Good-Bye QBL

Home at last after 5 days in Syracuse. The ride home was excruciatingly long thanks to road work on Rte 81 north of Scranton. We spent an extra 2 hours and 20 minutes sitting in traffic. But my friend Christine gets an A+ for doing her job. She talked and talked and talked for over 6 hours to help keep me awake during the drive. What a woman!
My class with Bob Adams focused on the stitch. One of our exercises was to stitch with different colors of thread on different colors of fabric. It is really a great reference piece, because sometimes it is really surprising how the thread looks. Sometimes you want the thread to show or recede or calm down a fabric. I know I will get a lot of use from this sampler. I have already. I started working on a piece using silk dupioni. Choosing different colors of thread, rather than matching was part of my experiment. The piece is still in progress. The next step is to put some words on it. I will post a photo as soon as I finish.

Having time to reflect upon the experience of spending 5 days in a creative environment with over 100 very talented women, I have many thoughts. Bob's work is achieved through discharging and sometimes painting and overdyeing. Often inspired by manhole covers, he then heavily stitches through the top, batting and backing. Bob was a totally focused teacher and is really an anomaly in a female dominated field. He set a wonderful tone in the classroom. It was relaxed, friendly, sharing and I felt there was encouragement by teacher and students alike. At the end, I really feel like I made a roomful of new friends. One of my friends from home was in a class that was not very friendly at all. There was no chemistry among the students and everyone was so very serious.

Talking of sharing, here is a great tip that Carole from Pennington, NJ shared with all of us. If she has a fabric that she is not ready to cut into (see the photo on the right), she will make a photocopy of it. The she will cut the photocopy into pieces and audition it in a piece (see the photo below). She says she will do it with hand-dyed or other special fabric. I think this is a great idea.What a great way to play and experiment.
So enough about QBL. It's time to put all of this creative energy to work. Back into the studio.