Korean-American painter Leeah Joo’s work is inspired by the enigmatic and hidden. In her illusionist paintings, she teases our predisposition to probe and uncover. Intriguing parcels in her Pojagi series are enveloped by a lavish, traditional Korean wrapping cloth and beckon to be unpacked. The richly detailed paintings of lacey drapery in her Parrhasius series present an open-ended narrative, inviting us to question what lies behind the curtain. Joo studied painting and art history at Indiana University in Bloomington and received her MFA in painting from the Yale School of Art, Her paintings have been exhibited widely in the U.S. and South Korea. She is the recipient of notable awards from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, George Sugarman Foundation, Connecticut Commission on Arts and the Puffin Foundation. Currently, Leeah Joo lives and paints in Middlebury, Connecticut and teaches at Southern CT State University and Paier College.
What the fuck do you mean that's a quilt??? Round 2
All quilts are contest winners from the quilt show Road to California, 2022. You can see these quilts and the other winners from that year here.
Best of Show Quilt
Title: Harlequinade
Maker: Rebecca Prior
Quilter: Jackie Brown
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
"Harlequinade" is a theatrical quilt filled with visual clues guiding viewers to discover a hidden story. Inspired by Venetian Carnival masks and commedia del'arte characters, the quilt features the antics of Harlequin, the trickster, who has his own ideas about freedom and fun!
Director's Choice
Title: Welcome Home
Maker: David Taylor
Quilter: David Taylor
Design Basis: Original image by Margo Clabo, used with permission
I first saw this image from friend Margo Clabo more than a decade ago. It took years to convince her to let me adapt her photo into a quilt. The image it depicts is especially sentimental for her. The challenge for myself was to create a pieced pictorial background and recreate a traditionally pieced quilt by using my hand appliqué technique. The project size was overwhelming, but I'm thrilled with the finished quilt. So is Margo. Time to exhale.
Note: To be clear, that is not a photo with a quilt in it, that WHOLE THING is a quilt.
Best Machine Stationary Quilting
Title: Emerald labyrinth
Maker: Kumiko Frydl
Quilter: Kumiko Frydl
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
As a starting point I used an image from the entrance to the EL Barkookeyeh Mosque in Cairo. Thinking of an elegant and intricate garden I added bursts of natural color and filled the area between the large elements of the design with finer ornament inspired by butterflies and plants. I set the circular image in a rectangular frame with a subdued complimentary design of rippled reflective pools.
1st Place: Animal
Title: Woodland Wilds
Maker: Ann Horton
Quilter: Ann Horton
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
My morning hikes in the woodland hills of our northern California home inspired this quilt. The rabbits are always alert for danger. This machine appliqued, thread painted and embroidered view through a window is surrounded by wild flowers on hand dyed silk and again surrounded by other wild birds and animals. I love my wilds things in the woods!
1st Place: Human Image
Title: The Memories That Remain
Maker: Lynn Czaban
Quilter: Lynn Czaban
Design Basis: Library of Congress Photos - LC-USF33-006183MI and LC-USF33-0061
I am fascinated by the human face and our ability to communicate without uttering a single word. The Portuguese word 'saudade' meaning a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for something or someone that one cares for and loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never be had again.
1st Place: Naturescape
Title: Desert In Spring
Maker: Andrea Brokenshire
Quilter: Andrea Brokenshire
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
My Mom and I embarked on an epic travel trip we named our "Thelma and Louise Adventure" In Palm Springs, CA we visited the Living Desert Botanical Garden. This quilt is inspired by one of the photographs I took that spring day of a Prickly Pear Cactus in full bloom. I loved the leathery texture of the cactus leaves (paddles) and the almost translucent citron yellow blossoms.
2nd Place: Animal
itle: Not Today
Maker: Kestrel Michaud
Quilter: Kestrel Michaud
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
The chase is on! The Roadrunner is after his next meal, chasing a Common Collared Lizard through a steampunk junkyard. The desert is a favored dumping ground for the detritus of progress, even in a fantasy world. A steam-powered industrial revolution creates iron refuse and pieces of broken machinery have been left to decay in dry desert air. That doesn’t bother these critters. To them, this is home. Will that lizard wind up as dinner? Not today!
2nd Place: Human Image
Title: Declaration of Independence - Voices of Freedom
Maker: Nancy Prince
Quilter: Terri Taylor
Design Basis: Reproduction of John Trumbull's Painting
The quilt is a reproduction of John Trumbull's painting which depicts the moment in history when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Second Continental Congress on June 28, 1776. The quilt front and back were created in Photoshop and custom printed on fabric. Four thousand hours over 4 years was necessary to create the quilt. The back captures the story of the Declaration and its signers.
Note: I'm not at all patriotic. But credit where credit is due. That's a fucking quilt.
3rd Place: Animal
Title: Midnight Flight
Maker: Joanne Baeth
Quilter: Joanne Baeth
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
Several years ago we had an injured Great Horned Owl roosting in our willow tree during the day. I took several pictures and was inspired to create him in fabric. The background features a painted sky, old buildings, melting snow and a rabbit on the run The foreground is the swooping owl which was constructed by painting and inking each feather and thread painting over fabrics and needle punched wool rovings
3rd Place: Naturescape
Title: Day Into Night
Maker: Deb Deaton
Quilter: Deb Deaton
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
Inspired from photo by Robert Murray with his permission. When the Arizona sun begins to set, the sky comes alive. I saw this photo and knew the splendor of this landscape needed to be captured with fiber! Sky is hand painted. Raw edge applique. Mixed media used: oil pastels, color pencils, inks to enhance the fabrics and create more dimension. Cheesecloth: painted to create spikes of cactus. Tulle used to capture the sunrays. Machine quilted.
the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"
just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible
did yall know cricut put a metal strip in the back of their newer Maker 3 that doesn't do anything except pop out after like six months of regular use and force you to call customer service so they can tell you to replace the machine
well they did and instead of calling them and replacing an entire functional fucking machine you can just cut the bar out and put tape over what's left
Last night was my company Holiday Party, and we're doing really well, so it was held at the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)
I was so happy that also included the Styled by Sargent exhibit, of John Singer Sargent paintings and the actual articles of clothing alongside them.
Now, you have probably seen this painting of Lady Macbeth
But have you seen the costume she's wearing??
It's gorgeous, obviously.
But that texture! It's *crochet*
And some knitting
Really simple crochet too; just a chain and single crochet lattice with beads and metallic thread added for this chain mail effect.
Despite John Singer Sargent being an expert painter of fabric (no, really, just look at it), I never knew Lady Macbeth's costume had to be *hand crocheted* for that texture in the painting.
Anyway I'm gonna be making myself some faux-chainmail by crocheting it for the next Renn Faire