Shutdown, days no. 1 through 4

 On Wednesday Germany shut down. Shops except for supermarkets and ‘relevant things’  are closed, contacts are supposed to be minimized, and there even is a curfew after 9 p.m. Because the shutdown was preannounced and there were two days left before it happened a lot of people still went shopping on Monday and Tuesday. Numbers of infections and dead are still rising... I am calling it shutdown now, because we are not entirely locked in. One can leave the house, move about, during the day and with a good reason, and going for a walk does count as a good reason. And it doesn't sound quite so rigid.

Weather here has been like this, 

 

although I have seen pictures from luckier friends in other parts of Germany who got some sunshine. I try to go outside for a walk at least once a day, but it does take a lot of courage to venture out in freezing point temperatures with this leaden lid pressing down. And I didn’t go today, just to the market, which was so full and the lines so long that I left again immediately without having bought anything.

I was off work and fiddled around at home. Trying to give the days a structure. My husband and son set up the Christmas tree, which is very unusual to do in Germany before the actual day of Christmas Eve, but we figured, why not. Especially since Kathy’s wonderful ornaments arrived pretty quickly after she had posted them, and we put them up at the very top of the tree as seat of honor.

 Thank you, Kathy, we love our growing collection of ornaments!

I enjoyed yesterday’s SAQA live chat which was scheduled at a more accessible time for European members. It’s fun to talk to some people from somewhere else, even if we don’t really know each other, the interaction is slightly awkward because of time lapse and because we don’t know each other. It’s a change in the daily routine.

And I received the rejection mails for both my entries to QuiltCon Together yesterday. Had expected they would be accepted? hoped, yes. Was I hurt? Very little. But it helped to see some big names from the modern sphere to admit and post that they were rejected, too. It’s good to feel that one is not alone.

Bucket list?

About 10 days ago I participated in the SAQA ‘live chat’. The current president Deborah Boschert talked about the importance of having a ‘bucket list’ and that entering Quilt National is on hers this year, and then she sent us into the chat groups to talk about whatever it was that would come up.

In the first group we talked about bucket lists. What people had on theirs in terms of quilting. And I started wondering whether I still have a bucket list in terms of quilting. My general bucket list includes sailing around the world visiting a lot of the many islands we have on the planet.  Never knew whether a bucket list proper is supposed to carry items that are relatively easy and practicable to be made happen. Sailing around the world visiting many islands doesn’t seem to fall into that category, at least not without a huge inheritance coming along my way, which is not very likely to happen either. Oh well.

Living by the sea or at least on some body of water would be another point. Which again doesn’t seem very likely or possible right now, not only but also of the financial situation. So I am scaling down to spending vacation on the seaside, better than nothing. Right now, for a week, and it had been planned before the virus hit.

very windy today, although the water temperature would be feasible for swimming...

There are a number of other items I could mention that would make it onto a bucket list if I really had one, but as they all depend on the financial situation changing dramatically I think I would rather not talk about them in any kind of detail. Perhaps a bucket list should really have on the first position "be content with what you have"?

In the second chat group we did indeed talk about entering Quilt National, does one have to enter three to show that one has a consistent  body of work, did it hurt as much to be rejected from QN as from other shows, quilts that didn’t get into QN but were immediately accepted somewhere else. I have never seriously considered entering QN. Mostly because I don’t take it lightly when I get rejected, and then also because I have seen and heard so many people about how they fret about producing something for the deadline, slaving away – and then the buzz about being in or out. It didn’t sound healthy. But as the live chat finished, I began thinking about the quilt that is currently on my design wall and making (slow) progress. If the progress could be sped up and the quilting finished quickly… it might be an option. But I am not going to stress myself about it. Except for the fact that I must make sure not to post about it here right now...

Day before I went on my one week vacation I took my machine for a check up, and my work table looked really empty. 

I hope it will be finished just when I get back, and then we will see.

Rejected, accepted, labelled, featured – a day of notifications!

Yesterday was a day of notifications. The first one I read – as it had somehow ended up in the spam-folder – was the one informing me of the fact that my quilt “Reflections on War and Peace” had been rejected in the Alsace competition. That’s quite ok, as it really was the one I had made for last year, when I missed the deadline, and I had only entered it as a second entry. Actually, I had changed the title to make it a bit more fitting into this year’s challenge topic, but now I will enter it in other contests with its original title. 

