Quotes: Stephen King

"You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.  – Stephen King

Week 48: Adobe Illustrator

Pineapples pattern © Karen Thiessen, 2012

Last week I extolled the virtues of knowing how to make specific angle triangles (s.a.t.'s) in Adobe Illustrator. Here's more proof that s.a.t.'s are awesome. 

My grandpa had a few Hawaiian shirts in his wardrobe that he wore with panache. His funeral was on one of the hottest days of the year (six months earlier grandma's funeral took place during an icy blizzard!) and before the funeral service my mom, the matriarch of the family, insisted that family and guests remove their ties and jackets in the sweltering church. One cousin wore a Hawaiian shirt in memory of Grandpa. Grandpa would have approved. I could see Pineapples as a modern update of the Hawaiian shirt. It would also look great as wallpaper.

Merry Christmas!

I wish you all a blessed Christmas!

Quotes: Andy Warhol

Quote by Andy Warhol illustrated by Karen Thiessen, 2012. 
Rough Diamonds pattern © Karen Thiessen 2012 in background.

Week 47: Adobe Illustrator

Crosses IIc © Karen Thiessen, 2012

Nerd alert: this week's Adobe Illustrator pattern is brought to you by the triangle. Last week I had a significant breakthrough: I learned how to make specific angle triangles in AI. It's easy to make an equilateral triangle in Illustrator, but it's not so straightforward to make a right-angle, obtuse or acute triangle. Here's the website where I learned how to make a Specific Angle Triangle.

Crosses IIIb © Karen Thiessen, 2012

Learning how to draw any triangle that I can imagine has been such a revelation that I'm now obsessed with making multiple iterations of triangle patterns. Crosses IIc and Crosses IIIb are based on a long skinny triangle that I made crosses with and then put them into a repeat pattern. Crosses IIc reminds me of dancing stars. Crosses IIIb has the feel of an old-fashioned Formica pattern. While I was playing around with making Crosses IIc, I figured out a great way to fill the gaps between my initial repeat units and how to change specific colours in one easy step (Select fill colour tool). Yes, it's been an awesome week for learning new things in AI!

Jolie Bird @ Hard Twist

Jolie Bird Turntable wrapped in gold thread, 2012

If you haven't already seen it, Hard Twist is on at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto until January 27, 2013. Hard Twist is a fibre arts exhibition associated with a larger fibre festival based in nearby Oakville.

Jolie Bird is hot stuff these days. I first encountered her work at Fibreworks 2012 and was pleased to see it again at Hard Twist. Her work was also accepted into Fiberart International 2013.

Jolie Bird Installation @ Hard Twist

Bird's work is installed in the lobby of the Gladstone Hotel at eye-level if you are tallish like me. The more examples that I see of her work, the more I am impressed and amazed. I'll bet covering that record was pretty challenging, especially the narrow edge. 

Jolie Bird Stand & Headphones wrapped in gold thread, 2012

I think we'll see a lot more of Jolie Bird's work in the near future. 

Emily Comeau @ Hard Twist

Emily Comeau Cat's Cradle, 2012

If you haven't already seen it, Hard Twist is on at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto until January 27, 2013. Hard Twist is a fibre arts exhibition associated with a larger fibre festival based in nearby Oakville.

Emily Comeau's Cat's Cradle must be seen in person to get a sense of the scale. Comeau's piece was the first artwork that I saw as I entered the first exhibition space. The piece measures 48" by 48" and consists of 80 plaster fingers mounted on board with yarn. The work is conceptually brilliant and technically well executed.

Emily Comeau Cat's Cradle detail, 2012

As usual, I'm curious. I'm curious to know if all 80 fingers are different, and whose fingers were cast. I love the roughness of the fingers –– they give the sense that they are the fingers of people who work with theirs hands and in Cat's Cradle, they really are working. After seeing this piece, ordinary string art will never be the same for me.

Emily Comeau Cat's Cradle detail, 2012

Comeau is a Nova Scotia-born artist based in Montreal who graduated from Concordia University with a BFA majoring in Fibre Arts.

Gillian Collyer @ Hard Twist

Gillian Collyer Bound, 2011

If you haven't already seen it, Hard Twist is on at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto until January 27, 2013. Hard Twist is a fibre arts exhibition associated with a larger fibre festival based in nearby Oakville. Over three posts I'll share some highlights of the show. Some of the work was conceptually strong and looked fantastic from a distance but revealed disappointing technical flaws upon closer inspection. 

Gillian Collyer's Bound is one of the highlights for me. I first became familiar with her work when she exhibited hand-held at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 2000. In the AGNS exhibition, Collyer donned a white lab coat and wrapped kitchen utensils with white hand-spun wool yarn in the gallery. The wrapped utensils were exhibited on mayo (surgical) stands that reinforced the clinical nature of the performance and the work.

Gillian Collyer Bound detail, 2011

Bound is a kitchen chair wrapped in twine and hand-spun wool yarn. Wouldn't you love to see a time-lapse video of the wrapping of this chair? I wonder how heavy the chair is now, how much yarn and twine were used, and if Collyer hand-spun the yarn herself. Collyer is a graduate of NSCAD and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and now teaches at OCAD while maintaining an active studio practice and exhibition schedule.

