channeling

March 2, 2019

Sometimes I have to unsettle the settled patterns of my mind. I start with no ideas, no burning need to communicate. I just have to get out of my head and into my hands. I grab the nearest slab of fabric, stick some batting into the fold and start stitching. Black and white satisfies the need for definition. It forces me to focus. These pieces flush out and flesh out latent anxiety. Perfection isn’t here. Neither is story or parable. It’s just a traveling line.

They mean nothing. It’s just a release. I may find a use for them in the future. The dimensions please me.

What fun.

Many Moons

December 14, 2018

I finished Many Moons this week. It’s an assemblage of cut up quilts and outliers. Taken as a whole it speaks to my sense of the mysterious. The stitch work is intuitive, experimental and rowdy. Once again I am captivated by the way the back speaks a different language.

Yes, it feels done now.

Many Moons, detail back 2, Paula Kovarik

The tale of the crankie

August 30, 2018

It was fate--the day I learned about crankies. Ever since seeing a Red Grooms exhibit at the Brooks Museum in Memphis I have been haunted by the idea of a moving quilt. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about go to this website for a fun trip through crankie land. So here's the tale of the tape for my crankie, I watch too much tv news.

I watch too much tv news

It started with a box of white cloth scraps. I assembled them roughly into a 16 foot scroll.

I added focus points to the scroll by sandwiching colored scraps between the outer layer and the cotton batting. I admit that it was quite random at this stage. I really didn’t know what my story was going to be.

Next step was to stabilize the layers. I stitched along each seam in white or black thread. If the seam was horizontal I added a black thread line that highlighted it to add a sense of action to the piece. There were a lot of seams.

At this stage I decided that the piece was going to be about my anxieties regarding our government and how the media hypes up my anxiety. This initial stitching was about the pussy hat march.

Sometimes the drawings seemed too literal so I tore them out. Goodbye pussy hats. Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong supporter of the womens march. The drawings just seemed too specific.

Eventually the scroll filled up with monsters, money, vultures, disasters, boulders and tv heads. It took about 3 weeks of stitching to get to this point. Catharctic.

I’m not comfortable if I don’t have a project going so when we were preparing for a road trip that would last a few weeks I rolled up the scroll and put it into a bag and carried it with me. Each night I would add more hand stitching.

Details added depth.

With the scroll finished I enlisted my son to do a video of it. We taped it to the hallway wall, mounted a camera to a skateboard and recorded a non-stop video. It gave me an idea of what the scroll would look like in motion.

We even tried it outside with his drone. That’s me ducking as the drone came over the scroll. Crazy.

I started thinking about the housing of the scroll and decided that, of course, it should look like a tv.

My friend, Yvonne Bobo, came up with this brilliant way to configure the scroll in a housing that could be mechanized.

Here is our test quilt in the contraption she created.

My brother, Charles Havelka, refined the set up and built a beautiful cabinet for the piece. He is a master woodworker.

I couldn’t be more proud of the final product. And, I couldn’t have done it without their help. There were times of despair and times of hope and challenge. It’s a folly, I know. But it was worth the journey.

Here's a video of the scroll in its entirety. Enjoy!

A new home

July 13, 2018

I Need a Third Eye sold this week. It was whisked away to its new home after its trip to New Orleans at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The Cohen's have a beautiful home full of great art. It is an honor to be included in their collection.

I Need a Third Eye, Paula Kovarik, 45" x 45"

This piece actually put me on a new path in my practice.

It taught me that nothing is precious, all things belong and chaos can have an underlying order.

See a post about its construction here

Georgia on my mind

May 29, 2018

I have a few pieces in an exhibit at the Hudgens Center for Art and Learning in Duluth, Georgia for the next couple of months. I think about those pieces out there on their own, holding their own among peers. How will the visitors take in the breadth of the show? How will my pieces fit in?

If you are in Georgia, take a little time to check out the show. There are works by myself as well as Kevin Curry, Valerie S. Goodwin, Jess Jones, Joyce Watkins King and Macey Ley — All artists working in fiber. What could be better than that?

Into the Nature: Cycles, Habitats & Elements of Place

Curated by Angela Nichols

May 22 – July 28, 2018
Hudgens Center for Art and Learning
6400 Sugarloaf Pkwy, Building 300
Duluth, GA 30097
Exhibition Reception: Saturday, June 2

The selected works examine beauty, rhythm, conflict and topography; how the natural world is impacted by man and how human existence makes marks on the world.

Here are some detail shots of the works I have at the show.

I watch too much tv news

Into the Nature: Cycles, Habitats & Elements of Place

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See my work