Quilt 7 (2010-2011): 162 x 244 cm (64″ x 96″). Cotton fabric hand-dyed with Procion MX fibre-reactive dyes, cotton thread, polyester thread, polyester batting, backed with cotton-poly navy sheeting. Machine-pieced and -quilted on a Singer 201-3 (made in Clydebank, Scotland in 1952) and a Singer 500J (Rocketeer) circa 1961.
Quilt 7: Random
I found this the other day. It makes me laugh, but there’s a sharp edge to the humour in this movie. This is for Dr. Jason Sager and all my other friends with PhDs who have found themselves thrust into new adventures by budget cutbacks and a diminishing pedagogical denominator.
Since today is the equinox it seemed appropriate to finally update the interweb with the latest happenings in my corner of the world.
I am back at school, studying computer science at UBC and computer technology at BCIT. I travel between the campuses several times per week and I’m enjoying the two very different ways of viewing and using computers. I take my new best friend, the Macbook Pro, everywhere I go. The glamour hasn’t tarnished or worn thin–I still like my new Macbook Pro.
Quilt 8 Process: Barn
This fall at UBC I’ll be focusing on functional programming using Haskell, and logical programming using Prolog. At BCIT I have begun a course in web app development using Java, and the much anticipated iPhone development course is underway. I began a UBC course in programming languages using Scheme, really a precursor course for what I consider to be the crown jewel of undergrad computer science at UBC, the 4th year compiler development course, but after two weeks I realized that trying to keep so many different programming paradigms separate and distinct was going to be next to impossible. I’ll take it next year.
Quilt 8 Process: Machines
The quilt of Beaver Creek Farm is still under construction. I’ve been really bad about taking photographs during the process. Most of the time they are quick and blurry and not worth reproducing; I just can’t seem to get a handle on Scott’s Canon 20D–it just doesn’t like me and won’t cooperate at all. So I’ve put the Canon away for good and will try taking some process shots this weekend with the new iPhone. The wedding was last weekend and instead of the quilt we sent Amy and Brent some wedding bling and an IOU for the rest. I began experimenting with techniques for constructing the buildings on the farm and the results are fantastic, but the process is slow. Scott reminded me that late and great was better than sloppy and punctual; he hinted that it might even be fun to deliver it to Beaver Creek Farm in person.
Quilt 8 Process: Farmhouse
Incidentally, our dry spell ended and the rain returned with the cooler weather. Almost as if by cue the magnificent light sculpture on the side of the Shaw Tower has developed yet another burnt out gap, just in time for the inclement weather which apparently prevents the building from effecting repairs until spring. By my count, that means the light sculpture, by far the brightest part of our skyline and the most difficult-to-ignore part of our skyline, will have required repair for 7 to 8 of the 12 months of 2010. It really grinds my gears. [EDIT: It was fixed by Halloween. Wow!]
Oh a happy civic note, I was pleased to find out that Van Dusen Gardens has decided to work with the City of Vancouver to keep the Bloedel Conservatory open. I really like the Bloedel, it’s a beautiful fantastic geodesic dome on the top of Little Mountain in Queen Elizabeth Park. Inside is a Thomas Hobbs-approved collection of exotic and unusual plants and dozens of species of birds.
The Vancouver Art Gallery has launched a bold campaign to motivate its $300M move to a new location somewhere between its current site and nowhere. Though the gallery found its budget was short enough to require laying off some 15 staff, they have hired a PR firm and are spamming Canadian art waves with news of their marvelous new cause. Scott and I were even accosted by a middle-aged art maven in the lobby who wanted us to add our names to a great long scroll of signatures supporting the move. No thank you. Especially when I found out she was being paid by the Gallery.
Quilt 8 Process: Tree
There are two things I especially dislike about the Gallery’s choice. The first is the arrogant fait accompli attitude the Gallery has taken, spamming art magazines with news about the move, overdosing its Facebook channel with heady odes to the move etc etc. The problem is that the City, which owns the land the VAG covets, hasn’t decided whether to give or heck even sell the land to the Gallery. The City of Vancouver wants to know what the people of Vancouver want. And I think that’s great because the Vancouver Art Gallery is trying to tell us what we want, which I don’t like at all.
