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“Dreams of Pinot Noir” – Another Art Quilt in the “Wines of the World” Series

August 21, 2012 / Nancy Smeltzer / No comments

With this contemporary art quilt, “Dreams of Pinot Noir”, I’m continuing my blogs about my series that I’ve done on Wines of the World. Packed into its relatively small space, (36.5” sq or 93 cm sq), are lots of subtle details. Good pinot noirs are known for their elegant, velvety textures and are described as being of “leather and lace”, so that’s the look that I was going for as I began this piece.

The image for this quilt came to me as a whole image in a dream. I have some of the coolest dreams, and this one was while I was dozing on a bus during a tour of the Burgundian wineries. The section of road that we were on was overhung by trees, so that the sunlight was flashing on and off as we drove under the shade of one tree, moved out into an open area, and then were in the shade again. In that halfway state between consciousness and deep sleep, I could see behind my closed eyelids, the lights flashing on and off. All of a sudden, I “saw” the image of this quilt, which looks pretty much the way that I saw it in my dreams.

In this detail, you can see some of the folded ribbon flowers that I was making at the time, with the burgundy one in the middle right with a button center being the largest of the the ones in this scene. Directly above it, to its left, is an antique crocheted button with a seed bead center that probably graced a coat at some point in the past. In the middle are some of the tri-colored grapes that I embroidered with floss. The large leaves are sort of rubbery and have a mildewed look to them. I found them by accident in the silk flower section of a local crafts store. They were exactly the effect that I needed to duplicate the aging grape leaves that I “saw” in my dream. In the lower left is a white lace grape motif that I again found by accident, this time in a fabric store that I have been going to since I was a child, Mary Jo’s Cloth Store, which is now in Gastonia, NC, USA. (I used to play under the tables while my mother picked out the fabrics for my dresses for the upcoming school year.)

I think that you can get a sense of the wealth of materials that I have in my studio by looking at this detail shot. In the center is a black, embroidered button that I got from M&J Trimming in New York City, USA. That amazing place is a “candy store” for ribbons, buttons, and all kinds of trims, with a patient staff that will pull down materials from the top shelves for you to drool over. Below it to the left, and to the right are some of the costume jewelery pieces that I find at thrift stores, yard sales, and of course, on eBay. My rule of thumb is to look for pieces like necklaces or bracelets, count the number of individual elements that can be cut apart, and divide that number into the total price to get a cost/unit. Over the years, (and countless purchases), I have a sense of what can be found out there in the supply stores and how much they cost. Jewelry pieces, however, can give an individual look to an art quilt, as you usually won’t be able to get more of that piece. However,sometimes things can be bought in a limited supply, as the black beaded applique in the lower left. Those were sold as individual pieces to be added to clothing, but were only made for one season. So, when I find an item like that, which I feel like I’ll use again, I buy as many as I can find. Hence, the well filled shelves in my studio,

Pinot Noirs are some of my favorite wines, and I am fortunate to have a large number from Williams Selyems from Sonoma Valley, California, USA, which have graced many of my dinner parties. While the image that inspired this art quilt came originally from an experience in France, good pinots are being crafted in many parts of the world now, especially in California and Oregon in the USA. The paring of good food, wine, and art has been a part of most of my adulthood, as one flows into the other for me, and all are part of a life dedicated to creative endeavors of all kinds.

Have youe ever been inspired by good food and wine while creating a work of art? How do you fit your whole lifestyle into your artistic endeavors?

Why not leave a comment as to your thoughts on this posting. Please take a minute, fill out the form by clicking on the “comments/no comments link” at the top of the posting, and then share your ideas with the rest of us. We all grow when we share our thoughts and impressions, so why not join our growing community of those who appreciate art quilts and textile arts. We’d love to hear from you!

You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com and can find me on Google + , Facebook, and Twitter.

To find out how to buy my art work, please check out “How to Buy my Art Work” in the “Pages” section to the right of this blog.

Category: Wines of the World Series / Tags: art based on wine, art quilt blogs, art quilts, beaded art quilts, contemporary art quilts, embellished art quilts, Nancy Smeltzer, wine art, wine inspired art

“Herbs, and Grass, and Sauvignon Blanc”

August 10, 2012 / Nancy Smeltzer / 2 comments

When working on the theme of wines for my art quilts, some color combinations were hard to duplicate. Cabernets and pinot noirs have a rich depth of color that is hard to duplicate in red commercial fabrics, especially after they’ve been washed before use. (Red fabrics tend to fade in the wash, as the less expensive direct dyes are used for that color.) Sauvignon blancs, however, are known for their grassy, herb-like flavor, and so the pale greens and yellows that I chose, topped with a pale blue to suggest the sky, were perfect colors to denote the true nature of this particular type of wine.

