I had the delightful opportunity to talk with Jane Dunnewold last month as part of her Creative Strength Training interview series. Jane has a robust and comprehensive variety of classes and lectures for artists that are recognized world wide. Take a moment to learn about her practice and her class offerings here. I just registered for one of her lectures today.
Here’s the video recording of our conversation.
I stitch a lot. And I have a lot of raw materials that can be stitched.
So I do.
I stitch.
I collect scraps of my quilts that have been chopped up to create new work. Most of them already have stitching and batting and backing so the work is chunkier, more detailed and textural when I use the scraps.
These are some of the quilts that went under the knife this past year. They live on in new work.
A number of the scraps looked like leaves. The toothy quality of those scraps gave me a starting point. I had an idea of creating a jungle of objects.
After assembling the scraps I started stitching to make them more consistently textured. The details add action to the piece and connect disparate elements. When I connect the scrap pieces I usually butt the pieces together and over-stitch with a decorative stitch or free motion stitching.
I do love how this section has face, a leaf that could be a feather and a dragon.
So about this time I have to ask myself when is enough enough? I admit that this texture looks wacko. I mean it to be disturbing and frantic. I think my stitching is taking a journey through chaos these days. Does extra detail bring coherence? Am I channeling this confusion to release tension? It just feels right to me.
We Don’t Really Know, Do We?, 27” x 33”, Paula Kovarik
I’m not sure if it is done. Or if it needs more, or if I will cut it up and start again.
Time will tell.
trying trying again …
I had this idea long ago that I could create floating globes that would hang in space and allow viewers to insert their heads into them for a different sensory experience. (See It didn’t work for another go at this idea.) For the past few weeks I have been thinking about meditation and isolation and how important alone time is to me. Sometimes I have to shut it all off and just breathe. What if I could create a globe that would isolate me from that emotional and physical noise?
This second try started with a reworked piece that didn’t work. I had all these scraps that were aching to be put together. But the result was just cacophony not simplicity.
I didn’t want the isolation chamber to be all chaos so I created some new raw materials with canvas and black thread. The black thread story line added more narrative to the piece.
The new black and ivory canvas wedges were too stark so I added stitching to them to complement the triangle wedges.
I lined each panel with lace to obscure the chaos outside with a calmer feeling inside.
I sewed all the wedges together and ended up with a loopy globe.
When I reinforced the top and bottom edges with a pvc pipe insert it hangs fairly evenly.
I’m still working out some details. I embroidered a strip of fabric on the inside that says calm_down_calm_down____calm_down__calm_down. And I am rigging the globe so that it can hang from a hook at head height.
So, now, if the news is making me crazy, or my thoughts are too scattered, I can retreat into my own little isolation chamber. A quiet space.
Do you find that you need a space to escape?
Back in 2015, I had the opportunity to do an artist residency in the dunes of Lake Michigan. I was captivated by the lake stones. They had personality, presence and power.
Soon after I started stitching them.
They populated my studio to the point that I had faces looking at me from every corner. So I started putting them together. I had this idea that they were trying to tell us something but in a language all their own.
I liked how the stitching looked on the front as well as the back of the work. I hand-stitched more texture, added extra batting, and let them tell me what they wanted to say.
The final piece, called The Secret Life of Stones, was juried into Quilt National 2017 and traveled for three years.
The Secret Life of Stones, Paula Kovarik, 2016, 40” x 47”, canvas, cotton thread, wool and cotton batting.
It came back to me last year and went into storage. I really didn’t know what I was going to do with it so I stacked it up with the others and waited until it spoke to me. And, if you follow this journal, you will know that I am in a cutting up kind of mood. Nothing is precious. All things must evolve.
So I cut it up.
And made some masks.
And some more.
It’s showing up in other experiments too. Playful things that give me a little laugh during these stressful times.
There are still some scraps to consider. They’ll join the rest of them in my scrap box.
Every so often one or two of them speak to me and give me something else to think about.
Who doesn’t love these two guys?
Cutting up what might be considered precious allows me to let go of the legacy of it and be in the moment. I seek that feeling of exploration and discovery in every work I create. Using up, re-configuring, re-imagining raw materials can lead to disaster or development. When it is a disaster, I learn. And that’s what I am here for. To learn, to excite, to think of alternatives. All things must evolve.
I’ve had this idea for years that I could build a quilt in a globe form and make it into an isolation chamber. And boy, are we isolated. My dreams had a room full of these things that people could put their heads into. They might see the inside of the outside idea. The undergrowth of the wild surroundings.
So I studied globes, brushed up on my geometry, ordered some paper globes, cut out patterns, and experimented with stiffening substrates. I sewed the substrates into fabric. Glued stiffeners to the underside of pieces. Experimented with zipper and hook and eye closures. Built stainless steel rings for support. Developed a pattern big enough for a head.
This quilt, Stream of Consciousness, seemed like the perfect candidate for my isolation chamber. The quilt is a series of 4” squares with drawings that I did with a fabric pen in one sitting. I then sandwiched those drawings with colorful fabric and quilted them all together.
Here’s what’s left of the quilt after cutting out the orange peel sections.
Then I thought I had it. The patterns worked in muslin. I was ready for prime time. I sliced up the Stream of Consciousness quilt for the body of my first isolation chamber. Sewed it all together, tore it apart, sewed it all together with some interfacing, tore it apart, sewed it all together with some Buckrum, tore it apart and started building cages.
I’m not good with metal. And, by this time, I am getting frustrated. So I set it aside. And used it as a punching bag for a couple of weeks.
Today I realized I have to give it up. Start fresh. Do another one with studied engineering solutions. This one is just too overworked.
The globe hangs in the middle of my studio in its unfinished form. I use it as a punching bag on bad days. It’s quiet inside. Stops the whirring in my brain.
I’ve been adding more stitching with each iteration of assembly. I’m loving this layering of detail.
I do have some pretty strong ideas on what I will do with the next one though.
There were days when I felt deflated. Here’s what happened to the muslin version of the globe. She looks much calmer than I feel.
