Leni Wiener

Today I hung a solo show in my home town, and it occurs to me that some of you might be interested in some easy rules to remember when hanging a show.  It isn’t rocket science!

First of all, no matter what hanging system the venue has, it won’t work without a problem.  This is a promise.  Especially since most gallery spaces are set up to hang pictures with wired backs, and rarely do these hanging systems fit into the eyehooks most of us put at the end of our rods.  So you always need to bring a supply kit with you, which should include:

1. scissors
2. tape
3. painters tape
4. fishing line
5. S hooks
6. picture wire and wire cutter
7. extra rods
8. quilting safety pins (they must be quilting pins, if the show will hang for a while, you don’t want rust spots!)

and you can be sure that whatever you bring, there will be something else you could have used.  Also, based on what happened today, I would also recommend a bottle of water and some granola bars.  This took several hours, no A/C in the room, and the water and sustenance would have helped.

But on to actually hanging the artwork.  I begin by organizing the pieces so that they relate in color, size and theme.  This is no different whether you are hanging a solo show, a group show, or one with lots and lots of 12″ x 12″ pieces.  Put together pieces that work well next to each other, and start laying them out on the floor in front of each wall.

This photo may not look like much, but here you can see the pieces laid out on the floor in the order I liked.  Had this been other people’s work, I would not have put them directly on the rug, but would have put down a clean drop cloth first.  For my own work, I was ok with the rug.  (I shouldn’t have been)

Once the pieces are laid out, then you need to space them on the wall.

In this photo you can see that the hanging system has an upper and lower strip from which to hang the work.  Frankly, if you ask me, even for framed art the lower one is much too low and the upper one too high, but they didn’t ask my opinion when they designed the space.  So I hung the pieces directly on the wire hangers (with quilt safety pins on the back of each piece) on the easy to reach lower level so that I could check the spacing, make sure I liked the way the show flowed from one piece to the next, and to get them off the floor as quickly as possible.

Now the fun starts.  In this situation, it was clear that every piece needed to be put onto fishing line from which they would hang on the upper level.

So step one was just to get them up and then adjust the hanging length.

The goal is to have all the pieces either start at the same level, or relate in respect to eye level.  So this is when the fine tuning occurs.

Finally, the pieces are properly spaced, hung at the right level, and flow from one to another.  The final task is to adjust the lighting to pin point the art, usually done by the venue.

In the end, it is usually the tweaking that takes the most time and energy.  Arranging the work should not be too difficult if you just trust your instincts and your eye.

I was so upset to hear today that a dear friend, and talented art quilter, Denise Bradley has passed.  I have known Denise for many years, since she first took one of my classes, and also helped test instructions on my first book.  I have always known that Denise had health problems, and that especially during the winter limited her outings.  But this information came as a real shock to me.

Although we did not see each other in person too often, Denise and I communicated regularly by email.  I knew recently she was having another health problem but never knew how serious it was.  Denise was always upbeat and positive, a truely wonderful person.

My sincere sympathy to her family, her two sons of whom she was so proud, and her friends.  She will be missed.

Yesterday I had a much needed “vacation” even if it was only for one day.  We started in Hudson, NY, a charming town with a beautiful collection of amazing buildings that is one of the surprises of the Hudson Valley.  Many of the buildings are being restored, mostly, it seems, by NYC transplants or weekenders.  I took TONS of photos, but most of them I am not going to share with you, as they will become the base for my art going forward.  I have enough to work from for months!  But these I will share:

Warren Street runs for a mile through the town and to the river, and Hudson has lots of antique shops, art galleries, restaurants, and the waterfront, making it a wonderful place to walk around on a gorgeous summer day.

From Hudson it is only a short drive to Olana, the fabulous home of Hudson River School 19th Century landscape painter Frederic Church.  Unfortunately, the house is closed on weekends.  (Closed on weekends??!!  can you imagine?).  The outside is amazing, very Moroccan;

A return trip during the week when I can see the inside is a must.  I loved this bench on the grounds, definitely on my list of things I would love to make but will probably never have the time…

But the real star of the estate is the view.  I can’t imagine living in this spot and NOT being a landscape painter!  And I can only imagine it is even better from the upstairs rooms in the house;

Another short hop to Rhinebeck, a great little town that is no longer a secret since Chelsea Clinton got married there a few weeks ago.  Walked around some more, took more great pictures for potential artwork, and had dinner in a restaurant we have enjoyed on past visits to Rhinebeck (and where, we were told, Bill Clinton had lunch a few days before the wedding).

Great day.