Then - because I know that Ste. Marie-aux-Mines always only accepts one quilt from each entrant - I checked my other e-mails, and the general mail folder held the message informing me that my quilt “Reflections on ‘reflection’” had been accepted.And I was indeed glad about that. There had been a few difficulties with the online entry, I had received a funny notice about my credit card credentials and wasn’t quite sure whether everything had worked out alright. And I did not want to miss out on participation a second year in a row, after last year's mishap... But obviously it had all worked out well, now I am going to send it to France – though not with German Mail, which is still on strike after several weeks, but another carrier – and then we’ll see how this one fares in the competition. I will be going to Alsace again this year, although it is during my son’s first week in secondary school. He’ll have to deal with this with only his father at home...

I also received the label for my entry at FoQ Birmingham and will send that one off this week as well.

And I received notice from SAQA that I am one of the featured artists this month. You can see the profile here:

http://www.saqa.com/memberArt.php?cat=6

So that was a good Saturday after all the turmoil on Friday afternoon!

On entering, again

After my slightly bumpy submission of entry to the FoQ this year I received the labels by e-mail a few  weeks ago and sent off my quilts early last week. I had completely forgotten how careful you have to be about attaching the right label to back of the quilt, to the outside of the package, and loosely inserting one in the package...

I sure do hope I got it all right!

At least this time I was allowed to pack two quilts in one package, this was not possible last time I sent quilts to FoQ. Still, postage was € 17. Well, that’s a lot cheaper than myself going to the Festival, as much as I would have liked to go. But after my extended visit last year it just wasn’t possible to do it again this year. At least two of my quilts will be present on the premises.

I even dared check the little box which said “send juror’s remarks”. Now I wonder whether I should have done that. Last time I received a comment ‘Beginner’s design’ on one of my Play of Lines quilts, which really hurt me a lot. But perhaps I will just not look at the comments when the quilts return.

Also entered Play of Lines XXXII at Quilt Nihon. Only one quilt. Very briefly I had considered entering two, because a Japanese friend had told me that Play of Lines XXX was so Japanese in its choice of color. So I thought it might be a possible second entry. 

Play of Lines XXX (2012)

But upon rereading the rules of entry I withheld, because Play of Lines XXX had been on display in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines last year, an exhibition that could not exactly be called a ‘private exhibition’. Which would have been a reason for withdrawal of prize if found out later. We'll see how Play of Lines XXXII does all by itself in Japan, and Play of Lines XXXI in Birmingham.

Play of Lines XXXI, back

Somehow I get the impression that Play of Lines quilts aren't doing too well in getting into juried exhibitions. Because I had managed to enter my quilt Play of Lines XXXIII: Red Line to the challenge in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines WAY ahead of time, at least 30 hours before the end of deadline. But I have already received the rejection for that one. As I had somehow known would happen. Last year’s juror’s don’t get a guaranteed spot the year after!

Now I have to figure out for myself whether I want to submit this piece to other upcoming possible shows. Or just show it in my upcoming exhibition in Grünstadt, Germany. I think it is a strong quilt. But obviously this year’s jurors did not think likewise. And perhaps its strength does not fit into a competition/challenge.

I had just recently (re)read Terry Jarrard-Dimond’s re-published blog-entry/article on thoughts on juried exhibitions . In this she talks about her process of choosing shows to which she submits, and comes up with a very interesting list. The fact remains, though, that all these wise and important reasons for choosing to submit don’t protect you from that feeling of frustration upon receiving a rejection... And then you have to pick yourself up and put yourself together again.

So what have I been doing?

As the week is drawing to a close I sit and wonder whether I have really done something. Of course I have, I don’t tend to sit around doing nothing. But it was a week with little studio time, and after those I always feel as if I have been an underachiever.

During a seminar I once learned that as an artist you need to calculate that up to 50% of your working time will and should be time not actually spent on making art, but on marketing, organizing, networking, book-keeping and what-have-you-not. Many things that many people don’t really like doing.

I don’t really want to bore anybody by posting a list of those things from that spectrum of the job of being an artist, that I did do last week. But I do wonder why doing those things – e.g. getting application forms together for an organization – give me so much less satisfaction than being in the studio and actually working with fabric.

I did get that application in on time, and I also entered a quilt with SAQA’s ‘text messages’. I had, however, messed up about the measurements regarding Euro Blues, which has been rejected by Yeiser’s Fantastic Fibers. It’s too long for the text messages, so it will have to wait for other chances this year.

I don’t know what it is about this quilt. It was not successul last year when it ran as ‘Building the House that’s Europe’. I reworked it considerably earlier this year, and somehow my heart is in it.

Euro Blues, detail

But it just doesn’t seem to click with jurors. If it hasn’t made the cut by the end of the year I will throw it out.

In any case – I did finish and ironed and rolled approximately 26 pieces of snow-dyed fabrics, which went up on the website today, too. 

(After several days of rather unrelyable internet, which makes one rather jittery, feeling out of touch with the rest of the world...)

