On Travel and Nakedness

June 25, 2024

Some of my work is traveling. Quilts going out, quilts coming back. I say often that my art isn’t done until it goes out on its own to be seen. I threaten to embed a video camera in the work so that I can track its journey and see the reactions of those who attend the shows.

Imagine being thrust into a box, rolled up with some of your pals, moving along conveyor belts in the darkness and into trucks to be thrown onto the porch of the museum or gallery. The curator unwraps you to new light and then you are on display, naked to the public. Saying what you must say, being who you must be. Out loud.

A selection of my work will join others on Martha’s Vineyard at the Featherstone Center for the Arts. It’s a group show including fiber artists Alice Beasley, Michele Beasley Maloney, Earamichia Brown, Shin-hee Chin, Chiaki Dosho, Pamela Flam, L'Merchie Frazier, Sharon Havelka, Natalya Khorover, Karol Kusmaul, Susan Lenz, Caroline MacMoran, Wen Redmond, Linda Syverson Guild, and Jaleeca Yancy. What a roster! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be part of a round table discussion with all of these artists?

I spent last week working again on the scrap piece that is taking over my studio. These will travel to the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska in January as part of a solo exhibition in one of their galleries. The pieces are a sort of retrospective of the works I have created in the past 20 years. Morphing them into a column has been revealing. I have more black scraps than colorful scraps. I see repetition in the stitching from one to the next. I like them the most when they move as if alive (I wonder if I could install a small motor that would activate that jittery motion?). Frayed edges add life.

Some of my beasts will travel to the Blue Spiral Gallery in Asheville, NC as part of the Common Thread exhibit they will mount in September. I’ll need to name them and figure out what it means when a herd member is separated from its herd.

This collage piece is in Little Rock, Arkansas as part of the Delta Triennial exhibition. The Arkansas Museum of Fine Art has been completely renovated and enlarged recently (and it was formidable before this) so I am really looking forward to visiting this piece myself. I can’t wait to see what the other artists have contributed to this great show. What are they saying out loud?

Everything seemed fine until the earth pushed back, 29” x 25”, PAULA KOVARIK

The whole world’s watching, detail, Paula Kovarik

Edward Hopper once said “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.”

Art speaks. Out loud and naked. Go see some. You can talk back to it.

The Public Eye

July 3, 2023

I believe that art isn’t done until someone besides the artist has seen it. I am also at a point in my career that I want the pieces I make to leave my studio. I want them to travel. I want them to go away, clear the decks, and move on. So I spend some time each week seeking ways to get my work into the public eye. I like to start a conversation with my work. I’m interested in how we communicate with each other.

With that goal in mind, the art group I am part of (Six Points) made a proposal to a local university gallery called 2 sides/6 points. Here’s the original proposal we made to the gallery.

2sides/6 points

In 2 sides/6 points we ask ourselves these questions: Can art have a do over? How does an immersive conversation with an artist inspire new art? Can one artist reinvent the work of another? Can imitation or intention carry an artist to a new place?

We six artists have met regularly for over seven years. As a group, our aim is to support, nourish and react to each other’s work with critical eyes born from long discussions. We know and celebrate each other. We listen and consider. It’s a deep dialog based on the belief that our aim is to assist and our process is to be honored.

And now our task is to dive deeper. With this show, we bring the time-honored practice of one artist being inspired by another to create new work. Each of the six will choose a work by one of the others and reflect, re-imagine and create a work inspired by that piece. After a one-on-one artist-to-artist conversation the original piece will act as a muse to something new from a different point of view, medium, or palette. This show will include the original artwork, the inspired creation, and a sampling of each artist’s body of work.

The tall piece in the middle of this picture features the work I created after engaging in this challenge.

I was paired with Mary Jo Karimnia in this challenge. She has a multi-media practice that includes using beads, flocking, paint and paper. One of her series is devoted to eyes. When we met we talked about evil eyes, inner eyes, protective eyes, seeing eyes, third eyes and the many ways that eyes are referred to in art. Her eyes are painted on plates, cut out of wood, mounted on baskets and gathered in installations.

Mary Jo Karimnia does a series of works focused on eyes.

Choosing a strong palette with lots of pattern was a new challenge for me. I usually work with less color.

Recently I watched a documentary about refugees and asylum seekers traversing the jungles of Panama to get to safety. Their journey is horrendous, murderous and rife with corruption. Many die. It occurred to me that the whole world should witness this disaster. The whole world needs to figure out how this ends. And then I realized that the whole world is watching this disaster, all across the globe people are hungry, hopeless and in danger. So I decided to use that idea in my piece called The Whole World’s Watching using eyes as a focal point.

Every so often we get a news flash of more people dying in their attempts to get to safety.

*The Whole World’s Watching*, Paula Kovarik, 50.5” x 16”

The 2 sides/6 points show will debut in September at the UT-Martin campus of the University of Tennessee. If you are in the area please stop by and let us know what you think about the show. Let’s continue this conversation.

How do you get your artwork into the public eye? drop me a note!

Herd

September 6, 2022

Two years of work, all in one place. The Herd has invaded the Austin Peay State University New Gallery.

Headless Herd members march into the exhibit on a platform. They are built of quilts made over the past ten years. Photo: Amir Aghareb

My art has an undercurrent of peculiarities and humor. I look for things that are uncanny—those elements in life that don’t quite make sense. They’re on the edge. Darkness seeps in with the cares of the day and moods of the moment. Scratchy, murky textures appear. Grids dissolve. Patterns stop repeating. There is often a dissolution in the narrative.

Moving from two-dimensional surfaces to three-dimensional forms, I built a herd this year. The members have no heads. They are diverse and a little disturbing. Where are they going? What has the herd heard to draw them here? Let loose upon my studio floor and tables, they wandered aimlessly. They could be me and you. They could be them. They stay together, they move as one, letting someone else or something else dictate their actions.

panoramic shot of gallery installation — The Herd marches on its platform to watch the I watch too much tv news show.