For those of you who are struggling to “find your voice” I thought I would share with you my thought process in reexamining and evolving my own “voice.”  Even once you have found your true artistic voice, it is important to reevaluate, reexamine and grow as an artist.  To find one thing you do well and never change is boring, plus it makes your work stale and uninspired.

Finding, or changing your voice takes time and reflection.  It is not something that happens in an afternoon.  There are questions you must think about, and the answers need to rattle around in your brain for a while until a clear path emerges.

The first thing I do is make a list of the things I am happy with and those I want to change.  Here, for example is my list (in no particular order, as this is something I do for myself alone):

• I have built a reputation as an artist who depicts people, and since I am drawn to that, I do not want to change the theme of my work and start working on nature, landscapes, etc.
• having made that decision a while ago, however, I have been working on closeups of faces, which, after much reflection, is really not where I want to be.  People like in my work the nuance of body language that my figures have, not the detail of the faces.  I need to move away from faces and back to body language.  This is my strength.  Always go with your strength.
• My work is somewhat dark and moody, in both subject and color palette–something I am happy with and do not wish to change
• I do want to rethink the sizes of the pieces I make, feeling they need to be larger for more impact.
• I have felt for a long time that the work I do lacks refinement, something I want to work on
• The edge finish is also something I want to change, as I am not happy with the way I currently finish the edges of my work–it also feels unrefined.  I have some new ideas that are a bit “out of the box” and may further serve as a unique aspect of my work.
• This may seem trivial, but this was a major revelation for me–I need to rediscover why I work with fabric.  Right now the pieces I make could be done in paper, or even painted.  There is a reason I am drawn to fabric, to piecing (which I have let go of) and now need to embrace the material more.  Having recently reread something Henry Moore wrote about working with stone, I realize that I have not been letting the medium define the process.  So I need to go back to piecing, at least in part, and to use fabric in a way that only fabric can be used.
• Having thought a lot about it, I do know that I am not interested in hand-dying or painting fabric.  I did think a long time about dying (but I so want to avoid the contact with the chemicals and fumes) or painting (but I decided that if I wanted to paint I would be a painter.)  One of my favorite aspects of this kind of work is finding the right match in a commercially available fabric.  A trip to a fabric store gets my heart pumping, with so many gorgeous options out there, I am not interested in attempting to create my own fabric by any method.  It took me awhile, but I am firmly committed to working only with commercially available fabric.
• I am still not interested in any sort of surface embellishment.  That hasn’t changed.
• my work is too photo-realistic, and I want to let go of most of the detail, most of the “environment” in the background and move towards work that is more abstract, while still holding on to depicting figures.
• I have also spent a lot of time looking at other art–most specifically NOT art quilts, for a clearer direction that will make my art more ART and less ART QUILT.

I need to be true to myself, to my voice, while striving to make it better.  I hope that this glimpse into my thought process will help you to find your own direction based on the things you want to achieve in your work.
Please share your journey with me by leaving comments!

I often hear from artists when confronted with the comment that their body of work is inconsistent, that they are simply thinking outside the box.  Thinking outside the box and producing a consistent body of work are mutually exclusive.

“Thinking outside the box” means to discover a way of working that is different from what other artists are doing; it does not mean reinventing yourself with each new piece. It is not enough to try something new, the idea must be fine-tuned, nurtured and developed until it reaches its pinnacle. Thinking outside the box does not mean creating a haphazard and frenetic collection of unrelated pieces, your outside the box idea still needs to be developed into more than a single piece.

No one means to suggest that you should stop experimenting, challenging and pushing the envelope in your work; as an artist you should always be re-examining and evolving.  Thinking outside the box and producing work that does not conform to the standard treatments and techniques is fresh and exciting–but those pieces must work as a group with a thread of connection.

Take, for example, entering a juried show.  The jurors are looking for new and interesting interpretations of the materials and techniques; they WANT work that is “outside the box,” work that takes the medium to a new level.  But if you were to enter three entirely different styles to a show, you would not be illustrating to the jurors that you think outside the box, but rather that you are still struggling to find who you are as an artist.  Even a highly successful piece submitted this way may look to the jurors like a happy accident, something you could not achieve again.  This is certainly not the message you want to sent when you submit work for a show.  It often means that even that highly successful piece will be rejected.

Learning to edit your work is as important as finding your voice.  Even if you are experimenting with different styles and techniques, you must be able to pull together a portfolio of pieces that tell the same story, explore a theme, or are connected by color and/or technique. Showing unrelated pieces only says that you are still struggling to find your artistic point of view.

