A Day At The Museum with Romare Bearden

Yesterday I spent a good part of my day at the Taft Museum (http://www.taftmuseum.org/?page_id=196) in downtown Cincinnati. The Taft's current exhibit is "IMPRESSIONS AND IMPROVISATIONS: The Prints of Romare Bearden". For all you that didn't know Romare Beaden is my absolute favorite artist! I have been very much influenced by his work. My improvisational collage quilts are my interpretation of that influence.

My friend Lynn invited me to go with her to take a class given in conjunction with the exhibit. The class, "Bearden's Collage: An Introduction to Collage Technique", was taught by one of Cincinnati's noted artist Cedric Michael Cox. The class started with a white piece of poster board which we painted to get rid of all the "white". While our boards were drying, Cedric took us on a very educational and informative guided tour of the exhibit. He explained in detail all of Bearden's print making techniques and collage history. After we returned to our class room to begin to work. First we were showed many of the various collages Cedric had created and examples from some of his students. Next we were supplied with various fabrics, trims, papers, magazine images and glue and spent the next hour and a half "collaging" our little hearts out!  Below are a few some photos from the class.

My collage had a orange/red back ground, I stamped a face on green card stock which was my starting point and I just went from there.

My collage, it is a work in progress

                                         

Cedric Michael Cox

Lynn with her collage

Goal Met - Kinda.....

My quilt " Chillin" has been accepted for inclusion in the first SAQA Ohio art quilt exhibit "Creative Statements: Ohio Art Quilts 2012" at the Zanesville Museum of Art. The exhibit run April 21 - July 6, 2012.
This piece was completed in November of 2011. It is an improvisational collage piece that just came to me. I didn't create it for any particular reason, however it was completed many months before the submission deadline date which was February 7th, therefore it counts as a goal met! Congratulations to me!

Chillin - detail

Chillin

Blog Restart

I have finally gotten around to restarting my blog. This has been a goal of mine for a very long time. I have declared 2012 as my year for setting goals, sticking to them and attaining them. Goals will be a big focus, however I will have lots of fiber art and creative stuff to share. I am sharing my artistic and personal goals openly and plan to update my progress often.

My artistic goals are:
1. Entering more exhibits and have the work completed at least a week prior to the submission deadline.
2. Develop and complete a cohesive body of work.
3. Work larger and in corporate other types of surface design techniques in to my work.

My personal goals are:
1. To lose weight by adapting a healthy diet that supports weight loss and incorporating more physical activity into my daily life.
2. Empower myself to support myself in achieving this goal.
3. Slowing down and letting somethings go and eliminating all the clutters my life.