The 100th Monkey Studio in Portland Oregon is proud to host two connecting exhibits: The Oregon Women’s Caucus for Art (Evolve Gallery) and one OWCA member’s retrospective, Suzan Mayer (Lounge Gallery).  The opening event is First Friday January 6th from 6-9pm with live music by Amber Harlan. The show runs from January 6 through January 27th, 2012. There will be live music by Amber Harlan.  The event is free and open to the public.

As a member of OWCA I am happy to be a part in this event. Please join us for the opening. Visit The 100th Monkey Studio to see more about the event.

One of my pieces has been juried into SAQA Oregon’s show, Oregon: State of Diversity II. I am very pleased and excited to be part of this event. The show will travel throughout the state during 2012 and 2013. SAQA Oregon has had a wonderful response to the first exhibit, and they expect that will translate to more viewers and more venues for the current collection. I look forward to seeing the show, and will post locations and presentation dates as the information becomes available.  The exhibit will debut at “Stitches in Bloom” in Silverton at the Oregon Garden in January 2012, and will travel through 2013.

After taking part in the Susan G. Komen, Race for the Cure in Portland this past summer, I decided to make another art quilt featuring runners. So far, I have the back completed. I collected number placards from several participants (some pink, to recognize “survivors,” with those in white ones for “supporters”). I also included my own. The top for the quilt featuring runners is now in progress.

Announcing a big event at the Singer Hill Cafe in Oregon City!  A new High Fiber Diet Show entitled, “NW Vibes” will be opening at the cafe beginning August 2nd.

An Artist Reception will be held from 5-8 PM on Aug. 5th, with live music provided by “The Sale,” beginning at 6PM.

The NW Vibes show presents  21 new art quilts and examples of wearable art, including a piece by Bonnie Bucknam, best-of-show winner of the 2011 Quilt National Exhibition.

Singer Hill Café’s “Fundraiser Friday” will donate 25% of profits made from food and beverage purchases to HIgh Fiber Diet.

Singer Hill’s art gallery will be open for viewing during normal business hours (Sunday 8:AM to 5:PM, Monday, 7:AM to 6:PM, and Tuesday through Saturday, 7:AM to 8:PM)

For information on gallery sales, contact Karen Grondin at (917) 207-2354.

High Fiber Diet is a fiber-art group affiliated with the Columbia FiberArts Guild of Portland. Its members include fiber artists and surface design teachers, authors and professional art quilters.. The High Fiber Diet blog is available at http://hfd-highfiberdiet.blogspot.com. There you will find a list of the most recent shows and a membership roster with links to individual websites and blogs.

I am excited to say I was juried into the Women’s Caucus for Art/San Diego on line show. It is a nice exhibit so take a look and you will find two of my art quilts. They are Flauna and Paper Plastic, Think About it.

OREGON: STATE OF DIVERSITY This Oregon SAQA exhibit is currently traveling throughout Oregon. We have had a wonderful response to this show, and we expect to attract more viewers and more venues for our next effort, OREGON: STATE OF DIVERSITY II, which will be traveling in 2012-2013.

Oregon: State of Diversity
July 2011 – Sisters Public Library, Sisters, Oregon
October 2011 – Quilt Country, Corvallis, Oregon
November – December 2011 – Latimer Quilt and Textile Center, Tillamook, Oregon

Quilt by Catherine Beard

A color catalog of the 2010 SAQA Oregon show, Oregon: State of Diversity, is available for $8 plus S/H. Email gfrench@rosenet.net to order. The exhibit features work by Oregon SAQA members Karen Bates, Suzy Bates, Catherine Beard, Christina Brown, Bonnie Bucknam, Lynda Christiansen, Betty Colburn, Gerrie Congdon, Quinn Zander Corum, Betty Davis Daggett, Sheila Finzer, Georgia French, Terry Grant, Karen Hanken, Jill Hoddick, Laura Jaszkowski, Nancy Kibbey, Kim Lakin, Shirley MacGregor, Karen Illman Miller, Sara Shayne Miller, Shirley Jo Rimkus-Falconer, Deanna Robinson, Vera Rogers, Sheila Steers, and Jean Wells Keenan

I am happy to say my art quilt “Celebrating Gloom: The Worst Day of the Year Ride” was juried into the High Fiber Diet’s traveling show for 2011-2012. Scheduling for this exhibit is still in the planning stage. You can learn more about High Fiber Diet on their blogspot http://hfd-highfiberdiet.blogspot.com/.

One of the members in High Fiber Diet, Bonnie Bucknam, just won Best in Show at Quilt National. It is an honor to even get into this show, let alone win. Congratulations Bonnie!

I enjoyed the most wonderful experience recently, the Studio Arts Quilt Association (SAQA) Visioning Conference in Denver, Colorado. It has been long time since I have attended such an enthusiastic and professional conference. It was well planned and balanced, and extremely inspirational.