I’ve spent a lot of time on vineyard tours, walking between the vines, as the winemaker explained the various qualities of a particular type of grape. No real vineyard would ever have their vines arranged in the fashion that I have in my art quilt. It would be too labor intensive to tend them when they’re not in straight rows, but as an artist I can take whatever liberties I want in the arrangement of my plants. Roses are usually planted at the ends of the row, as they’ll show black-spot sooner than the grape leaves and thus indicate it’s time for spraying. Here, in my art quilt, yellow roses are mixed in with the vines, again because in my fabric vineyard scene, I can put them where I choose.

“Herbs, and Grass, and Sauvignon Blanc” ( 38″W x 37.5″T or 97.75 cm W x 95.5 cm T) , created back in 1994, incorporated some machine embroidery to attach the fabric motifs, lace cut-outs, and silk flowers and leaves to the surface of the quilt. A large part of the background fabric is actually an old tablecloth, as good wine should be paired with good food. Shimmery organza was used to suggest sky and a light green quilting thread was used to hand quilt the three layers of the quilt sandwich together. Pale green, rubbery, plastic grapes were used to simulate the “greenness” quality of this type of wine, instead of the red and purple grapes that I used in “Dinner for Three on the Banks of the Cabernet“, a few posts back. This piece was done back before I used as many buttons and beads as I do now, and I was experimenting with silk ribbon flowers that I stitched and folded. You can see some of them in the lower middle of this detail shot.

In this second photo, you can see some of the gold colored metal stampings of grape vines that I picked up in a button store in Paris. (bright gold color, middle of the shot). To the right of it, is a small, duller gold color pin of a grape cluster with artificial pearls to simulate the grapes. In the lower left hand is a bright gold cluster of wrapped wire beads that were from some inexpensive earrings that I found in a discount store. Add them into a wine theme art quilt, and they become “grapes”. I love finding treasures like that and seeing them with new eyes, so that I can utilize them in other ways than what was their original intention. My studio is filled with jars and boxes of similar discoveries, waiting to be given a permanent home on one of my contemporary quilts.

This piece hangs for right now in my dining room, awaiting a more permanent home in somebody’s collection. It has graced many a good dinner and has taken on the energy not only of itself and me when it was created, but also the collective energy of good meals shared with friends. May all of your own work be imbued with the resonance of good food, and if it suits your inclination, good wine.

How has your own art work soaked up energy because of its location? Do you deliberately interject yourself into your work, or does it happen on its own?

You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com and can find me on Google + , Facebook, and Twitter.

To find out how to buy my art work, please check out “How to Buy my Art Work” in the “Pages” section to the right of this blog.

Category: Wines of the World Series / Tags: art based on wine, art quilt blogs, art quilts, beaded art quilt, contemporary art quilts, embellished art quilts, Nancy Smeltzer, wine art, wine inspired art

“Dinner for Three on the Banks of the Cabernet”

August 3, 2012 / Nancy Smeltzer / No comments

There are many different ways that I get my ideas for my art quilts. Sometimes it’s a particular combination of fabrics that have been piled up in my studio, or a color combination that pleases me. Other times, it’s a phrase of words or the title of a particular challenge by an art magazine, such as “Quilting Arts“, or “Cloth, Paper, Scissors“. For the quilt on the left, “Dinner for Three on the Banks of the Cabernet”, the theme came from a visit to a jungle retreat camp on Christmas Day, 1992.

My ex and I had sailed up the Orinoco River in Venezuela, and then hopped on a small jet to a small jungle retreat owned by the now bankrupt Viasa Airlines. There, in the middle of the beautiful Canaima National Park, was a breathtaking lagoon fed with several waterfalls. The unusual thing about the water was that it had been colored by the tannin in the native vegetation so that it appeared a deep purple-red color, reminding be of a good rich, Cabernet. The scene is still embedded in my memory,and became the theme for this art quilt.

This detail shot shows part of the imaginary Cabernet River that I envisioned running through this quilt. There are a number of rubbery, plastic clusters of grapes in two colors, deep purple, and a red color. The resilient texture of the grapes give them quite a realistic texture when touched, and they have held up well now for almost twenty years. To the far right, you can some hand appliqued doilies from China that I cut up and then fastened them to the top of the quilt. There are also some white, plastic snowflake beads that children like to play with that have been secured with burgundy colored floss. They suggested the same shape, on a different scale, of the burgundy circles outlined in white at the bottom middle of this shot. I like to repeat the same colors in similar shapes but different sizes, as I think that adds subtle visual interest when viewed up close. People see my pieces as being complicated, but balanced, and I think this use of repeating shapes and colors help to make that happen. If one could see closely into the background, one would see clusters of grapes outlined with white stitches. These are the “ghosts of vintages past”, an homage á la Dickens. Every vintage must build on those of the past, and my art quilts build on what I’ve created before.

