ALVAREZ ART CLASSES

STILL WORKING

Okay, so I know you think by now I am no longer working and have succumb to artist block or something more dreary but truly I have not. Since the last thing I posted was a sketch for a painting I will take up there. I did indeed finish that sketch and gesso it in. I have not painted it yet as my studio is freezing! and I am now a wimpy southerner but I promise I will return to it. I did however, get on a roll on the drawing side of things and have completed many of this kind of portrait. Here is one entitled "First Communion", image courtesy of my good friend Dana. This piece will be a part of an overall show I am planning on Ritual and the Color White in a Womans' Life (or something like that).

First Communion, 19" x 24", gesso and charcoal on paper, 2009

I have also just come back from a symposium in Williamsburg, Virginia on 400 Years of Quilting - Quilted Fashions. this site gives a brief description of colonial Williamsburgs' workshops and lectures. Contrary to the title it was not all about fashion but just everything to do with quilting in the early times of our country. There was some absolutely outstanding academic and scholarly research presented on styles and periods of quilting, from the differences in stitching to particular styles coming from regions of our country. Here are links to some of the presenters Linda Baumgarten curator of textile and costume for Colonial Williamsburg , Lynne Zacek Bassett author of Massachusetts Quilts and Alden O'Brien curator of costume and textiles with DAR Museum in Washinton, D.C.and some images in case you are interested in doing a little of your own research. Please keep in mind that these are all done by hand, by women who probably had at least 6 children, but some of who probably also held slaves or indentured servants. The materials in these clothes indicate these women were most likely very wealthy but the impeccable and absolute awe inspiring detail of the work cannot be denied whom evers hands, slave or non-slave, white or wealthy worked on these items. These are works of art! Please click on these to see the astonishing hand worked details!

I also attempted to go to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt show as I had my piece "Smoke" accepted. I really wanted to take my children as they have not been to a quilt show yet and I thought they would love it but unfortunately we got taken down by all varieties of flu, bronchitis and general nasty viruses so we opted to lay low and catch the next one.

Smoke, 26" x 26" approx., satin, canvas and lace with acrylic paint, quilted, 2008

Finally, I have been working on my hand-stitching and quilt making in these cold days. It is so much nicer to sit under a blanket and stitch then stand in my freezing basement and paint as my hands turn to ice! So I leave you with a little bit of what I have been doing these days, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Trying to find myself in my art.