Meeting Recap March 2023

 

Michael James Career Highlights

Michael shared his personal story, from growing up in New Bedford, Massachusetts in a mill worker family, to making a living as a studio quilt artist, to moving to Nebraska to join the UNL community, to dealing with his wife's Alzheimer's, and finally to life in retirement, looking back on his life.  All along the way, he made quilts that reflected his journey.

Bedloe's Island Pavement Quilt, 1975

Rhythm/Color: Spanish Dance, 1985

 

Earthly Pleasures, 1995

 Interference Effect: (Betrayed) Lover's Knot 2, 2005

       (not shown at the meeting)

 

Aubade (ascent), 2014

 

Mesa View (No. 12), 2021

 This work is one of a series of precisionist geometric constructions reconsidering formal and spatial counterforces. The execution process is focused, intimate and contemplative. The digital interfaces that I employ (Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Fresco, Procreate and digital textile printers) result in unique patterned fabrics that combine with a hundreds-year-old patchwork technique to coalesce as integrated and tension-filled compositions.

Untitled (No. 4), 2021

 

Collage 1, "Chevron", 2022

 

Collage #8, "State of Affairs", 2022

Collage #11, "Gridlock", 2023

 

Sheila Green showed us two quilts that she made with Michael James designed fabric.

  

Upcoming Meetings

April 25th: Modern Quilting Today and Quilt Con Recap, Sheila Green
May 30th: EQ8 Design, Nancy Goff
June 27th: Audrey Esary, Cotton and Bourbon, Finding My Voice in Modern Quilting. At home or at IQM Zoom
July 8th: Workshop, Mobius Radial
July 25th: Chatanooga Ls, Sheila Green
Aug 29: Maria Shell, Improv for Everyone
Sep 26th: Applique 3 techniques Elisa Salas and Sara Maseth
October 24th: English Paper Piecing, Sarah Maseth 

Upcoming Events

Spring Retreat 2023, Friday, May 5 – Sunday, May 7, 2023
Carol Joy Holling Center – Hazel Dillon Lodge
Limit 36 people.
Cost - $160 LMQG members; $170 for non-LMQG members
Sign up!

Challenge quilt: Improv Processes, April 25th1. Purchased patterns or designs
    2. No Plan: Create shapes and odd sized pieces, strips etc…
    3. With intent
    4.Inspired by something in nature, photograph or emotion
Make a quilt at least 80 inches perimeter. 
Choose one of the 4 improv processes above

Meeting March 2023

 

This is a members-only meeting.  No guests at this time.

Program: Michael James Career Highlights

Michael's presentation will cover some highlights of his nearly 50 years in the quilt domain, and will provide a closer look at some of his most recent work, including a collection of mixed media collages/bricolages that incorporate diverse materials and techniques. There will be ample time for questions & answers.

A Massachusetts native, Michael James lives and maintains a studio in Lincoln, NE. From 2005 to 2020 he chaired the Department of Textiles, Merchandising & Fashion Design at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, whose faculty he first joined in 2000 after twenty-five years as an independent maker. At UNL he held the Ardis James Professorship and taught graduate and undergraduate courses in foundation design, textile design and quilt studies. His textile art is included in the collections of the Museum of Arts & Design in NYC, the Baltimore Art Museum, the Racine Art Museum, the Newark Museum, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Mint Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Shelburne Museum, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (DC), among others. In 2015 the Renwick Alliance honored him as a Master of the Medium in textiles, for lifetime achievement, and he is the recipient of the Luminaries Award from the Fuller Craft Museum (2011), the Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award of the University of Nebraska system (2009), the Nebraska Arts Council’s Governor’s Arts Award (2008), the Lincoln Arts Council’s Mayor’s Arts Award for Artistic Achievement (2003), and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth (1992), his undergraduate alma mater. His work is represented by Modern Arts Midtown in Omaha, Nebraska.  

Sew Day Recap March 2023

 

We had a small group, but we had a good time chatting and cutting fabric for National Quilting Day and Quilts for kids.

Kris showed us her finished Charade quilt, front and back.

Sheila displayed some of her improv projects.

 

Coming Events

National Quilting Day is coming soon!

March 28: LMQG meeting at the International Quilt Museum

                Program: Quilt artist Michael James career highlights

Sew Day March 2023

 Bring your sewing.  Work on your projects.  Share tecniques.

11 AM: Improv techniques with Sheila Green

Meeting Recap February 2023

 

Co-President Elisa Salas opened up the meeting

 

Program: Improvisational Quilting (Improv)

Kris Jarchow helped us understand the ever-evolving notion of improv.

She defined four different approaches to improv aka. "making it your own":

1. Purchased patterns or designs

    -change up fabrics, colors, change layout or size, maybe secondary patterns, change size of design, make only one block and so on.

2. No Plan: Create shapes and odd sized pieces, strips etc…

    -work out sections and build the piece up with no particular outcome

     (Sherri Lynn Wood’s flexible patterning - “Yes, and”- philosophy)

3. With intent

    -design blocks, shapes etc with a plan for placement, size or finish for the most part

4.  Inspired by something in nature, photograph or emotion

     -work to recreate it or small portion of it (leaning towards art quilts) and can fall into any of the above.

 
and have fun!

 

 Some of the quilts by Kris and friends demonstrating different improv techniques.

 

Show and Tell

Albie Osborn - collage hearts

 

Rhonda Eddy - upscaled patch mug rug, bag recycled from twill pants

Deanna Faimon - collage hearts

Tom Meyer - ruler work wall hanging

Deborah Ebke - gnome wall hanging

Nancy Goff - arrow wall hanging

MaggieRose Copple - elephant quilt, borders quilt (LQG workshop quilt)

Sheila Green - collage hearts, QuiltCon swap wall hanging

Elisa Salas - bag, improv driftwood wallhanging

Kate Honeyman - shirt

Quilts on the beach mailed in from paradise by Lora Yardley

 

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Upcoming Events

March 11: Sew Day

March 18: National Quilting Day

March 28: LMQG meeting, Michael James career highlights presentation