The second thing I don’t like about the new location is its location. It’s being touted as a new arts centre for the city but it’s a city block that’s sandwiched between an opera house cum playhouse that’s closed during the day, a stadium that’s also closed during the day, and a big post office warehouse. The Vancouver Art Gallery’s current location in Robson Square places it firmly in the cultural and commercial heart of the downtown core–plenty of restaurants and shops surround it and everything is open and vibrant all the time. Leaving the historic courthouse where it resides for a big green glass and concrete box (because that’s the sort of McCheng piece of ho-hummery $300M will buy you in Vancouver’s irrationally slow, expensive and homogenous construction scene) seems to undermine the VAG’s alleged commitment to the community. I think it is irresponsible to carve out the city’s cultural heart and fail to care what happens in its wake.
Vancouver’s art scene is falling rank and file into two camps–those who support the move, and those who don’t. Scott’s devoted urbanist agenda means it’s a constant topic of conversation in our home.
Quilt 8 Process: Creek
It is raining in Vancouver for the first time in many weeks. Most people don’t realize that the rainy Pacific Northwest goes through a two-month dry spell each summer. Bone dry. Great swaths of British Columbia are burning right now as hundreds of natural and man-made wildfires race through endless miles of standing timber; forests and tree farms that have been infested by the Japanese pine beetle are exploding like fire-crackers.
To celebrate the rain and our temporary reprieve from the burning acrid soot that has been thickening the air over Vancouver these last few weeks, I did what every nerd does: I bought some books.
Our local Book Warehouse is closing its doors to make way for another condo extravaganza so I wandered in for a final look. How lucky was I to find a copy of the Boston Museum of Fine Art’s ‘Shy Boy, She Devil, and Isis, The Art of Conceptual Craft, Selections from the Wornick Collection,’ for less than 30% of the bloated Canadian price on the jacket. It’s the catalog for a 2007 Museum of Fine Art (Boston) exhibition which includes, much to my delight, work by Canadian artists like Vancouver’s Peter Pierobon, Toronto’s Gord Peteran and Saskatoon’s Michael Hosaluk.
I have found the work in this book to be especially inspiring because I am starting another art project and the blurry (and often arbitrary) boundaries between art and craft, concept and function have been on my mind. A close friend is remarrying and I am making a quilt for the new couple. Amy, a paramedic by day and motorcycle-driving animal rescue superhero by night, has invested her savings in Beaver Creek Farm, 20 bucolic acres on the outskirts of Southern Ontario’s rural Stevensville. The plan is to create a haven for abused, neglected and damaged animals and the menagerie already includes Vietnamese pot-belly pigs, fainting goats, a pack of ravenous toy dogs and bunnies galore, oh my!
I am impressed by the determination and vision that Amy shares with her new partner Brent, a local boy, so I have begun sketching the design for the quilt. It’s going to be a complete departure from my work to date. I began by reviewing the paintings of prairie-homestead life by one of my favourite Canadian artists, William Kurelek. Here’s a little short by (who else!) the National Film Board.
My interest in maps inevitably led me to Linda Gass’ quilted landscapes. Check them out. They’re formidable, aren’t they.
I’m going to try to quilt a map of Amy and Brent’s Beaver Creek Farm. When we were growing up it was the ‘Bremner place,’ and I have a general idea of the landscape of the farm from our many in situ escapades, so I’ve interviewed Amy and Brent to find out what they envision both as a process and as a goal. Here’s the first iteration sketch. The property is bound to the west and north by Beaver Creek, an ecologically sensitive body of water that flows into a great regional swamp and from there into the mighty Niagara River.
The quilt will not be sturdy enough for everyday bed use or casual laundering, so it will be an unambiguous departure from the functionality that is one of the hallmarks of craft. I’m going to experiment with method: I am going to depart from the structured grid assembly method I’ve used to date and will try using appliqué (some of it raw-edge) on larger, more casually assembled background pieces. I only have 1 month to complete this piece so I think I will eschew painstaking literal representation and detail in favour of silhouettes and flourishes. I’ll post progress images regularly on Orangewool.com during the next few weeks.
I discovered this local textile artist almost by accident last year and I return to her Flickr portfolio often to admire these bizarre and imaginative plush creations. This series is called “Choking Hazard Dolls” and incorporates components from old dolls that have been reworked with found objects and surgically precise stitches. Inspired by cartoons, comic books, international animation, pop-art, sewing accidents, and childhood nightmares. this anonymous Vancouver textile artist has explored the darker side of her creativity.
