Curator Update - Oh So Happy!

It's wonderful!  It's coming together.  It's almost 40 pieces of prairie inspired fibre art from women across the prairie provinces: Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  It's my first curated show (meaning I just might try this again), and I really look forward to being in that gallery space once it's all up.  This is it!  The exhibition poster created by Vivian Orr / SCC Communications below.  It's AMAZING.

The art featured on the poster is by Sandie Irvine, a fibre artist in Saskatchewan.  It is a photo I took of her custom dress entitled Mid-August Wildfire.  That's right: a dress!  There are more wearables, wall art, sculptural pieces, and also a video installation.  All major areas of fibre art art represented, as well as each of the four seasons on the prairie.  It feels like I've been working on this forever and now it's about to become real.  Mark your calenders! January will be here before you know it.

(Sooo...  too many exclamation marks in one post?)
: )

 

Linking to WIP Wednesday @ TN&TN

Things I Love Thursdays

I am loving summer.  It's been an enjoyable one for me lately because it's not so hot that we'd need to throw on the A/C at all.  This means that we spend much more time playing outside.  We headed down to play at the river.  It was a gorgeous evening.

The sun was going down and everything turned golden.  The clouds were very low, and the river was very high.  There's this one particular spot near the Circle Drive overpass and Spadina where a large, sandy beach occurs.  Now that the water level is a little lower, we can see the sand.  People flock there to keep cool & sunbathe.

This year, it's a little different.  I am taking this photo from an extra body of sand.  Notice my son is out on another little island.  The sand is very, very fine.  It built up / deposited here after the recent Alberta floods.  I suspect that this might be Inglewood?  (Joking... but maybe there's some truth to that.)

All in all, we had a wonderful night.  The water was SO incredibly warm.  All five of us built sand castles, caught minnows, dug our feet down deep, collected driftwood... and didn't get bit by a single mosquito!  : )  Gotta love that!

I love summer nights with my family, playing at the South Saskatchewan River. : )  Happy August 1st everyone.
xo

...and happy Thursday.  I hope you are loving your summer too.

Sunday Snapshots

DRENCHED.

These are some photos I took from the window of our van while traveling from Saskatoon to Regina and back.  It's raining, raining, raining and the prairies are soaked.

It's great timing for the rain since most of the farmers are done seeding.

I love photographing from the highway.  I get so excited capturing all these layers and layers of colors.  It's weird when it rains this heavy because you really can't see that far.  Everything fades to grey out there.

Happy Sunday, and happy day-of-the-dad!  ; )

Jour d'ete - FIN

I finished one last piece before my final trip to the framer's last week.  It's super summery.  I was considering a final winter piece but then I realized I had no flax fields for Winnipeg!  I had some photos from last year that I really liked.  This one has blue and yellow, and a BIG view.

flax on a summer's day, 2012

I was good this time, and I made a quick sketch in my empty sketchbook.  : )

my sketchbook rendering

Next, I put together the fabric and thread for the background.  Let's just say that my thread is getting a work out!  : )

i'll clean up later.  i'm busy.

After a day of threadpainnting / free machine embroidery, I'm getting ready to stitch some flax by hand.

French Knots, here I come...

I ended up taking this with me a couple weekends ago to work on it during the public stitching day with the the embroidery guild.  I'm glad I had the photo and sketchbook along, laying out.  As I sat beside it to do stitch, it sure stopped a few people in their tracks.  : )  Here is the finished piece!

bottom corner detail

I had a hard time naming this one too, so I enlisted my bilingual boy.   "How do you say this?  How do you say that?"  I asked him to translate a whole schwack of phrases.  Finally this particular translation came out sounding just right to me.  In English, it means Summer Day.  (phonetically - jshoor daytay)

Jour d'ete, 2013

I love the swoops and swooshes in this big view.  It's a very happy piece, and one of the biggest too!

i love the way the soft gold threads shine in Jour d'ete : )

I have some news too!  I will have one of my Winnipeg pieces published in the Summer 2013 issue of Fiber Art Now magazine.  (You'll have to wait and see which one they picked.)  How exciting!  They had a call for entry on the topic of Flora and Fauna that I jumped into at the last minute.

* * * Also, Jackie White interviewed me for the CQA blog.  It's now up and you can find that post here.  (Thank you Jackie!!)

Okay - back to work.  See you soon! : )

Works in Progress Wednesday

What am I working on?  I've been plugging away at creating fibre art landscapes for the group exhibit I'm part of on Sunday, May 29th.  Here's some of what I've accomplished so far.  All will be for sale.  All will be printed along my article as the featured artist in A Needle Pulling Thread magazine, Spring 2012!

work in progress... lots more to free motion stitch on here.

the beginnings of Field of Flax, featuring french knots in periwinkle

finished!  Saskatchewan, my home.  Based on my photos.

Deep Summer.  done!  : )

Boundless, based on my photo of dandelions and a barbed wire fence

I think I may have enough time to create one more piece before I begin to mount, mat, and frame all my work.  I also have to prime and paint the display board I have.  The exhibit is a fundraiser for Friends of the Forestry Farm House, and the upcoming event was showcased in the SUN this past weekend.

the quilt shown is by Elizabeth Cuming who makes incredible art featuring heritage buildings

This Spring Art Show & Sale will be from noon to 5pm on the last Sunday of May, out in the Superintendent's Residence building there, which is a beautiful old heritage site at the Saskatoon Forestry Farm, Park, and Zoo.

click HERE for a list of the artists involved, and details of the event.

Thanks for stopping by!  To see what other quilters are up to, head on over to Lee's at Freshly Pieced.

Have a great day,
~Monika

Marvelous Monday!

Oh LOOK what I've done!  I am completely smitten with these two new pieces.  I finished "Deep Summer".  I figured something was missing, and was almost set to toss this piece when I thought I would try and hand stitch some fence posts and wires into it.  It's perfect now.

Deep Summer Fields, 2011

I love it!  Adding the two rows of fences really gave this piece the right depth that the original photo had.  And then yesterday, while battling some serious spring allergies, I completed this one.  I'm calling this one by our province's name.  It's so 'green & gold' (our flag colors).

Saskatchewan, 2011

It's based on this very first prairie photo I took after moving back to Saskatoon 4 years ago.  Here it is on a My Sweet Prairie postcard.

Here's some detail of this little blueish-purple flowers in the foreground.  I used variegated threads and it just turned out SO pretty!!  It really suggests the original scene perfectly.

I also lucked out while garage sale-ing this weekend.  I found matting, stretcher bars, and even a double hinged door that folds in half and is quite tall.  I plan to stain the wood with white and use it as a display board for my art at the end of the month.  (White stain?  Grey paint?  Black cloth?  hmmm... can't decide).

See you tomorrow!
~Monika