By all means, do think outside the box.  Use the materials other art quilters are using, but in a way that makes everyone sit up and take notice; add new materials and techniques that no one else is using.  But when you find this “outside the box” approach, really develop it into your own unique artistic voice.  And then, create a cohesive and consistent body of work.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are out there looking to scam us in order to steal our money or into giving up our personal information (in order to steal our money).  I had two just this morning.

First was the email from Caroline Moore.  When I opened my email this morning, the first one I saw was an email asking about the availability of two of my pieces.  Of course, we all want to think that someone found and fell in love with our art and wants to buy it.  But the suspicion here was the broken English (this is one of my pet peeves–if you are going to try and make it in the cutthroat business of email scams, it behooves you to learn to speak the language at least well enough to know what letters to capitalize and where the punctuation belongs.  Geez, at least have someone else check the wording for you before you send it out!!)  My suspicion was confirmed when I saw that the next several emails were all posts to the SAQA Yahoo group by other artist members of SAQA who had received the same email from the same person.  And in all cases, good old Caroline had inquired about the two pieces each of us had pictured on the SAQA site.  What a lazy scammer she is!

How does one handle these emails?  Probably the best way is to just delete it and ignore it.  Sometimes, the abundance of evidence does not make it so very clear from the beginning.  I have never sold a piece from an online inquiry, but I suppose there is always a first time.  So if in doubt, I politely answer that I only accept payment through paypal and do not ship outside the country (another clue that you are being scammed is the request that the sale be handled quickly because the buyer is leaving the country–which is usually followed by a request that the artist accept a larger than needed third party check and refund the balance to the buyer).  But I have found that sending the paypal email means I never hear from these scammers again.

The other scam happened while I was opening and reading all these emails.  (I guess this was just my day!)  It was a phone call from American Express asking me if I had made any large charges yesterday.  My suspicion was raised by two things; first the caller ID said private caller, and secondly, the woman told me the charges were made in Los Angeles and she sees that I live in New Rochelle.  That didn’t sit right with me, so I gave her my husband’s phone number and called him on his other line.  Sure enough, when she called him she said we really had to cancel the card right away, and when he asked her for more identifying information, she hung up.  A call to customer service at American Express confirmed she was a scammer.  I am sure she would have asked my husband to confirm the account being canceled and the security code, and then she would have been off and running with our card number in hand.

I truly believe that most people in the world are good and honest people who are just going about their lives in the best way they know how.  Unfortunately, there are those few who give the rest of humanity a bad name.  As with everything else in life, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.  A request to purchase your work could in fact be legitimate, but proceed with caution.  Better not to sell a piece than to be taken.  Don’t click on any links that look suspicious ( I get lots of spam saying it comes from customer service at, for example, paypal.  I never click the link.  Instead, I go to the paypal site and get to customer service that way to confirm or deny the problem).  And NEVER give out either on the phone or in an email, any identifying information like your social security number, credit card numbers, even your birth date.  Better to be cautious than sorry.

It is wonderful to think that someone finds our work online and wants to own it.  In some cases, this can be true.  But I find that in today’s world, it is better to keep your eyes opened and be suspicious of all inquiries until you can confirm their legitimacy.  Be careful out there!

Many art quilters are confused about what it means to present a consistent body of work.  This is often asked for when applying to galleries, professional organizations, or entering shows.

A consistent body of work is a group of pieces that hang together and are clearly by the same hand. There should be a consistently clear, distinct and unique voice, in a style that does not look like, or seem derived from another artist’s work. It is the style—that is the artistic approach—that must be consistent. Simply unifying otherwise unrelated styles of work by theme does not constitute a consistent voice. (This is the goal of an exhibition, when many artists show how their different styles address the same theme.) If you are showing a “wide range of styles”, in fact you are revealing that you have not yet settled on a style you can call your own.

The first step in creating a consistent body of work is to find your voice—that is, to establish your own working style. Only then can you produce a group of pieces that express your singular artistic position. Finding your voice is not a quick and easy exercise, it involves self examination and self discovery, along with experimentation and development of a clear, strong direction. Some things to think about:

• Ask yourself what you enjoy in the process and what you would like to let go.

• Develop an expertise in the techniques that inspire you and eliminate those that you feel are holding you back.
• Think about fabric choices—are you more comfortable with commercial fabrics? Patterns or solids? Hand dyeing your own fabric?
• Do you want to include surface design and/or embellishment?
• Are your colors consistent with your voice? This does not mean you must always work in the same colors, but whether your color selections are subdued pastels or strong saturated colors can change the look of your work, and the impact they have as a consistent body of work.
• What do you want your work to say; do you wish to make a political statement? Express the tranquility of nature? Examine the inner workings of human emotions? Do you want your work to appear serious or whimsical? Subdued or full of movement? What motivates you? What do you want people to take away after seeing your work?
• Consider working in a series, this will allow you to examine and explore different aspects of your subject and techniques in order to help you determine what you want to continue to develop.

