Archive | April, 2016

New Orleans Botanical Garden

By Ellen Lindner on April 29, 2016 in Uncategorized

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you know that my mom and my sister and I go on a short trip together every year. Oh, we DO have fun! This year we went to New Orleans. It was fantastic! Intriguing culture, amazing food, and good company!

A visit to New Orleans. Ellen Lindner, AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Me, my mom, and my sister

We spent some time at the New Orleans Botanical Garden. It was not that large, but it was nice.

The garden had a special display called “China Lights.” It consisted of many fabric sculptures which, at night, are lit from within. Even without the night time lighting they were pretty cool.

As you can see, the weather was perfect.

Ellen Lindner

“Coastal Overlook” Takes First Place

By Ellen Lindner on April 24, 2016 in Uncategorized

Woohoo! My quit, Coastal Overlook, took first place in a local art show! I’m delighted.

Coastal Overlook

It’s always nice to win an award but it’s even better when it includes exposing art enthusiasts to quilts as art. Yes!

The show is the Titusville Art League’s Spring Show and I won in the mixed media category. The show is free and it continues until 3 PM on Sunday, the 24th. It’s at the Police Hall of Fame in Titusville, FL.

This piece is available for purchase.

Ellen Lindner

A Visit to Focus on Fiber

By Ellen Lindner on April 20, 2016 in Uncategorized

Are you familiar with Focus on Fiber? It’s an annual retreat for fiber artists at a wonderful rustic facility in New Smyrna Beach, FL. Artists can work on their own projects or take a class from one of the visiting teachers. The retreat leader kindly invited The Quilt as Art artists to join them for dinner after the exhibit’s gallery walk. What fun!

After a delicious salmon dinner, OF COURSE, we had to see what the artists were up to! We visited Judy Coates-Perez’ acrylic ink class. Oh my, did that look like fun! She uses many transparent layers of ink, using dyeing techniques, stamping, painting, and more. Just look at this sample of hers. It totally grabbed me.

Can you tell that an early layer had flowers and now they’re mostly covered? There are many intriguing details as you notice things that are partially covered. They seem to be embedded, like items in an encaustic painting. You can see it better in the detail shot.

Here are some more of Judy’s samples.

Wonderful things were happening all around her classroom. The fabrics below were dyed and painted by Gabriele DiTota. It’s hard to imagine that they are the FIRST layer of an artwork, and will be largely covered. I’d have a HARD time covering some of these!

In the next class room we visited the participants who were doing their own thing. We didn’t make it far into the room, though, before we noticed the unique work of Susan Shie. As well as Susan, herself.

She was very generous with her knowledge as she explained her process to us. Her work is all painted with an airbrush. Afterwards, she writes ALL OVER IT with an air pen, (something I didn’t fully understand.) She writes things in a journal fashion: whatever’s going on in her life at that time. This piece is called May 4, the anniversary of the student killings at Kent State, her alma mater. She’s written a lot about that. Then, when David Bowie died, she noticed that the man on the left resembled him and labeled him as such. And so it goes. It was very interesting.

It was only Day 2 of the retreat, but there were already many interesting things going on around the room. Karol Kusmaul is working on the collaborative piece below.

It was an exhilarating visit! (Maybe I need to attend next year.)

What great art retreats have you attended? I’ve been to QSDS (Quilt Surface Design Symposium) several times, as well as taken a class at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. I highly recommend these multi-day classes!

Ellen Lindner

“The Quilt as Art”

By Ellen Lindner on April 16, 2016 in Uncategorized

The general population tends to translate the word quilt as “bedspread.” If you say you make art quilts they might think, “She’s mighty proud of her bedspreads!” This is the challenge of art quilters as we try to show our work and to educate the public about what we do.

Thankfully, exhibits of art quilts (and other textiles) are now becoming more common place in art centers and museums. And some even tackle the issue head on. Such is the case with “The Quilt as Art,” currently on display at the Peabody Auditorium’s Rose Gallery in Daytona Beach, FL.

I got to attend a reception and gallery walk there, both of which were SO interesting! Here are a few of the stunning quilts on display.

Winter Solitude, by Becky Stack. The photo doesn’t begin to do this piece justice.

But the detail shot is better.

All the pieces on display were made by SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) artists from the central Florida area. A very talented group!

Jane Ashcroft’s quilt is called Different Perspective. As you can see, it’s a close up view of forest vegetation. Can you see the boot on the right?

Check out her 3D embellishments!

Kathryn Robinson’s quilt was the most moving in the exhibit. It’s about her dad and it’s called Dad, Don’t Go.

Kathryn used a wide variety of media, including paper, postage stamps, and paint. She constructed a quilt and then mounted it on birch board.

Doris Hulse imagined a setting and then filled it with beauty in Orchids in the Grotto. (NOT a very good photo.)

She is very skilled with Inktense pencils, which is what she used to create the orchids.

The gallery walk provided a chance for each of the artists to talk about her work. This was very interesting and the audience was extremely attentive.

