Travel Plans

By the time you read this I will be soaring across the midwestern plains to land in Denver. Hurricane Francine notwithstanding. Though I love to travel and meet new people, see new things, breathe new air, I hate the insanity that flying is in these times. Long lines (usually at 5am if you’re from Memphis), cramped quarters, sneezing and coughing passengers. I wear a mask from the moment I get into the airport to the minute I leave the baggage claim.

I’m leaving this unfinished experiment in pattern and color on my design board. It is made from pieces of found fabrics and a discarded quilt top from an unknown artist. It reminds me of the way my mind collects flotsam while walking.

Nonetheless, I persist. This time in a marathon. First stop the Front Range Contemporary Quilters in Denver, then a side trip to Santa Fe, NM, then a week in Taos teaching with Diane Ericson at the Design Outside the Lines retreat, then home for a day to prepare for the next flight. To Japan for an artist residency at Studio:Kura in the Fukuoka Prefecture’s Itoshima Municipality. For five weeks.

I am leaving a beautiful season in Memphis. Fall, with its colors, crisp air and shortening days is an inspiring time of the year. I will witness this autumn in three different places this year. I wonder how they will differ.

Stay tuned for updates on this marathon. I will try to post pics as I travel on.

This is the first sort for my retreat in Japan. When I am at an artist residency my challenge is to bring less and respond to my surroundings with simple tools. I may edit some of this out.

On Travel and Nakedness

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?

Scrap column-detail, Paula Kovarik

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.

Returning from a long journey

Right before leaving for this five week journey I was invited to the Visions Art Museum for a solo show. Here I am talking to my audience.

I’ve unpacked, sorted through the gifts we purchased, did the laundry, read the mail, paid the bills, and reopened the studio. After five weeks and over 3,000 miles across six states, home looks foreign.

I taught an amazing class at Arrowmont with five of the most talented experimenters in the Midsouth. Then my husband and I traveled through Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Massachusetts and Maine on two lane highways and in the air. We visited six art museums, several arboretums, an aquarium and three magnificent beaches. We ate seafood.

I keep looking for ways to avoid the studio so I made yogurt, started a slow cooker meal, washed the dishes, made granola and sat stunned in front of the morning news.

I am not myself.

I am not even close to reprocessing what I saw—the colors, the art, the textures, the sounds, the details, the grandeur, the squalor, the light, the dark, the uncanny.

How can I possibly organize my thoughts when I have witnessed so much great beauty, sad destruction and limitless water and sky?

Here’s a sampling of what we saw. A glorious fall. The sound of wind and surf.

stall

I travelled a lot in October. I soaked up inspirations at museums, in class at Arrowmont and while teaching and gathering with friends. It was a long time away from the studio.

During that time I brought my Bernina to our local dealer for maintenance. So my main machine is missing in action. It takes my dealer 5 WEEKS to finish the maintenance. 5 WEEKS. How crazy is that? And, unfortunately for us in Memphis there is no valid alternative at this time. I have 2 weeks to go before I get it back.

This hole in my table normally houses a Bernina 740.

This hole in my table normally houses a Bernina 740.

Then, upon my return I decided to reconfigure a few things with the help of my very wonderful husband. He is helping me install more design wall space which meant that the current space was disassembled and piled onto the work tables. The place is a mess.

Styrofoam insulation board and felt will give me a space of about 7 x 14 feet to play with. Then with a roller track above the wall another 8 x 8 space in two panels that will move side to side. Space, glorious space.

Styrofoam insulation board and felt will give me a space of about 7 x 14 feet to play with. Then with a roller track above the wall another 8 x 8 space in two panels that will move side to side. Space, glorious space.

I am at sea

untethered

wondering

stasis4_2018.jpg
stasis_2018.jpg

taming the bulge

It happens every time I leave the studio for a trip. My head gets filled with images, words, doubts, wishes and ideas. Then I get back to the studio. And freeze.

TMI

My brain is like a whirlpool.

So it was no surprise yesterday when I decided to pursue one of my ideas....in a rush of optimism.....and the medium was not cooperating. Who knew that not basting a piece of linen to a frothy assortment of batting would result in chaos as I stitched inward on a spiral?

I did. I knew it. I was just too impatient to take the time for prep.

I spent the afternoon hand basting the bulgy layers together resulting in a brain-like texture similar to the confusion in my mind.

Spending the afternoon tucking mass into ripples with a basting needle gave me time to reflect. And that reminded me that I chose this medium because of that meditative quality, that time out of space contemplation, the quiet of one stitch at a time.

Seen at the Frankfurt airport

I'll use this image of a dandelion that I shot in Frankfurt as a reminder. Life is fast and can be full of hard surfaces. Some ideas lead to spent flower heads. Others shine brilliantly in the sun. Both are worthwhile and require wild abandon and dogged pursuit.