Puzzles

I love puzzles. It’s a treasure hunt with rewards. Something about that quiet contemplation of shape, color and texture soothes me.

I guess that’s why I am drawn to this art form. Piecing together disparate elements to create a whole is a challenge that never ends. This particular piece grew from scraps of quilts gone by — those pieces that didn’t quite make the cut in other quilts have a new life here. I stitched the scraps together using my free motion foot or a decorative stitch that added to the level of detail. As I was piecing together these scraps characters appeared, shapes repeated and textures multiplied. I used the base composition as a stage for other characters that I added in with overstitching.

Things we might not notice without closer inspection. 2021, Paula Kovarik

The following are detail shots that might give you an idea of what started to appear as I was working on the whole. I started to run out of scraps toward the end. Which gave me a choice: cut up another quilt or finish the composition. I decided to end the composition here so that I could focus on other ideas that are floating in my studio. I may come back to it if other scraps become available.

Let’s stitch together

I’ll be teaching stitch techniques in San Diego in September. Click on the image to learn more.

Let the fun begin

I’m getting ready to leave my studio for a week to attend a workshop on collage. There is so much to do before I leave that my attention wanders while I make lists, clean up the space and plan for my return. That part called “cleaning up my space” always leads to new ideas for work. So I abandoned all the chores I didn’t want to do while concentrating on what I did want to do.

I cut up another quilt.

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This quilt hung in the hallway of our house for about 7 years. I finally took it down and substituted a different piece. It is called File Sharing and I think I made it back in 2010. I like the color palette, I like some of the stitching, but I’m not too fond of the composition. So it became a candidate for recycling.

I’ve been thinking about how pieces linger in the studio. Repurposing them gives them new life and me a new challenge. This time I wanted to cut this quilt up into a traditional pattern called Storm at Sea. I have been playing with that pattern in an illustration program and wanted to see what would happen if I used quilted pieces to create it in a different way.

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I made a set of templates with a stiff matte board. After cutting out the template pieces I am left with windows that I can position over the quilt to preview what I will cut. I simply use a pencil to draw the outline on the quilt and then cut the piece with scissors.

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I think there is a song with the lyrics “the first cut is the deepest…” I was humming that while cutting into the quilt. It is a point of no return for this process. No amount of stitching or glueing will bring this quilt back to its original form. You have to just trust the process.

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Here is the result of that day’s work.

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Putting the pieces together into a layout is like playing with puzzles—one of my favorite things to do.

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I attached the pieces to a backing fabric with small pieces of Misty Fuse.

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Then started stitching them together onto the cloth background with a decorative stitch.

That’s when my sewing machine started acting up. And then it finally froze. I think it was reminding me that I had a lot of chores to do. So I guess I will have to come back to this piece once I return from the workshop. I have ideas on how I will add even more stitching to this beginning.

Watch this space.

Pieced and Pieces

Two sides, same person. I often work on more than one piece at a time. This month I have been working on two pieces. One is contained and precisely pieced, the other looks like Dr. Frankenstein took out his needle during a side show.

She didn’t have the password started as an abstract composition of black and white fabrics laying about the studio. I always have black and white “units” to play with. They are off-cuts of other work or random shapes put together when I can’t figure out what I want to work on. In fact, I have a whole drawer full of them that I vaguely think about putting together in one huge piece but I never get around to actually doing it. So a piece like this takes the place of that grand plan.

Here’s a detail of the piecing and stitching. Each unit of black and white pieced fabrics is put together to form a landscape that can tell a story. This story has to do with feeling like you aren’t part of the cool kids. Like you don’t know the secret word and everyone else does.

Working on this piece is analytical, planned, light-hearted and precise. I wait for the work to tell me what it needs. It’s a quiet dialog that builds with each detail.

She didn’t have the password - detail, 2019, Paula Kovarik

The original title for this piece was “It looked like fun in there but she didn’t have the password.” The piece measures about 35” x 29”

Dark Heart is an assemblage of cut up quilts. Using traditional quilt patterns, in this case an eight-pointed star, I cut up quilts that are already stitched and reassemble them with Frankenstein-like sutures. I wanted to make fractured crowns, but then it morphed into this bird-like creature overseeing chaos.

Here are some detail shots of the stitching.

Dark Heart, work in progress, detail, Paula Kovarik

Dark Heart, work in progress, detail, Paula Kovarik

Dark Heart, work in progress, detail, Paula Kovarik

Working on this piece is emotional, unplanned, dark and messy. I wait for the work to tell me what it needs. it’s a greedy piece clamoring for more each time I look at it.

Dark Heart, work in progress. Approximately 54” x 46”, Paula Kovarik

So, yes, sometimes I feel like a nut and sometimes I don’t. Two sides, same person.

Enough time to just think. And stitch.

I spent the past week sewing like a madwoman, hours and hours in joy and contemplation. Thinking about influences. And inspirations. The Stitched festival at Crosstown Concourse that I organized and facilitated is over. So now I have time to think.

The work started with these three pieces that did not resolve well. So I cut them up into 5” equilateral triangles.

Though I am jazzed about the work and feel that I really have no choice in the matter—I have to do it— I still have that consistent question hanging over the work at all times: I make art—so what? Some people see it—so what? So what now?

I experimented with a lot of different configurations of these triangles with the underlying thought of what the hive mind can do to ideas. Here they became a beast.

It’s not a self doubting thing. On the contrary I believe the artist mind is critical to society. Its more like I am conscious of other things that seem so much more important. There are people shooting people down in the streets in this country. Lots of them. The government is relaxing standards for environmental stewardship and doubling down on fossil fuels. Our newspapers are failing and fake news is everywhere. Racism, bigotry, nationalism, terrorism, etc. etc. etc. The chaos of all these threats brings a foreboding reality.

Since the precut quilt pieces already have stitching on them the challenge I faced was how to connect the diverse patterns. I was thinking that ideas and communications can be like viruses, floating through space. But also how we suture together a narrative based on our own biases. Standing alone in the midst of forces that are hard to define.

I channel these worries into the art but feel like a micro blip when it comes to reaching an audience. Is it just therapy for my unsettled mind? Do I obsess over stitch to treat the anxiety I feel with regards to the future?  How do you process these thoughts? Do you have them?

Hive mind, Paula Kovarik, 40” x 43.5”, 2019

My act of making art is cerebral, logical and also intuitive. The sense of play is important to me. Seeking meaning through pattern and stitch allows for connections that are not always apparent at first glance. Letting the medium tell me what to do feels spiritual and mysterious. But am I acting in a vacuum? Does art become important only after it is released to the public? Or does the act itself activate an individual wholeness that the artist seeks and therefore adds to the cosmic underlayment of society?