There were two days of mini-workshops, panels on a variety of subjects, and a fine list of speakers. Side trips included the city of Golden, for a look at the magnificent SAQA “Sightlines” exhibit, and to Boulder, where we visited a few private studios.

Time and again, I heard remarks on how the conference provided such a shot in the arm to our creativity and professionalism. SAQA is a great organization, with many creative and inspiring individuals.

This March, I taught two 2-day quilting design classes at Lake Chapala, Mexico, just a few miles from Guadalajara. The classes were ably arranged by Gerri Treadway a Canadian resident of Chapala, who I met on the Internet.

It was great to exchange the gloomy spring weather in Oregon for the sunny, dry climate enjoyed by our neighbors to the south. The classes were held on the spacious patio of one of the students.

The first class featured placemat designs, which the participants took to quite enthusiastically. They returned the following day (more…)

One of the quilts I made for my first book Quilting With Manhole Covers, featured the design of Kamaishi City. The city was ravaged by the recent tsunami, with significant loss of life and property. I recently sent the quilt to Japan to appear in an exhibition of the Japan Manhole Association in Tokyo.

Alice Gordenker, who writes for the Japan Times and publishes a blog on life in Japan, has written articles about the manhole covers and my books on the subject. Here is a link to her most recent offering, which shows the Kamaishi quilt and tells of the devastation of the city.

I thought I would give you an update on the Oregon: State of Diversity Exhibition which SAQA is involved.

The 2010-2011 SAQA Oregon show, Oregon: State of Diversity, is featured at the Heritage Station Museum in Pendleton, Oregon from February 15th through April 9th. The museum is located at 108 SW Frazer, Pendleton. Hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 4pm. Museum members are invited to an opening reception on Tuesday, February 15th from 5:30 to 7 pm. For further information, contact the museum at 541 276-0012 during those hours.

I am also involved in another show at Maude Kerns Art enter in Eugene, OR.
Maude Kerns Art Center, Eugene, OR Presents
Fiber “High Biber Diet” and “Loosely Bound”
February 25 – March 25, 2011
Gallery Hours: M-F, 10-5:30pm; Sat. 12-4pmm
For information: (541) 345-1571 or Maude Kerns Art Center

Another show worth seeing is Back to Nature by High Ïiber Diet. This card give you all the information about the show.

The new news is that the manhole quilts have been shipped to Tokyo, Japan. As I mentioned before, they will be on display during the Japan Ground Manhole Association’s 10th anniversary celebration, and ultimately will be given as presents to special guests. The Association has offered one of the quilts to Alice Gondenker in consideration for her efforts on this project. She is the journalist who wrote the article on manhole covers entitled, SO, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT? She responded that she would be very pleased to own one. Alice has an interesting web site dealing with Japanese topics and a new post on the manhole cover quilts.  Since I lived in Japan for four years, I really enjoy reading her articles.

Three of the quilts – Uncommon Will, Tamari and Kamaishi City were featured in my book, Treasures Underfoot. A forth quilt –Surface Tension– was remade in a smaller version, quite similar to one in the collection of the LaConner Quilt Museum, in Washington. All four can be seen in the About section of my web site.

I would like to share a little of what the students accomplished in my Buenos Aires workshop. The students were very enthusiastic, and good quilters. We made placemats using various  design methods and ideas. They played around using Broderie Perse, then moved on using shapes in different ways. In the end they experimented with using Notan as a possibility for designs. These designs were used place mats. All produced wonderful, creative designs. Here are some examples.

Shapes and Notan in progress

Estela Loitegui and her Notan shapes

Maria Giardini and Gladis Vega with their shapes and Notan almost finished.

Estela Loitegui and here work

Teresita Leal and her work

Time is flying and I am getting ready to travel to Argentina where I will be teaching classes. This has been a very busy summer, so I thought I would let you know what has been going on in my art quilt world.

The INTERNATIONAL WOMENS ARTISTS EXHIBITION USA – AUGUST 2010 at the Littman Gallery – Portland State University – Portland OR, was the biggest event for me. I have said things before about OWCA before but thought I would mention it again.

Here is a little history. “HER PRESENCE IN COLOURS” exhibitions were founded and directed by the guiding vision of Dr. Yuen Chee Ling of Malaysia. Dr. Ling believes that, “The artworks of these exhibitions reflect a cohesive spirit of the women artists and their visions for peace and harmony which will surely contribute towards building a better tomorrow for our future generations.” This exhibition marks the 17th anniversary of HER PRESENCE IN COLOURS, a series that began in 1993 in Beijing. At that time, seven women artist participated. This year, 90 women artists from 24 countries  participated in the 9th exhibition. Previous shows were staged in Thailand, England, Canada, Australia, South Korea, and China. This was the first in the USA. There were 93 women artists of various nationalities who presented their works together at the Littman. Among the 93, 69 were from countries foreign. The theme was, “Reflection on Oneself: Self-portrait” The art works were either literal self-portraits, or one reflecting the individual’s feelings and ideas.