Here I am talking about my piece Lava to the Sea.

A funny thing happened with the label on one of my other pieces. Taking Flight had a label showing its title as Taking Flight, White Cows. Well, there are no cows on it, so I had a good chuckle about the “coordinator’s mistake.” When I gently mentioned it to her she told me I had sent her the title that way! What?!? What was I thinking? I DID grow up on a dairy farm. Did my bovine auto correct kick in? I have no idea! No worries though, we all had a good laugh about it.

This exhibit is up through April 30th. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll check it out.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. My quilt, Carefree, is also on display in this exhibit.

Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College

By Ellen Lindner on April 13, 2016 in Uncategorized

Rollins College, in Winter Park, FL has a beautiful campus on the edge of a lake, with huge oak trees. It also has Cornell Fine Arts Museum, which I visited for the first time recently. While looking for the museum, we ended up in an art building with a display of student work in the hallway. Pretty cool, huh?

I think they’re made from masking tape and maybe lightweight cardboard.

Next door, we found the museum. It’s well designed and well-lit. There were also activities for children. This is the entry foyer.

The zebra head costumes on the right relate to the primary exhibit, called “Transcommunality.” Presented by artist Laura Anderson Barbata, it’s a culmination of her work with stilt-dancing communities in Latin America and the United States.

The exhibit features stilt-dancing costumes that were made by hand with a wide variety of materials. The one below was made with cotton fabric, wood, cane, fiberglass rods, mesh, decorative trim, mirrors, papier-mache and paint.

Here’s a closer look at the head dress.

Dancers perform in these outfits while wearing homemade stilts.

Children apparently participate in this, as well.

One room was full of costumes with stilts that had also been carved or decorated.

The one above even has a caterpillar and several lady bugs!

Dolls showed more stilt-dancers.

I didn’t get a very good shot of the giant suits, made in the USA. They were used in a performance as part of “Occupy Wall Street.”

In addition to the stilt-dancing exhibit, there were several other interesting pieces on display. The one below is called Haystack After Monet #2, by Vik Muniz. It definitely resembles Monet’s painting.

But, this one was made from pieces of colored paper. See the close up below.

This particular exhibit has just ended, but it’s replaced with student and faculty exhibits. I bet they’d really be worth seeing. And if you’re in the area you may also enjoy the Morse Museum, which houses work by Lewis Tifany. There’s lots to see and do in Winter Park.

Ellen Lindner

“The Quilt as Art” Reception

By Ellen Lindner on April 8, 2016 in Uncategorized

Art, food, good conversation, and interesting people make exhibit receptions some of my favorite events. Throw in discussion about the pieces on display by the people who made them and it gets even better!

All of this will be happening on April 13th for an exhibit in Daytona Beach, FL, called “The Quilt as Art.”

I’ll have three quilts in the show. Carefree:

Taking Flight:

and Lava to the Sea:

I’ll be at the reception and I hope to see you there!
Peabody Auditorium

Ellen Lindner

An Interesting Exhibit

By Ellen Lindner on April 5, 2016 in Uncategorized

On a recent visit to the Maitland Art Center I saw some very interesting art, both inside and out. There were several vessels made by Dale Chihuly, but they were over shadowed by this large installation piece in the next room.

It’s called The Lack of Distinction, by Lorrie Fredette. Pretty cool, right? Here it is viewed from the other direction.

From reading the sign, we figured out that each pod is built around a brass armature. They’re covered in muslin and coated in beeswax. After being joined together they’re suspended with nylon line.

It was quite intriguing.

The friend who was with me has an excellent sense of smell, so she smelled the latex in the next room before we even saw it.

Since I gave you a hint, maybe you can tell it’s made from balloons.

This piece was made by Jason Hackenwerth and it’s called It Tasted Like Lead. The title is a reference to the first hydrogen bomb dropped on Japan.

After viewing the art by these three artists we were a little puzzled, because four artists were listed as having work in the exhibit. We asked, “Where is the work by Paige Smith?” The answer was that her installation was located all over the premises, sort of like an Easter egg hunt. Well, that sounded like fun, so we set off to look for the geode-like crystals described to us.

And we found some right away.

As in the example above, most of the crystals were nestled into “wounded” spaces.

The outdoor fireplace, above, shows more of the Mayan Revival architecture.

It was especially fun to discover little “geodes” underfoot or tucked into some crevice. Can you see them there?

A very delightful stop.

Ellen Lindner
P.S. I love the work of Dale Chihuly, even though the vessels in this exhibit didn’t excite me. If you’re not familiar with his work, you should definitely check out his website.

Maitland Art Center

By Ellen Lindner on April 3, 2016 in Uncategorized

Surrounding Orlando are several quaint neighborhoods and Maitland is one of them. With sprawling oaks, brick streets, and old buildings, this tiny neighborhood is full of charm. Perfectly in step with the area, the Maitland Art Center sets the standard. It’s a cluster of small buildings and it was built in the 1930’s as an artists’ retreat.