Only after you have established a voice that embodies your unique artistic vision, can you begin to build a body of work. All the pieces should appear to be from the same hand, make the same statement, and utilize the same technique or combination of techniques that form the thread throughout the “body” of work. Presenting a cohesive and consistent body of work requires that you edit your existing pieces with the following criteria in mind:

• Are your techniques similar in all the pieces? Combining works created using different techniques rarely holds together simply because they all have the same subject matter.
• Keep in mind the age of the pieces. A great work from 5 years ago is likely to appear out of place with your current work as we all evolve over time.
• Are the materials/colors dramatically different amongst the pieces in the group? If you work mainly in primary colors but include one or two pieces in subdued, earth tones, this will not look cohesive. The same goes for working with mainly solid fabrics versus highly patterned ones.
• Do all the pieces make the same statement, set the same mood?

When all else fails, have someone else look at your body of work and see if anything stands out as different from the rest. Many artists find it helpful to have professional critique of their work to help them establish a direction.

The subject of time management came up again today in our art quilt group.

Ten Recommendations for Time Management

decide what your “prime time” is and schedule your most taxing chores for that time frame:

I am best in the morning, my best work time is between about 9 AM and 1 PM.  That is the time I plan to do tasks that require more mental energy.  Tasks that are less mentally taxing are saved for later in the day.

understand what hours you really can get work done:

I understand about myself that after 4 PM I don’t do as well as i do earlier in the day.  For this reason, I usually plan to do errands, make dinner or review something done earlier in the day rather than start something new later in the afternoon.  If I have bindings to hand sew, I do that in front of the TV after 4.  If I really need to get started on something and it is late in the day, I might spend some time laying out all the supplies I need so that I can get right to it in the morning when my energy is higher.

break up those things you don’t want to do with those you do:

If you have things to finish or tasks that are not your favorite, don’t pile them all up and try to do several days of unpleasant tasks.  Plan to work on these tasks for several hours, after which you can “reward yourself” with something you find more interesting.

understand how you respond to deadlines:

Some people are motivated by deadlines, others can’t function under stress.  It is important to understand which you are.  If deadlines get you moving, set them for yourself.  If they make you crazy, plan your projects well in advance of upcoming deadlines.

plan out your projects in steps:

It is always helpful to plan out your project in advance so that you can break it down into manageable pieces.  If time management is a problem for you, assign each of these pieces an approximate time frame and be honest with yourself about how much you can accomplish in a given period of time.  Think about big projects only one piece at a time–finishing a part of a project gives you a good stopping point and the same sense of satisfaction as completing the whole thing.

get organized:

Being organized is an important part of time management because it allows you to approach each project with an overview and without distractions.  I always start a new project with a clean studio–as much as I hate cleaning up and folding and putting away all that fabric, it allows me to focus, and focus means efficiency.

pay attention to your blood sugar:

I have a pretty good idea about when I need to eat and plan my schedule around it.  The approaching headache means if I don’t eat lunch soon i will be useless for the rest of the day.  Rather than push to work though, I stop, eat something, and get back to work before the headache and fatigue take over.

avoid distractions:

I can listen to music while I sew, but not while I am writing.  Trying to work with a TV on is the kiss of death for me.  Instead, I record what I want to watch and sit down to give it my full attention when I have finished working for the day.  I enjoy it more and it doesn’t distract my focus while working.  Know what distracts you and avoid it while you want to be productive.

reward yourself:

Late in the day when I finish working I sit down with a glass of wine.–my personal relaxation at the end of the workday.  Yours might be different–use it as the carrot you dangle when the work seems like too much.

be honest with  yourself:

I know when I can get things done and when I can’t.  I push myself when I need a kick in the pants, but don’t on those days that I know I just can’t get it together.  On those days I don’t indulge in guilt, I remind myself that I do what I do  because I WANT to, some tasks require a little push, sometimes it is ok to take a day off.

Currently, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC is exhibiting some of the photographic works of a relatively unknown photographer, Leon Levinstein.  Levinstein, born in 1910 in West Virginia, came to NYC and photographed people on the streets of NY, mostly through the 1950’s and 60’s.  His work represents everything I am drawn to in my own art.