Most of the left in this shot is taken up by a doily sewn on to simulate a plate, hence the “dinner” part of the title. There are two place settings together on one side of the river bank and the third is on the other side. “Why dinner for three?” you may ask. “Who’s the third person?”, could be another question. While working on this piece, I was reminded of Edouard Manet’s, “Déjeuner sur l’herbe”, a picnic along a river bank. In his painting, the woman in the foreground is nude, while all of the men have on their clothes. I’ve always wondered “Why does she not have any clothes on, but the men do?”. As for my own art quilt, I leave it to the viewer to make up their own explanation as to why there are three place settings.

I find that it’s often fun to combine my passion for art with that of good food and wine. Gardens are another favorite of mine, so many of my pieces have flowers in them. For me, all of the these pursuits are art forms and I view them as a composite of the life that I’ve crafted for myself. One leads into the other, and another combination begins, which for me makes for a life surrounded by various art forms.

What are your passions in life and how do you combine the different components? Do you use some of them as overlapping themes or do you keep your artistic life separate from the rest of your pursuits and endeavors?

You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com and can find me on Google + , Facebook, and Twitter.

To find out how to buy my art work, please check out “How to Buy my Art Work” in the “Pages” section to the right of this blog.

Category: Wines of the World Series / Tags: art based on wine, art quilt blogs, art quilts, beaded art quilts, contemporary art quilts, embellished art quilts, Nancy Smeltzer

“Champagne Nights”

July 31, 2012 / Nancy Smeltzer / 2 comments

In the early 90s, I decided to make some art quilts based on a subject that I knew well, good wine. My ex-husband and I traveled quite a bit and went to tastings to collect for our wine cellar, so I had lots of experience at tasting with the best in the field. The particular night on which this quilt is based was at a champagne tasting in the DC area by a representative from Moet & Chandon, Robert Gourdin. He was quite the showman, “sabering” the neck of a bottle of the bubbly with a Napoleonic era sword so that the cork and neck would go flying out at 650 pounds/sq. in (295.5 kg/ 2.5 cm). However, having been to a lot of champagne tastings by that time, I began to doodle on my tasting notes. Later, when we were driving home, the night was crisp and clear, as only a December night in DC can be. I often forget how many stars there are in the skies as it’s so humid in the summer or most places in the area have so much light pollution. Since, Dom Perignon, whose statute is outside of the headquarters of Moet & Chandon in Epernay, France, is credited with inventing the cork “to keep the stars in his wine”, I used my sketch from the tasting combined with the stars in the sky from that nigth for the theme for this art quilt, “Champagne Nights”.

In the detail shot on the left, you can see some of the thousands of clear seed beads that I used to simulate the bubbles or “bead” in good champagne. The smaller the bead in the wine, the more refined it will be on the palate, and so I decided to emulate that concept….lots of little tiny seed beads. Larger white buttons and small shi sha mirrors add to the sparkle, much as champagne lights up the crystal flute into which it’s poured. Spiral motifs from printed fabric were machine stitched on to the surface of the top layer of the art quilt sandwich, but the whole piece was hand quilted. The laborious hand quilting shows up here as patterns in the sky. What I was trying to duplicate with the subtle navy thread on navy cloth is what you seem to see just out of focus when you stare at the night sky. There are whole universes with intricate patterns out there in space, and there are some here in my quilt, behind the scenes.

Many of the fabrics are navy and white, which duplicate Sashiko, a traditional form of Japanese quilting that employed white thread on indigo fabric. Some of the pieces that were used in this quilt are lengths of obi fabric, the large sash around the waist of a kimono. They were usually woven is narrow widths, so they could just be cut and tied in place without much effort by farmers. As I only had a few pieces of these fabrics, it was hard to cut into them, as I knew that I would probably not get another chance to replace them. However, since champagne is one of my favorite wines, the sacrifice was made.

Creating a theme for a series of quilts can be a fun process, as I begin to start looking for materials and embellishments to fit the concept. The thrill of the hunt begins and suddenly I start to see possibilities everywhere. Limiting myself to navy and white was a bit hard to do for this piece, but since my experience with champagne has been mostly at night, the color combination seemed obvious.

What themes have you used for some of your creations? Were there any difficulties in acquiring what you needed to pull off the effect you wanted?

You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com and can find me on Google + , Facebook, and Twitter.

To find out how to buy my art work, please check out “How to Buy my Art Work” in the “Pages” section to the right of this blog.