At the gallery the Herd is flanked by Yesmen. They nod yes when you pull their strings. Area Environments provided some of the designs I created in the form of wallpaper. The piece hanging in front of the wall on the left (Many Moons) is the original that created the wallpaper behind it. Amazing to see my stitching in giant form.

Herd of stuffed headless beasts — photo: Amir Aghareb

One of the Yesmen floats in space with a chuckle on its face. photo: Amir Aghareb

The Dark Matter wallpaper, provided by Area Environments, frames these three pieces: Silos, The Usual Suspects and Thugs. I like how they merge with the patterned paper.

Dark Matter wallpaper with quilted artworks installed. — photo: Amir Aghareb

Stitching detail — I love watching people get close to my work, zooming in on the detail of the work. *Dark Heart*, detail. photo: Amir Aghareb

As part of the exhibit I had the opportunity to talk with community members about my work during an artist talk. There were a number of people with excellent questions, some of which I really had to think about before speaking. It’s great talking with people who are engaged and curious. The next day I entertained a large group of students during a gallery talk. What could be better? That evening the gallery was open to the public again. I set up a sewing machine so people could try drawing with stitch.

The folks at Austin Peay have been welcoming and supportive. Michael Dickins, the gallery director, created an environment for the work that enhanced the message and invited people to spend time thinking about the work. Dr. Dixie Webb wrote an essay about my work and the show that places me in the slipstream of other artists and art movements. Tobias Layman built benches and the platform to accommodate the works. The addition of the wallpaper from Area Environments topped it all off. As an artist I feel honored to have been invited to have this show. The bonus of meeting and working with these folks has been better than I could have imagined.

The show is up until September 16 in Clarksville, TN—a short hop from Nashville. A little bit of a drive from elsewhere. There is a virtual version of the show on their website.

My heartfelt thanks go to Austin Peay State University department of Art+Design, Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts (CECA), The Association of Academic Museums & Galleries (AAMG) and Area Environments for this opportunity.

Let me know what you think about the show if you get a chance to visit.

Invisible art quilt takes center stage

July 27, 2021

My art quilt, Invisible, is featured in a new video posted by the folks at the Dairy Barn. The directors at the Dairy Barn graciously asked the artists in the show to create short videos that would feature their quilt. There are many other artists who also created a video so pour yourself a cup of tea, sit back and be entertained. The links that follow will lead you there.

The Quilt National show is considered one of the premier art quilt shows worldwide. People from all over submit their work to the judges to be included. This year Nancy Bavor, the Director at San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, and professional textile artists Brigitte Kopp and Karen Schulz, were tasked with sorting through 747 submitted artworks from 388 artists from six continents. 84 pieces were chosen. The show is in Athens, OH until September 6 then some of the pieces will travel for three years at venues across the continent. If this show comes near you, or if you are within shouting distance of Athens, OH, take the time to see it. If not, the digital exhibition is here. The works are seriously ground-breaking textile works of art.

Here is the video I made to familiarize people with my point of view and the way the piece was conceived. Spoiler alert: It’s on wheels. Check out other artists works in the show here. Enjoy!

Have you entered an art quilt show? Tell me about it.

On saying yes

May 19, 2021

I say yes to a lot of opportunities and to myself and to my family and to my friends. Trouble with that is I end up with too much on my plate. When I should be snacking I am gorging. When I should be contemplative I am mumbling deadlines and bifurcating my brain. And yet, as the scorpion said to the frog, it’s just my nature. If I had an empty plate I would scrounge around for something, anything, everything to do.

Last week started off with this little project. I was both channeling Leo Ray and Jackson Pollock. It started with a piece of canvas on which I dribbled, sprayed and splotched some fabric paint. The idea was I would discover things within the painting that would inspire me to stitch. I would end up with a continuous series of pieces that would fit together like Leo Ray’s continuous paintings.

I cut the canvas into five square pieces and started to add stitching where they needed stitching. I have been drawing like this for awhile so some of the arbitrary forms that are showing up in my drawings are now showing up in the stitching. I like this technique. It brings mystery into process. It is very loose and intuitive. Jackson Pollock once said “Because a painting has a life of its own, I try to let it live.”

Here’s a close-up of one of the panels. Each panel measures about 19” square. I like adding texture to pieces using thread that matches the fabric. The other drawing lines are inspired by what I see in the base painting. I added a face, some active lines, some textural backgrounds and some mysterious figurative drawings that came out of a day dream in this one.

Now I am experimenting with the square panels to create 3D shapes. Some look like scrolls, some like the Venus of Willendorf and others like disturbing faces. Not sure where they will end up. For now they are keeping me entertained.

Raw and Reassembled

The wonderful folks at the Visions Art Museum in San Diego have invited me to exhibit July 17 – October 3, 2021. I have been planning, assembling, writing statements, labeling and packing for that show for the past month. There is a lot to do before then. If you are in the San Diego area during that time please take moment or two to see the show. I would love to hear what you think about it.

A book:
At Play in the Garden of Stitch: thoughts that come while eyeing the needle

I’m on the final proofreading stage of a book about my techniques. As soon as it is ready I will post a link here for purchase. It has been a long and arduous journey to get this far with it. And I am proud of the result. I hope you have the opportunity to see it someday soon. Some of you may recognize your own stitching on the cover. They are samples from my workshops.

Spring

The weather is perfect right now and it is sometimes hard to stay in the studio because it is so beautiful outside. I am jealous of every hour away from the studio but, then again, the garden brings me joy and time to think. I’ll say yes to it too.

tell me how you say yes