took riding lessons in English and Saddle seat to get lots of experience with big horses.

I told Abby when she was little that someday we might move to Prince Edward Island, and when we did, she could have a horse.  Abby was determined to make this dream come true.  We did move to Prince Edward Island, and within a year, Abby had her horse.  Harvey agreed to trailer Abby's new horse from Tiz A Miniature Horse Farm in New Hampshire to PEI.  So one fine weekend, Harvey, Dave, Abby and I took a trip south.  We came back home, horse and all, in a hurricane.  Abby boarded Willy (whose real name is "Tiz Braveheart") with Harvey in exchange for working with his minis.  She did well.  Abby, Monty, Buttercup and Cheyenne won many ribbons, and even won Reserve Champion at Old Home Week in Charlottetown!

Willy lived at Harvey's for a long time, along with Pepper, Buttercup, Cheyenne and Monty.  Willy now lives with us at our new house, in his own little barn with his friend Pepper for company.  Pepper belongs to Evelyn, Harvey's wife.  She kindly offered to let Pepper visit for an indefinite time to be a companion horse to Willy, who was looking very lonely without his friends.  Pepper and Willy spend their days playing in the snow together and sleeping side-by-side in the front yard.  Abby looks out her bedroom window every day and sees her very own horse.  Just like she always dreamed she would.  And they all lived happily every after.

Saint Michael and Lucifer

 "St. Michael and Lucifer" copyright 2012 Sharon Sawyer

This is the latest "St. Michael and Lucifer", promised in an earlier post.  It's smaller than the first St. Michael, but uses some of the same material as the first.  Like my other quilts in the series, this one is hand-sculpted from polymer clay, the hair is alpaca, the cloth is a mix of hand-dyed and commercial, and the piece is embellished with silk cocoons, feathers and sequins. 

Since I made this quilt, we have bought a house, though not the one we were living in.  The new house is light and airy, five years old, small enough to be energy-efficient, but big enough for our needs.  It sits on about an acre of cleared land in the middle of five acres of birch and spruce forest, and there's a brook that borders it.  We share it with our two mini horses, two rabbits, four cats and wildlife.  We've seen rabbit tracks in the woods, red and silver foxes, lots of crows, and a bald eagle that likes to sit in the big birch tree in the backyard.  We have no visible neighbors, and our nearest neighbor is about half a kilometer away.  It's very peaceful and quiet here.  We love this place.  We love the Island, and the people who live here.  We'll be staying.

Amelia the Art Doll

My latest little work of art is called "Amelia" the art doll.  She's a one of a kind sculpture, made from a weighted water bottle, trim and fabric scraps.  Her hair is merino wool, and her face and hands are hand-sculpted polymer clay.  She's completely hand-crafted and hand-stitched.  My wonderful brother-in-law is a dentist, and for Christmas he gave me dental tools to help me work on the finest details of my small sculptures and art quilts.  This doll's armature is a half-litre water bottle, so you can see how comparatively small the facial sculpting is.  I had been sculpting with a pin head, and dental tools make the work so much easier!  When I started working on her, I had no idea she would look like this.  The original idea I had was completely different.  Once I began working on her, her "personality" came alive, and it became very clear that her name should be Amelia.

Latest Work in the Series

These photos are of my art quilt called "Pangur Ban."  Pangur Ban means white cat in the Irish language, and the name comes from a little poem inscribed in a margin of the ancient Book of Kells.  The Book of Kells was an illuminated manuscript of the Holy Bible, created during the middle ages in Ireland.  The poem tells the story of the relationship between the monk and his little white cat as they pass the hours together--the monk at his work, illustrating the stories of the Bible, and the cat at his work, catching mice.  My eldest daughter was studying in Ireland at the time and told me about the poem.  I researched it, printed it out in Irish and English, and attached the words to the "book" on linen.  The cat and mice are felted wool, the monk is made of polymer clay and hand-stitched fabric.

This piece is called "Jeanne d'Arc" or, translated, "Joan of Arc."  Both she and her horse are hand-sculpted of polymer clay with added beads.  Her armour is silver ribbon, sculpted into shape with lots of hand-stitching.  Her banner is historically accurate, as far as anyone on the internet has been able to determine, since there are written historical accounts of what her banner looked like, but of course, no one could take a photo in the middle ages, and no drawings of her banner survive.  She is shown here, victorious against the English invaders of France.  She's one of my favourite saints, and is well-known and loved by francophones here on the Island and in Lowell.  In fact, I used to do my banking at Jeanne d'Arc Credit Union and two of my children went to Ste. Jeanne d'Arc School in Lowell.

New school year, new house

It's early September and the new school year has started here in Prince Edward Island.  It's a new beginning for us, too, since we are about to buy a house.  For the past three years, we rented a house that we loved, but ultimately didn't buy.  For Americans with great credit ratings in the United States, getting credit in Canada is surprisingly difficult.  

However, that is now behind us.  We have a mortgage and a new house.  We've been living in our cottage for the past two months and it's time to move into our new, permanent home.  We will be moving into it next weekend.  Hooray! It's been a long, hard road. 

Easter, The Biggest Snowstorm of the Winter

Yesterday was Easter.  Easter this year occurred on April 8.  March 21 is the beginning of spring.  Before that time, it was winter: December, January, yes, and even February.  All with very little snow. Kids here in PEI had only two snow days during the winter of 2011-2012.  The ski area closed a day early due to warm weather and lack of snowpack.  There was enough man-made snow to make a nice run, but, in general, we had a very mild winter.  Not so Easter!  The white out was so bad in the morning that Kathryn had to turn around less than half a mile up the road and couldn't get to work because she could not see the road anymore.  Later that morning, we ventured out to church and Abby's Confirmation ceremony.  We barely made it through deep drifts, over icy bridges and windy, horizontal snowfall.  By afternoon, the sun came out.  The snow that was nearly completely gone two days ago has been replaced by a fresh coat.  The good news: we're expecting three solid days of +8 degrees celsius (about 50 degrees farenheit). 

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

 Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, copyright Sharon Sawyer, 2008

I made this art quilt for my brother and his wife.  It is our Lady of Mount Carmel standing on a cloud.  She is holding her baby, Jesus in one hand a a scapular in the other.  (You can read the story of our Lady of Mount Carmel and the brown scapular if you click on the link.)  She is made with hand-dyed, hand-painted, and commercial fabric, polymer clay, trims and other embellishments.  Her hair is made of alpaca wool.   

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.

Son Worshipper

The next in the series is a piece called "Son Worshipper."  This is a sunny reminder of weather to come as I sit here watching it snow in February.  The inspiration for this piece was the little pair of sunglasses the little sister is wearing as she soaks up the sun.  Cathy Granese gave me a bag of cast-off jewelry which included a tiny pair of sunglasses.  They were perfect!  First I sculpted the face, hands and single foot (to put just one toe in the water).  I perched the sunglasses on her face and started working on the rest of the quilt.  The piece is made of various kinds of fabric and trim, attached to a painted, stretched canvas, 24" x 18."  This one always makes me smile!  I hope you enjoy it, too.