Author: JP Dawes Artist

And the future is bright – new 2010 goals

| JP Dawes Artist

I’ve been doing lots of thinking about art and quilts. Soul searching if you will. I know what I want to do, which is multi-task and turn out lots of art to sell. But with my RA that just is not a feasible wish. It seems I have a good day and do lots of things with energizer bunny speed and then pay for it for days afterwards. Don’t ever believe the advertisements that there is a cure out there or that you suddenly can do everything you did before if you take the magic pill or magic shot. Ah, I wish it was so.

Maybe that’s why I’ve become a deep thinker about my chosen avocation. Well, that and an incident that happened this week over the local art league’s upcoming fiber art show. Without going into too much detail, the chairperson of the event had a one woman show last year. When the call for art went out this year I answered it. The chairperson refused to answer all my questions about things like if it’s juried when will I know, how long will the show hang, details of invitations and the opening reception. Let it be said that she made participation as difficult as possible and then told the league president I was angry over not showing postcards. After having all my pieces accepted and receiving an email with that information I received another email a short time later from her telling me that their little show didn’t have the “scope and prestige” I was after. Where in the world that came from is anyone’s guess…left field, right field?…but she finally hit a home run with her final insult and I withdrew from the show.

I’ve run this by a few other fiber artists and it was funny in an odd way that her behavior hit them the same way it hit me. I laughed when a good friend said it was a backhanded compliment that my work was too good for her, such a nice way to put it. The general consensus has been that she was jealous and/or intimidated that her work didn’t stack up. She did not want to give up one glimmer of the spotlight.

Should I have continued to ignore her sniping and delivered my pieces for the show? I had no confidence that they would have been hung other than in the back of the gallery and I assumed I would have been relegated to the refreshment table during the reception, if not under the table out of sight. I find her behavior so very odd since the circle of fiber artists around the world are the most caring and supportive group of women and men I’ve ever come across. As a community, we cheer on everyone else’s successes.

So now at the end of this long post I will tell you why the future is bright. Since I know that I can’t produce mountains of any kind of art I’ve decided to be very selective. My goal for 2010 was to jury for Houston and hopefully get a piece accepted. But the fiasco with this person made me sit up and take notice. Maybe I am good enough to enter any show I want. Maybe I’m good enough to make 3 pieces to jury for Quilt National….maybe, just maybe, I could get in. So I am going for the big gold ring, I will reach for the highest star of the art quilt world and start on 3 pieces to be completed in time for jurying at the Dairy Barn.

New FFFC post

| JP Dawes Artist

I’ve been gone for awhile with family needs. We had to do a trip from the Rio Grand Valley to Illinois for my mom and dad. I was reminded of why we don’t stay in Arkansas during the winter. We experienced bone chilling cold and watching the weather on a daily basis for driving conditions.

When we got back, it was time for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge I’ve missed the last few. I thought I probably deserved some play time to help with the stress level. All of us at a certain age who are experiencing very elderly parents probably understands what I’m saying.

If You’re interested, take a look at the FFFC blog. I hope the link works, I haven’t had much luck with that on this blog. The blog tells how this is constructed and the materials used. And of course the most important, what the challenge was.

The piece was fun to do, not really a departure for me but further exploration. My word for the year is Acceptance and I accept that this piece is what it is.

ATC Tutorial; Or how the lazy artist does it!

| JP Dawes Artist

I joined the Upper Valley Art League here in the Rio Grande Valley. On Thursday’s there is an open painting day. I needed to work on ATCs for the trade group I belong to and the theme for the trade was “green” interpreted any way you chose. This is the 8 x 10 watercolor I worked on to start my ATCs. Nothing says green to me more than a green lettuce garden.

I didn’t add lots of detail to the painting since I wanted to emphasize it with stitching. I used a bright turquoise cotton thread and free motion quilted/stitched the design. The backside looks really cool!


The next thing I did was lightly mark the ATCs on the front side of the watercolor. I was able to get nine 2.5 x 3.5 ATCs from this piece. After marking them, I added some vines to each individual card. I used white acrylic, accented with both pink and gold metallic pens and a bit of black pigma pen for depth.

There was only a small amount of waste cut off. Here you can see the piece as I divided it into individual cards. The last steps were to satin stitch each card to fabric backs. The watercolor paper was heavy enough that I didn’t need to add additional layers in the center.

I love the way these turned out, very organic and a little abstract. I hope the group enjoys them, too!

Inner Animal Challenge

| JP Dawes Artist

Here is my entry for Quilting Arts Magazine’s Inner Animal Challenge. Sadly my piece was not chosen to be sent to them. So I can post it here for you to see. Congratulations to all the great art quilters who had their piece chosen.

The title of the piece is the “Eye’ds of March Hare”. I was born on the first day of spring when that was the 21st of March. Now due to the calendar or something it is the 20th of March. My inner hare wears a necklace with my birthdate on it.

Some people would like to be a cute fluffy, furry bunny but I’ve never been accused of being fluffy. Although I must admit as I get older I get fluffier around the middle. My inner animal is a hare who is strong and capable and doesn’t put up with much nonsense. I simply don’t have time for it since with RA it takes me way more time to do things I used to fly through. I would love to be able to flit and hop around like the proverbial March hare but sadly that is one of my inner qualities that I can only dream about now.

This was done with rust dyed fabric and painted with textile paint. Free motion stitching forms some of the fur and the background is quilted in clover. The large eye is trapunto and surrounded by beads for sparkle. The background is also beaded. I even gave my inner animal whiskers since she doesn’t have to hide them or cut them off like I do.

ATC trade

| JP Dawes Artist

Here is one of the ATC’s [ artist trading card] that is made from the trimmed edges of the piece I am working on. The theme for this trade was The Color Red so I also backed it with red watercolor paper. I pretty much love the way this turned out. I hope the recipients love it,too and I can’t wait to see the cards I get in return. I will post them when they come.