Quotes: Rainer Maria Rilke

"What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours – that is what you must be able to attain." – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Week 16: Adobe Illustrator

Crossed ©Karen Thiessen 2012

The "expand" button on the pathfinder is my new current delight. Hey, small things bring me joy! Still mulling over my wonky family Easter, crosses infiltrated my design thinking this week. The pattern was fun to make since the "expand" button simplified each cross, allowing for clean outlines. Curiosity has done my Adobe Illustrator self-education a great service, but it means that progress through the book is glacial because once I learn a cool new technique, I may spend the next week exploring all its permutations and combinations. The learning is slow but fun!

Peter Dykhuis: Radar paintings

Peter Dykhuis, Mar 06 21:55Z, encaustic, enamel paint on panel, 48" X 48"

Peter Dykhuis and I were both represented by the now defunct YHZ Gallery in Halifax. At the time, Peter was the director of NSCAD's Anna Leonowens Art Gallery and I had just graduated from NSCAD. At one of the YHZ openings, I learned more about Peter's paintings. First off, Peter is Dutch and way back, so am I. In my experience, Dutch people are frugal and inventive – a good combination for artists. Living in Halifax, the edge of mainland Canada, I found myself shipping my quilts in sonotubes to far-flung destinations and was aware of the expense. Peter created award-winning Radar paintings and when he told me that he could ship a large work in a cereal box, and a show in a Rubbermaid tote, I was all ears. Peter painted his modular work on foamcore, which is very light. Light, modular work that can fit into a cereal box when dismantled is much cheaper to ship than a sonotube.

Peter's ability to make large work that could be dismantled stuck with me. Inspired by the possibilities, this led me to make my own modular work. I'm still working out the details of presenting my tags, but I love a challenge and if I stick with it, I am confident that my Eureka! moment will come.

Studio Series: Tangents quilt

Tangents quilt ©Karen Thiessen 2012

Tangents quilt detail ©Karen Thiessen 2012

And now for something completely different from my usual textile work. Does this quilt look slightly familiar? It should – the header of this blog is a repeat pattern of it. A few years ago I had just finished a huge studio commitment and felt a little lost and restless. This is normal for me: I experienced this when I graduated from Sheridan, from NSCAD, and when I finished my Harbourfront residency. After my Sheridan and NSCAD graduations, I made quilt squares to pass the time while my brain figured things out. More than 300 squares later I knew what I needed to do, so I put them away. After Harbourfront, I decided to piece the squares into quilt tops thinking that I might get 5 large quilts out of the deal. Nope. I ended up with 15 bed-sized quilts and another 7 wall quilts. Given my tendency to stitch densely, I decided to hire local machine quilter Jacqueline Harris to machine quilt the quilts for me with patterns that I designed: loop-de-loop, wandering grid, wonky grid, and a plain grid. Jacqueline was great to work with – every few weeks she dropped off a batch of quilts and picked up a pile of quilt tops and backs. I decided to trim and bind them all myself, plus I added a few areas of hand-stitching.


In case you are wondering, Tangents is 52.5” wide X 69.5” long (133.5 cm X 176.5 cm).

Postcards: Cypress Gardens

Grandma was known as "boss" and Grandpa always got the last word by saying "yes boss." Had Grandma been born in another time, she could easily have been the President of a multinational corporation, or, at the minimum, the Prime Minister of Canada. Yes, really. In their retirement years, Grandpa and Grandma wintered in Florida and had season passes to Cypress Gardens where they took their visiting children, grandchildren, and friends. For Grandma, the Gardens were a perfect combination of botanical gardens (she loved flowers) and attractions that would entertain adults and children alike. Grandma had the timing all worked out: if you left the parrot show four minutes early, you could make it to the water show on time. If you didn't set some healthy boundaries, she would plan your entire vacation for you, down to 15 minute intervals. In October 2011 Cypress Gardens reopened as LEGOLAND. Had she lived to see this, Grandma, a future-oriented person, would have taken her great-grandchildren and their parents to it, after all, the Lego Southern belles were still surrounded by real flowers.

Quotes: Max Lucado

"Go to the effort. Invest the time. Write the letter. Make the apology. Take the trip. Purchase the gift. Do it. The seized opportunity renders joy. The neglected brings regret." – Max Lucado

Week 15: Adobe Illustrator

Hexagons and Dots © Karen Thiessen 2012

In January I shared what I thought was the replication of the design from this Japanese bowl. It took countless approaches (and failures) to create the bottom design and I was certain of my success until I looked at the design a few weeks later and realized that the spaces were uneven. Now that I've had an extra twelve weeks of Adobe Illustrator self-education under my belt, I decided to give it another go and take yet another approach. This time I know for certain that I am successful. Persistence pays off! Don't you agree that the top image is much better than the bottom image?

Japanese bowl; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2010