Sunday Quilt Inspiration: Athena LaTocha

Remember back when I went to the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans with friends from the BRMQG? I wrote about Sherri Lynn Wood's work and then last week I finally introduced Beili Liu. 

There was another artist whose work I thoroughly enjoyed. She is Athena LaTocha and her work on heavy paper is stunning. I find the pieces to be moving, especially considering that she want to make an impactful statement how humans affect the environment through waste.  

Do these not make you stop for a moment and consider just how much waste is created? How that waste destroys our world?

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: {artist} Beili Liu

I was looking through photos from the artist-in-residence open house at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. I realized that there were a few artists that I wanted to introduce to you. One of those is Beili Liu. Her work speaks to me through color, shape and theory. It helps that her grandmother's crocheted bed spread (and hundreds of needles) are part of one of her exhibits. 

 You can't see it in this photo, though I did try to get relatively close, but every thread hanging from this tar-covered piece holds a needle. I did not even see the needles until someone pointed them out. But once I did, my brain kicked into gear. I walked away wondering how many needles a quilter threads. 

How many in the case of my grandmother, who hand-pieced and hand-quilted exclusive of machines? How many did for the women before her generation, who had large families? who needed several quilts on every bed. who had many beds? Oh so many needles! And I want little more than to thread a needle and pull it through layers of fabric and fiber.

 I'm not quite sure what to make of these pieces. The indigo color was all I needed to be drawn to them. The second piece is a series of six inch squares each dyed using some form of blueprint coloring that is activated in the sun. The shapes are of objects that the artist recovered from one particular area.

Meet Sherri Lynn Wood

Wednesday I told you about going to the Joan Mitchell Center for their Open Studios. There was a special reason for our visit: Sherri Lynn Wood is an artist-in-residence there. And when she leaves in December, she will be giving a workshop in Lafayette, which I am attending. (More in a few weeks.) But for now, I'd like to introduce you to the Sherri Lynn Wood that we met.

Sherri is working on several pieces while in New Orleans. The first two are pieces that symbolize menopause and its attendant miseries: bloating, weight gain, dryness, pain, psychological loss.

She created the first piece from pieces of a discarded suit and salvaged fabrics. Do you see menopausal symbols and motifs?

The second one piece deals more with the ways the female body changes during menopause. 

How about this way of storing and organizing your patches? Isn't happy? The pieces are blocks that she discovered in a bag of fabrics that someone gave her for recycling. As she works on them, Sherri sorts them on these lines. Expect to see a temporary banner in my studio. I love the cheer and color this provides in the blank slate that is her current studio. I'll leave you with just a few more photos from Sherri Lynn Wood's studio.

Discussing how Joan
Mitchell's work and New
Orleans informs her own work

On the floor of her studio space

Working/cleaning area

Pin It Weekly #298 Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, LA

Welcome from the Open Studios at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans! Well, I actually went yesterday with BRMQG sisters from Baton Rouge. There were six of us, Lori, Crissy, Alice, Marquita, Smittie and myself. 

The main house serves as offices for the Foundation

Ah! What a lovely, beautiful, wonderful place. I want to go and stay a while. Seriously, please recommend me. Okay, okay, back to reality. First to BR to meet everyone, then to NO directly to the Joan Mitchell Center where we met with those artists-in-residence who were holding open studios. 

The kitchen and dining and patio area of the main house

I spoke with each of the artists, though I did not have time for pictures in every studio. I did, however, chance delaying the team with a longer pause when visiting the fiber artists.

Studios!

Studios are all in one building and are large, with high walls and lots of natural light. Artists bring their own supplies and I was impressed with how little each one had. I suppose that hauling your own studio on a flight might be difficult.

Residences

The campus is inviting and invigorating. It's no small wonder that artists are inspired here. A reason for such a setup I had not considered before is that the residents are inspired by each other. 

Residences

After the open studios, we trekked off to the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA).  

Pin It Weekly #237

My Pinterest is growing! Yes, indeed, I've been pinning. Not as much as I'd like, but I do have other social media demands. (Ha!)

I recently found a few more quilts for "heart, quilts" and (this is crazy) more covered bridges.  Are there that many covered bridges?

Plus, I added to my "Louisiana, home" board with mostly New Orleans photos. There are well over 200 pins on this one board.

We love the city and have been many, many times (especially when we were young), so we've seen almost every one of the places on this board. I've stayed at Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter, Le Pavillion on Poydras Street, and a couple of places on Canal Street.

Richard and I especially enjoyed spending a weekend in the city to attend a show at the Sanger Theater, eat at one of the fabulous restaurants, and just enjoy a stroll along one of the city streets or ride a trolley car. The architecture of NOLA is unrivaled, and the museums offer interesting, often-changing displays. I saw the King Tut treasures in NOLA in 1978. 

If you've never come to New Orleans, now is the perfect time. The weather is perfect, kids are still in school so there are fewer visiting families, and crawfish season is upon us. You can get them cooked in a number of ways: boiled, jambalaya, red or brown gravy, etouffe, po'boys and deep fried with a slew of other wonderful seafood delicacies. 

And that's just one meat. Imagine what we do with shrimp, fish, oysters, rice, beans, (well, you get the idea). As the saying goes: 

Come home to Louisiana.