Heather Thomas

Becoming a Quilt Artist Session 7: Working in a Series

Heather Thomas
Duration:   14  mins

Description

Ask just about any professional or journeyman artist if they have ever worked in a series and they will answer yes. A series is making several pieces of art that are intertwined in concepts such as technique, subject matter and more. In this segment, Heather will show you how working in a series can help you grow more quickly as an artist. Working within the confines of a series will allow you to concentrate on bigger, more important questions because so many of the smaller questions have already been answered by the parameters of the series itself. When we don’t have to think or worry about how big a piece will be or what technique we’re going to use, we are then free to explore other more pressing issues. The parameters of a series can set us free by binding us to simplicity, as well as offering us the freedom to really concentrate on particular areas of growth. Heather will also provide you with ideas to help you begin your first or next series.

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One of the greatest experiences I've had in the last five or six years of being an artist has been working in several different series. I never thought I'd work in a series because I bore very, very quickly. I turn to my artwork for entertainment. It's a form of entertainment for me and especially now, because I'm living a television-free life and I go to art making to fill my time and I wanna be entertained when I work. I really wanna be entertained.

I want it to be difficult and challenging and fun and dirty and messy. And I wanna do weird stuff. I wanna be entertained. So I've been working in quite a few different series. And my favorite series by far was the series that led me to this series, which is kind of like two series that are really the same series coming together but with a major change.

I first started doing these things that I called sculpted quilts because I was taking a matte medium, which is a glue type medium, and bringing the other fabrics and papers that were highly textured and all white or off-white and basically making a collage out of them, waiting for it to dry, and then painting it and then stitching it. Well, it was limiting because, a lot of times my machine didn't wanna stitch through a lotta those areas that were really thick and heavy. And I was like, you know, I'm not gonna be able to do this the way I wanna do it. So there's gotta be a better way. Is what I came up with, but I didn't come up with that until after I'd done 36 of those sculpted quilts, of which I own three, because the rest of all sold.

They've been a very very popular seller for me, which is, as an artist, who's a working artist, that's a good thing for me. So I moved to this technique, which instead of calling them sculpted quilts, I call these stitched paintings. And what I've left out is that matte medium stage and I've switched to other stages. So now I take my very highly textured papers and fabrics and I lay them down on a canvas which is what I was doing before. But before I was then painting them with that matte medium to make them stick.

Now, I just layer them on top of batting and backing and do a little bit of pinning. Sometimes if I can't get a pin through, because it's heavy, you know, pin through that way, I'll drop a little bit of glue behind it, just enough to hold it in place. Then I stitch the bejeebers out of it. So far, my machine's okay with it. It's not throwin' any fits.

And then I paint. So that's what these are. These are part of that new series. And I'm in love with this particular piece. I really liked this piece.

I really like those pieces. I'm liking the things that I do nine times out of 10 and most artists know, this is little bit of information you might really want to stick in that noggin. Most of us understand in the beginning especially that one out of every 10 pieces that we finish, not one out of every 10 pieces that we start. One out of every 10 pieces that we finish is going to be good. Really good.

Another two or so are going to be, eh they're good enough, good enough to live in somebody else's home. Good enough to live in my own home. Another one or two are gonna be, yeah you could probably sell 'em, but only to people who don't really know what they're looking at. And then one or two or three that really need to be reworked or thrown in the trash. And working artists know that.

They also know that the more they hone their craft, they're gonna get to the point where two or three out of every 10 are really good. And another two or three are quite good enough. And only maybe one out of that 10 really needs to be reworked or thrown in the trash. I've been doing this technique long enough now, the original sculpted quilts, 36 of those. And now I've done about 15 or 16 of these.

The first 36 all had numbers. It was easy to remember. These have names and they're a little harder for me to remember, and some are quite small and some are quite large. And one is really big. They are very provocative to me because, again, I'm adding color, I'm starting with an empty background, an empty space and adding texture first and then adding more texture with a stitch and then going in and adding color and then if I feel like it needs more texture, I add more texture with the color and it's just, oh, it's just so much fun.

So this piece here, it starts with a canvas back here and this is another lighter weight canvas. And this is a really dense, heavy cheese cloth. Tons of it just put in there. This is a bark cloth and this is a lighter weight cheese cloth. And this is a piece of paper and this is the same cheesecloth as down here.

And this is canvas, and this is a lighter weight canvas. And this is fabric that has been twisted really tightly and stitched down. And as these were being stitched, I kind of manipulated and pushed those circles so that they had raised areas more and just played with it. And then when it was done, I knew I wanted to have sort of like an ombre background. And so I started light and moved to a darker, except when it dried, it took the paint differently than it had when it was in the little cups.

And I was like, well, I don't care. So then I went light here to really show off those circles. And this ended up being similar to this, but darker. And then I went in there and finger painted it with, if you look up close there's silvers and golds and bronzes and brasses, just highlighting the whole thing. And then I said, oh, well it's gotta have a red with that brown.

Red with that brown. A slightly blue red, and oh, and then some orange reds and then some pink reds and just started playing with those circles and just getting off on all that wonderful color. And when you look inside one of these circles, you see that it starts with like a melon-y color and then it goes into a red violet and then it goes into a deep, like claret color, the color of deep red wine and finishes with that. And then I've highlighted it more silver and gold and just yummy. And so I took that sort of coloration and brought it down here and then it was overwhelming and bright.

So I took some brown and quieted it down. And then I added some more silver and brought it back out again. And it's just this exploration and play. And it was so much fun. And when I got done, I said, oh my goodness, look what I can do.