A master of composition, his work beautifully represents the impact of the proper use of value.  In all art, value is key, but in black and white photography, it is the main event.  But it is his depiction of people, done in a way that pulls the viewer in closer to really examine the action, tells wonderful stories with a single image.

This photo of handball players on the lower east side captures so much movement.  The composition draws the eye past the foreground into the background and the smaller figure.  Photographers know that when photographing dancers, it is imperative to capture the height of the movement, the highest point of a dance move before the dancer begins to descend.  We can experience that height of movement in this photo, as well.  In fact, the figure in the foreground is at such a high peak of movement that his head moves out of the frame.

In “street scene, woman in dark short sleeved dress” we see again his uncanny ability to create so much depth and dimension in his images.  The shapes of the two bodies, the contrasts of values in the woman in the foreground, and the negative space between the figures all make this a dynamic piece.  But it is the thin white line that moves up at an angle and then diagonally across the frame to meet the white curb that adds so much beautiful movement and energy to this photo.

When it comes to story telling, this image of a man looking at a woman on the street does it masterfully.  This single image tells a story that is so identifiable, has so much nuance that it compels the viewer to be drawn in.  We can feel the twisting of his body, and the woman’s stance is a story in itself.

I absolutely adore this image of a woman on a park bench.  The weight of her body, the forward movement, and the way the textured path leads the eye to her are spectacular.  The contrast of the dark behind her, the crumbled white paper to her side, and that break in the line of the benches are so beautiful it is hard to believe the composition of the photo could have been random–and serves to remind us that “art” can come from the most ordinary places.

This photo of an elderly man in a stained white tee shirt is so filled with emotion.  The angle of the body, the contrast of black and white, the triangle created in the space of the ground, and the unexpected viewpoint, all make this a very powerful image.  Like the photo of the woman on the park bench, Levinstein has positioned himself so that there is a strong dark at one side of the central figure and a strong contrasting light area on the other.  Despite the fact that this man is sitting still, the diagonal line of his body and the light area of the floor create energy and immediacy.

Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players: Leon Levinstein’s New York Photographs, 1950-1980 will be at the Met in NYC until October 17.  If you can’t see it in person, see more of his powerful images at the Met’s website:

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={C9CE6916-DFEF-4B86-BDB0-EE290C523227}

(if the link does not work, copy and past it)

Inspiration can come from the strangest (and most unexpected) places.  Readers of this blog know that for the past few months I have been trying to figure out where to go with my art quilts, and not finding a direction that made me happy.  In addition, you will remember that I am working on a book for which I must make quite a few new quilts.

As the quilts progress for the book, I am happier with some than I am with others.  In fact, at 3 AM the other night I woke up thinking that two of them did not work at all.  For two hours I lied in bed trying to convince myself that they were fine, only to get up at 5 AM and start them over.  What a day that was.  But the ultimate decision was that I would rather do the work over again than to put something out there that wasn’t right.

So in re-evaluating the remaining quilts, I had some doubts about two of them, and decided to redesign them before I started to cut and sew.  But that old nemesis, creative block, reared it’s ugly head.  No time for blockages, I needed to clear my brain and find two new solutions.

The inspiration for these two final quilts for the book came from the strangest places.  Watching TV one night I saw two things that unexpectedly brought me the answers.  The first came from something in the background of the newsroom while watching ABC Nightly News (I only watch ABC, as my son is an associate producer on the show).  Something I had never noticed before (I watch the news every night) caught my eye and started a chain reaction in my head.  It became a quilt design that I think will work very well.

The second quilt design also came from an unexpected source, the same night watching TV.  It was a sitcom (embarrassed enough to tell you I watch them, I won’t embarrass myself further to tell you which one!) one of the characters was wearing a shirt that sparked another idea.  That is the second quilt design I needed.

Finally, and it will be a while before I can implement it, is the beginning of a direction for the art quilts in my future, once the book is done and I can go back to working just for myself.  “Make it art” has been ringing in my head, and something else I saw–some shadows on curtains–looked interesting to me when I saw them, and crystallized while driving in the car into a new direction I want to pursue.  Odd, so often while driving, things that I could not wrap my head around anywhere else become so clear to me.

I guess it is important to remember to always keep your eyes opened, and your brain clear of the stress and minutia of every day life, in order to absorb creative ideas that are all around.  Three creative solutions from three unexpected places, all came to me when I was not looking so hard for them.  Sitting and watching TV, relaxed and disengaged from anything else, the visual cues that surround us made it through.

So keep your eyes opened and your brain clear, so that you can take in all the amazing influences and inspirations from the most surprising and unexpected places!