Quotes: Brian Eno

"I like the idea of making things that exist quite happily without me being around them. In music, you talk about releasing records, and I always liked that expression because that is exactly what you do: you release it from yourself. You release it from you standing around and defending it and saying this or that about it. You set it free and it is just floating with everything else out there and then it takes whatever value is conferred upon it. I am very keen on this idea of conferral of value. The old idea with artists is that they take dead material and fill it with value, and I never liked that. From the age of fifteen I didn't like that. What I liked was the idea of making things that attract value to them. They can be quite small. You put something out into the world and either it disappears completely, which often happens, or it starts to accumulate resonance." – Brian Eno, from interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2000

found via Keri Smith, "Resonance"

Week 46: Adobe Illustrator

Dotted Diamonds © Karen Thiessen, 2012

Dotted Diamonds would look great as wallpaper. My powder room is painted the background colour: a deep greyed violet. The other day I was taping paint chips to the bedroom wall and I realized that it was almost the same colour as the powder room. Then I remembered that I've had two other purple bedrooms in my past. I also have a purple purse, a purple coat, and a purple knapsack. I have a few purple sweaters and tops and at least two purple scarves. It's all an accident. Naturally I do wear lots of other colours, but purple seems to stand out to the extent that my three-year-old friend refers to me as "Purple Karen." I love it!

Andrew McPhail @ Hamilton Artists Inc

Andrew McPhail Prick II, 2012

Andrew McPhail Prick II detail, 2012 

Andrew McPhail does it again! Prick II garnered a lot of attention at the Hamilton Artists Inc members' show opening. If you have your heart set on owning this prickly beauty, sorry, it sold.

Studio Series: Tags Study II

Panel of blue tags © Karen Thiessen, 2012

When I hand-stitch my tags, I adhere them to a large piece of fabric with 505 spray. Once I've finished stitching them all, I cut them away from the background fabric and add eyelets for hanging. Recently I brought this panel while it was in progress to a craft night and a colleague remarked that it was beautiful. She thought that the background fabric was part of the piece. That got me thinking about alternate ways of presenting the work... more options to consider.

Swedish Weaving: My Trip Through Life

Once again, my mom steals the show. My Trip Through Life is a baby afghan that my mom made to commemorate all the vehicles in a man's life. Mom used the Cars and Trucks pattern by Cindy Young and Lisa Clark as her guide.

My Trip Through Life reads from right to left. On the far right is the car that brought the boy home from the hospital when he was born. The pickup is the first vehicle he learned to drive, then the truck (it looks like a 10 wheeler to me) and then when he retired from trucking he bought a camper trailer and travelled all over North America.

Mom and dad ran a transportation company before they sold it and retired. Dad started with a 10 wheeler and eventually moved up to a fleet of 18 wheelers. 

When they retired they bought a camper trailer and now travel around North America like my grandparents did before them.

Quotes: Albert Einstein

Einstein quote illustrated by Karen Thiessen, 2012 on Diamond overlay pattern

Week 45: Adobe Illustrator

Diamond Totems © Karen Thiessen, 2012

Despite my cold I managed to practice Illustrator this week. Unless I take a week off for Christmas I'll practice AI 48 weeks in 2012. When I started this project in January, I assumed that I'd know all of the basics by now, but I don't. This year-long project will stretch into 2013 and I hope by December 2013 I'll have mastered the basics and more. Pattern continues to be my passion and text has captured my attention. It's fun pulling them together for my Monday quotes posts.

TOAE 2012: Amanda McCavour

Amanda McCavour Floating Garden; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

In 2011 I wrote about Amanda's installation Scribble at the 2011 TOAE. The mass of cheerful orange textile spirographs moved in the warm breeze. Scribble grabbed your attention from long distances and invited you to check it out. This year Amanda McCavour installed a Floating Garden at the 2012 TOAE. The work itself was strong but suffered from a less-than-ideal setting, as you can see from my photos. The hanging devices and weights got in the way of seeing the work properly. For a better installation photo go to her website. Can you see this series floating over wall-to-wall astroturf?

Amanda McCavour Floating Garden; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

Yesterday I received my Fall 2012 Surface Design Journal and was pleased to see an article highlighting McCavour's work. This fall she moved to Philadelphia to pursue an MFA in Fibers and Material Studies at Tyler School of Art. I am curious to see how her work will evolve.

Amanda McCavour installation Scribble at the TOAE 2011; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen

Here are two images of her 2011 installation. Wow! Right?

Amanda McCavour installation Scribble at the TOAE 2011; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen

Studio Series: tags study

tags study; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

Beginning in October, I set about to pierce, punch, score, fold, cut, bend, curl, freeze, bake, soak, ink, and wreck a whack of #6 tags in order to loosen up. My ploy worked and now I have food for thought.

Sick

Soup for a sick gal; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2011

It's been 19 months since my last cold. That much luck is bound to run out and it finally did. Since last week I've been nourishing myself with gallons of soup, tea, and green smoothies. Between naps I manage to get some studio work done and that makes me especially happy (being sick is boring). Since I am too tired to work my usual long days, I have an excuse to indulge in some fiction. Over several evenings I read Maggie O'Farrell's The Hand That First Held Mine, a story about artists and writers in 1950s and present-day London, that has stayed with me days after I finished reading it.

Quotes: Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel quote illustrated by Karen Thiessen; Rough stripes pattern © Karen Thiessen, 2012