What's next? Oh, okay, well, I can do something different now. That was that. And then I did this one, we talked about it earlier in this class, but how it was made. I have this wonderful painting by Joan Miró on my wall and I just love the movement in it.

And I thought, you know, I wanna do something like that. So I turned away from that painting and did a quick little sketch, because I didn't wanna, you know, do it just like his and I came back and said, okay, I like that. So while I was looking at the sketch, I took a piece of white fabric and I just drew fine lines on it and said, okay, put backing and batting behind that canvas fabric and started twisting up bits of ripped white fabric, following the lines I'd put down. And that's what these heavy black lines are. And that's all I had.

And I was like, okay, now what? Hm. Well, I really wanna play with the mixture of yellow. So this is yellow and then I added a little bit of black and then I added so much black that it turned into the olive green and I loved the way that washed and played. And I love that I had three different quilting designs in this that had been divided here and the way they kind of mold into each other, love the direct compliment of throwing in some violet.

So that came next. I repeated it up here 'cause it was the same shape. Then I was like, well, I don't know what color to make these circles. Well, yeah, I do because all the modern masters believe that circles had to be red. That was their energy.

So I made them red and it made sense and it was good. And I said, oh, that's cool. So then I painstakingly, with a little tiny paintbrush and these colors and every other color that I knew of used pointillism and put little tiny dots and all of the background, tiny dots everywhere, itty bitty tiny dots all over the background. And I stood back and looked at it and said, oh, it is not good. It is horrifying.

I just really messed this up. And I let it sit on the wall for about two weeks. Sad, despondent, feeling sorry for myself, 'cause I put all that effort in and didn't know what to do. So took my white paint, thinned it down with lots of water and put a wash on it. Just a little bit better.

So I put another wash on it, a little bit better. Put a third wash on it. This time I put a little bit of pearlescent paint in there and I went, oh, I like this. So I softened that background from abstract pointillism down to this hidden pointillism underneath this kind of opalescent layer if you will. And then I thought, man, I really wish I hadn't quilted this border in there.

I didn't like the way it looked. So I said, well, I'm gonna take all those colors I used in the pointillism. 'Cause I didn't learn my lesson very well. And I'm gonna take those colors out here and I'm gonna paint stripes in this border. And I finished it and went well now you've really done it.

That is atrocious. And I asked one of my friends whose art I respect and she went, maybe the ugliest thing you've ever done. And I went, wow, okay. So again, I let it sit on the wall. And then I said, okay, I gotta fix this because this is good.

I like this. This is ruination. So I left it on the wall and I went over and grabbed my black paint, put a little bit on my finger, put it on here and started to rub. And the more I rubbed, the more I liked it. And I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed 'til almost none of that color was left.

It's simply peeking through and it was good. And then I fell in love and I have not even put this up for sale until recently because I fell in love. It was just heaven. And it was all those travails, all those missteps, all those quote unquote mistakes that got it to this point and made me feel just like I learned so much. So I bring that knowledge over to the next piece.

Try not to make the same mistakes again. This was a triptych, but when things are up for sale at individual prices and as a group price, somebody always buys one individually. You learn your lesson and you don't do that anymore. So now I only sell triptychs as triptychs because now I have a diptych, two pieces, that are harder to sell than a triptych. So these are set on a Masonite board that's been painted black.

They are the same technique but here we have some other things. We have some string thrown on. We have the hook from hook and eye here and here. We have a spiral paper thrown in there. We have really heavy stitching.

This has stitching in a border effect. This one does not. And instead of painting the whole background, I finger painted it so that you could see some of that white fabric underneath, kind of like a halo. And I really liked that. But in here, I did a complete fill of the paint.

They're very dark. And I like that they're dark. They're not pretty. This one's pretty and this one's thinking maybe it could be pretty but these not pretty, but they're very interesting. And they have a lot to say with depth and this flower, but with black and dark and red and the spiral, but with black and most people don't put black on things that are living.

And I like it that black, I liked that darkness. And frankly, I was in a really dark time when I made them. And I like that I could express that darkness. And I was really happy that somebody felt they could buy one and could live with that darkness because we all have that darkness in us. So I had a visual language here and that visual language was saying something, but it was saying something different to different people.

People like this work, they like it because it's an enigma. It doesn't look like a quilt. When I have it hanging people go, what is that? And I'll go, it's a quilt and they'll go, no, it's not. I'll go look at it.

It's a quilt, three layers and stitches, it's quilt. That's what makes a quilt. So this is a series and this is a series that I think I will work in for the rest of my life because it's a series based on a very, very specific technique. It's a very broad series. It's not a very tight series.

And with each one, I learn something new. With each one, I push the fabric, I push it and ask it to do something else. I push the paper, I push the combination. I push the color. I push the paint.

I push, I push. That push is a call and the product responds. The imagery responds, everything responds. And then I push again. That's what art making is.

So you've been asked some questions. What do you know? What don't you know? What do you wanna know? What do you want to say if you wanna say anything?

How you're gonna learn to say that. Your next decision is, am I ready to work in a series? And if so, what could that series be? What could that series be? What am I doing already that turns me on?

What have I done in the past that came naturally and felt good when I did it? These are things you should probably include in your series. What do I wanna learn? Something you should include in your series. What do I wanna say?

Something that you should include in your series. I would suggest that you make your series open-ended. Don't just say, I'm gonna make five pieces. Say I'm going to make enough pieces until I feel as though my series is finished. I have gotten everything out of it that I can.

Working in a series will take you from here, up over that chasm, like this. Not working in a series will make that pathway much harder to traverse. So what can you do to create a series to create a body of work that explores an idea and pushes your boundaries? That will make you a quilt artist.

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