And we were lucky today: after last week’s official statement by the weather observation people that this had been the most grey and cloudy winter since weather observation began in Germany –  i.e. in over sixty years! – we had a full day of sunshine. Felt like being reborn. Perhaps that holds true for studio work next week, too.

Back in focus

I sold a quilt two days ago, the personal delivery of which was the reason for that drive-by-shot at finding the statue by Marg Moll which I wrote about here. I was jubilant and very happy, and treated myself to that art search and a little stop at Lake Wörthsee south of Munich, with a gorgeously sunny day glittering on the ice that still covered the lake.

Lake Wörthsee, south of Munich, still covered by ice

This is the quilt I sold, it is also featured on the ‚November’ page of my eternal calendar:

Play of Lines XIV (2009)

The next day, I received a rejection of the second quilt I had entered for the German Patchwork Guild’s travelling exhibition „Tradition bis Moderne“, which I had written about in my German blog. 

The jury had only invited one of my two entries to be sent in for closer inspection by the jury to begin with, but I had thought this one might have a good chance. The judges’ commentaries regarding the criteria according to which the quilts were judged to me clearly prove that my points of criticism mentioned earlier apply indeed. The quilt was entered in the category ‚innovative’ and it seems this category was judged according to exactly the same criteria that applied to categories ‚traditional’ or ‚contemporary’. So why set up a division into those three categories at all, if these categories are not judged under a different set of criteria each?

The initial disappointment has already disappeared, and I may consider entering the quilt for another call of entry, which is why I don’t want to publish a picture here at this point of time.

However, it shows that success and disappointment can be so close together that they almost overlap. Would it have made a difference if they had appeared in reverse order, first the disappointment and then the success? I don’t know.

In any case, it has resulted in a radical boost of focus.

During the first weeks of the year I have done a little bit of sewing only, spending quite a bit of time launching (and completely outselling!) the first collection of the first year of my fabric club, and starting preparations for a textile market that I will be attending in early April, hoping to acquire a few more subscribers to the fabric club. Here is a picture of the color selection of my first collection:

January 2011 collection of fabric club

And here is a picture of the stack of colours which I have dyed so far in preparation for the market (more in the making in the next couple of weeks):

Colour circle with dilutions (appr. one third of total),
prepared for textile market in April

I was focussed indeed - on the business of the fabric-club. 

This immediate succession of success and disappointment regarding my quilting, however, has resulted in an sudden release of ideas that have been brooding and that will give me plenty to do working on the sewing machine in the next couple of months. I have drawn up two ideas for entering at Ste Marie, and I am thinking about submitting quilts for the Festival of Quilts at Birmingham, which I had already written off, and there are several other ideas pretty far developed which only need to be realized.

The interesting thing is that I had started to write a post on ‚focussing’ around the third week of January, as I had read several posts by other bloggers touching on exactly that same topic. These include Deidre Adams on Dec 18, Teri Jarrard-Dimond on January 15, and focussing is also a topic which appears repeatedly with Lisa Call. That post did not get finished, and I am not going to try and update it right now. But I do want to include my personal reply to Deidre, which had initiated my attempt at writing on ‚focussing’:

In a recent post in December Deidre Adams mentioned a state of mind (or should we call it ‚modus of mind working’?) when she is not working under the pressure of some deadline. I am quoting her a little longer than that single sentence I refer to here, which I have marked in bold:

Even with a rather full plate of graphic design work in the 

past couple of weeks, I’ve been very focused on getting some 

paintings done. I’ve settled into a routine: Wake up, go 

into the studio and contemplate what I did the day before, 

then put on some more layers. Then, while those are drying, 

go downstairs, get my coffee & cereal, and do design work 

for a few hours. Then maybe exercise on those days I’m not

 successful in talking myself out of it, and then after lunch, 

reward myself with studio time. The paradox for me is that 

the busier I am, the more I’m able to concentrate in the 

studio. If I have nothing much else going on, I tend to 

procrastinate and waste time on the computer instead of 

staying focussed.

Staying focussed on your work in general, i.e. not taking too many detours trying to avoid having to face yourself and your work in the studio is certainly an important issue in any artist’s life. But is it really necessary to put so much pressure on oneself all the time? And: times without immediate pressure may actually turn out to be gestation periods for new ideas. For me, it seems right now that the past few weeks, during which I have not been trying to force myself into constant production at the sewing machine, but was occupied with other things, have given my mind enough time to slowly cook up a number of things of which I wasn’t even really aware that they were ‚simmering’. It may be useful not only to step back from one’s work and take a look from a little distance, but to even turn your back and walk away from it for just a little while.