Three other highlights of the summer were presentations of my work at four Portland-area venues:

The Poster Garden “1st Thursday in the Pearl,” a monthly art event in Portland’s Pearl District where. I had one large wall for my creations.

Six Street Gallery “Fiber Arts Festival” in Vancouver, WA (just across the river) where three of my pieces were juried into this show.

The Albina Bank Exhibition, also in Portland’s Pearl District, and held in conjunction with OWCA show, where two of my pieces were juried in.

The Geezer Gallery show Portland, with three pieces juried in.

The Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc. is a wonderful association dedicated to art quilters. They are having a fundraiser for the 2010 SAQA Benefit Auction which is starting September 20th
http://www.saqa.com/news.php?ID=1423 Take a look at the beautiful art quilts.
To learn more about Studio Art Quilt Association visit their web site. http://www.saqa.com

What a wonderful week we had with OWCA (Oregon Women Caucus for the Arts) “Her Colours,” and with the international artists who participated.
This is the first time anything like this has been in the United States of America. I am pleased to have participated in this event.  Here is a link to nice article by Kate Loftesness of the Oregonian, our local Portland newspaper.
http://www.oregonlive.com/art/index.ssf/2010/08/psu_hosts_first_her_presence_i.html

I have so many good pictures it is difficult to decide which ones to use. Therefore, I’m including just a few of the opening ceremonies at Portland City Hall, with the mayor Sam Adams and one of the artists involved in organizing the program.

Mayor Sam Adams opening the ceremony at city hall.

(more…)

I am thrilled to be able to return to Buenos Aires, Argentina to teach some quilting classes. I was there last March and took part in their quilt show at the Romulo Raggio Museum, in Vicente López, just ousted of the city. I had a wonderful time and met many nice people.

I will be teaching a two-day Placemats class using a variety of methods, as well as a one-day class showing my students how to transform shapes into interesting designs. I will also talk about Notan–is the dark – light principle of design or negative and positive space–and how it is used.

Take a look at the Buenos Aires web site http://www.buenosairesquilting.com.ar/ Even though it is in Spanish you will be able to see some of their work. Click on the red INGRESAR AL SITIO to enter the site you will see a slide show. After that just click around and discover things.

I have been very privileged to be included in some wonderful shows. I just want to share these events with you. The Albina Bank Gallery, Six Street Gallery, Littman Gallery and the Geezer Gallery are the places where my work will be showing in August.

The Albina Bank Gallery is sponsoring a show for Oregon Women’s Caucus for the Arts OWCA. I am pleased that I have been juried into this show. It runs from Aug 5-30th in Portland’s Peal District. The Reception is Aug 5th 6 to 9pm.

The Six Street Gallery in Vancouver, Washington, also has accepted a piece for August. The reception is Aug. 6, 5 to 9pm.  http://www.sixthstreetgallery.com

The Oregon Women’s Caucus for Arts (OWCA), in partnership with Malaysia-based, International Women Artists’ Exhibition, and Conservatory of Fine Arts are sponsoring the exhibition, “Her Presence In Colours/ Reflections of Self,” presented Aug 5 to 27. I have one piece in this show, also. OWCA is hosting this significant event, and working hard to make it a success. The Reception is Aug 5th at the Littman Gallery,  Portland State University, from 5 to 7pm.  www.oregonwca.org

I have also been juried into the Geezer Gallery for August. This is exciting for me because it is open to an exceptional group of artists. Check out their site, http://www.geezergallery.com

Having work in all these show has kept me very busy, with little time for anything else. I have been making progress on my “fiber art challenge,” with the chickens now planted in the background. I will soon post a picture to show you how it is coming along. I am also in a design concept phase with another bike piece. (more…)

I finally had a chance to see the Bird’s Eye View show and I was be very pleased at the results. The Camas Library is a beautiful building, with a nice gallery on its upper floor. The lighting is wonderful that really show the quilts off. Below is the schedule of where Bird’s Eye View show can bee seen. I have put several pictures of the art work in the show. I am pleased to be part of this show. The Camas Library show finished the end of July.

• White Sturgeon Gallery Vancouver, WA , July 10 to August 28, 2010, (reception not set yet)
  
• Pacific International Quilt Show, Santa Clara, California, October 14 to 17, 2010
  
• Stitches in Bloom, Silverton, Oregon at the Oregon Garden, January 28 to 29, 2011

• If you are interested in booking “Bird’s Eye View” email Mary Arnold for information.

Diane Born                                           Christina Brown