Category: Wines of the World Series / Tags: art based on wine, art quilt blogs, art quilts, beaded art quilts, contemporary art quilts, embellished art quilts, Nancy Smeltzer

Zipping it up – “Circles of Black, Circles of White 6”

April 19, 2012 / Nancy Smeltzer / 2 comments

While red is one of my favorite colors, it’s not one that I use a lot in my art quilts. However, I had some great red ribbons, fabric, and buttons, so red was the choice for this next one in the series, “Circles of Black, Circles of White 6”. I also began to incorporate industrial zippers as surface embellishments on my work. I had seen the cover art of Quilting Arts magazine by Diane Nunez on their June/July 2010 issue where she had used large opened zippers to represent stems for flowers. I thought that since I use a lot of flowers in my own work, I would use zippers to suggest stems, too. As you can see in this pic, there are a number of the black and white circles that have been used throughout the series, sitting on top of opened, white zippers. However, I’ve never met a surface that didn’t call for embellishments, so the sides of the zippers were quickly covered with buttons and beads, and now look less like stems than when the piece was not so embellished.

In this close-up, you can see how the sides of the zippers, opposite from the teeth, have had buttons or beads sewn on the them or down the middle. The teeth were particularly hard to sew and bead over wherever fabric overlapped them, as these zippers are the size meant for jackets. The large, gold pulls on the zippers also added a fun element, but I quickly learned that I needed to sew them down them, as hanging freely, they were constantly catching the beading thread whenever I was working near them. The need to frequently stop and untangle sewing threads is an occupational frustration because to the way that I work. The fabric pieces are pinned in place to the quilt surface fabric first. Next come the largest buttons and beads, and then I progressively work my way down to smaller and smaller elements. The last and the largest contributor to the “Time of the Long Sew” is when the seed beads come in. For the most part, I use 10s/11s, 8s, and a few 6s. (The larger the number, the smaller the seed bead.) Using the smallest beads takes 1 hour to cover 1 sq inch, so that makes for LOTS of opportunities to snag the hand sewing quilting thread used to fasten down the beads. Some have suggested that I work in the opposite direction and work from the smallest to the largest elements, but then, a lot of the bigger pieces wouldn’t lay flat, and I would have beaded under them for nothing, as those beads wouldn’t be seen.

This detail photo is about 1/2 the size of the actual objects. Here I deliberately left some of the original fabric unbeaded, which gives a puffy halo around the black and white circle. I do like to leave some of the fabrics showing in their original state, so people can see what it originally looked like. In the lower left, is a shiny, silver glass button from Czechoslovakia. It’s those glass buttons that always attract the most attention, because of the layers of colored glass, and foil backings and inserts. In the very bottom middle is a starburst metal stamping. I fastened them down first with plastic thread and then covered that up with embroidery floss. While these are cleanly stamped pieces, with no apparent rough edges, over time, the vibrations of the earth and gravity pulling downwards on a piece hanging on the wall would cut the emboridery floss if that were all that was holding these large stampings in place.

The white industrial zippers are more evident in this photo. What was really fun to work with was the red brocade ribbon with metal grommets seen here on the right edge and left middle of this photo. If you click on this link to InterContinental Trims, and scroll about 1/3 of the way down the page, you can see the red ribbons with the grommets in their unembellished state. I added a circle of glowing yellow-gold beads around each hole to emphasize it. By the way, if you’re looking for ribbons at a great price and with fantastic service, the owner of the above mentioned company,Rosita Pisarchick, is the person to know.

So, a few thousand pieces added and the 6th in the series, but the third to be completed, was ready to start photographing and putting it out for exhibitions. I was really getting tired of the red, purple, and gold beads near the end that were used in the background, ut then that’s always the case with a piece as I get near the end of its completion. For that reason, I can’t believe that I actually did a series of large quilts, all with the same black and white fabric, but when i set my mind to something, I can be really, really stubborn.

Have you ever set your mind to a creative endeavor? What were your trials and tribulations, and any insights you gained as to how you work?

You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com

To find out how to buy my art work, please check out “How to Buy my Art Work” in the “Pages” section to the right of this blog.

Category: Circles Of Black, Circles of White Series / Tags: art quilt blogs, art quilts, contemporary art quilts, Nancy Smeltzer, quilts in a series, quilts with buttons and beads

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Buttons&Beads&Quilts!

Archive for Art Quilt Series of Mine

“Dreams of Pinot Noir” – Another Art Quilt in the “Wines of the World” Series

“Herbs, and Grass, and Sauvignon Blanc”

“Dinner for Three on the Banks of the Cabernet”

“Champagne Nights”

Zipping it up – “Circles of Black, Circles of White 6”

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