Leni Wiener

In my continuing quest to move forward, I have completed the first stage of a second piece.  The new direction I want to explore is faces with little or no background; and the pieces are smaller–they will be about 10″ square when quilted and squared off–in an attempt to get big impact in a little piece.  Many art quilters strive to work larger, but I am finding my comfort zone is getting smaller and easier to handle.  One of the reasons for this is that I want to focus more on the quilting and I can do more elaborate and intricate stitching on a smaller piece.

Here you can see the face and her arms complete.  I tried several colors for her hair, feeling that her skin tone is far from representational and the hair need not be so literal, but only this color looked right.  This is the stage where little details mean a lot.  I did not like the edge of her face, so made that darker; and needed to find the right fabrics for both her clothing (which will show just a bit on the edge) and the blanket on which she is leaning.

The blue in the corner is unexpected, but I think it brings some life to the otherwise somber palette.  I plan to do a few of these and then do the quilting at the same time.  For me, it is easier to focus on one change at a time, and since these are small, they will have not wait for too long.

Critiques:

On another note, often readers of my blog and/or book “Photo-inspired Art Quilts” email me to ask my opinion about something they are working on or have just completed.  This is what I do in my monthly art quilt workshop–help guide my students along when they have problems or questions.  Even when the work being reviewed belongs to someone else, it helps everyone learn to see the problems and the possible solutions.

For this reason, I am offering my blog readers the opportunity to submit photos of pieces they are working on, or have completed, for a review on this blog.  You must be willing to let me share it here so that others can learn from it.  You can send me a Jpeg at Leni@leniwiener.com and I will post your photo and my comments.

Getting down to the knitty-gritty, I have made the small changes I identified yesterday and darkened the eyebrows, cleaned up the chin and added some dark to the lower corner of her face.

This is looking better, now I want to audition more backgrounds.  I liked the way the white looked in terms of value, but did not want to repeat it.  Although the back side of the golden fabric was ok, I didn’t want to settle for ok, so I decided to look at some light gray fabrics.

This is a fabric I love that looks like newspaper.  I like the idea of this, as it gives the viewer something to think about, and it works, so it is a strong contenter.

As soon as I looked at this fabric, I knew it was the one.  I love the graphic quality, the way it relates to the other fabrics in the face, the value (which is white but not so white), and the vertical lines which serve to draw the eye up and down–in the same way the magenta does.  This is the one.  Just like love, you may not know what you are looking for, but you know it when you see it!

Obviously, there is still the functional sewing and the quilting/finishing.  But I wanted to talk here about naming your work.  The title you give your artwork tells the viewer what you want them to focus on when looking at the piece.  But if you give them all the answers, there is nothing left for them to interpret, which means they look at it, nod, and walk on.  I like to encourage them to stand in front of the piece and decide for themselves what they are seeing.  For that reason, I choose a title that is a bit ambiguous–and intriguing.  Nothing makes me happier than to see people in front of my work discussing what is happening or what it is about.  That means they are engaged, drawn into the artwork, and that it has touched them on a deeper level than “oh, that’s nice.”

I could call this piece something like “sadness” which is what I see in her face.  But facial expressions are more complex than that, and I want the viewer to see in it their own life experience, so I don’t want a title that defines it for them.  I thought about “blue lady” (a double entendre since she is blue) but that also means sadness, so the result is the same.  Since I thought that shape that flows from the eye to the lips was the most intriguing shape in the face (and the reason I set it out in another color) I thought about calling the piece “magenta” but decided that means nothing, so rejected that one as well.  Then I thought about “Jagged” which is how that shape looks to me.  Jagged can also suggest raw emotion, allowing the viewers to decide for themselves what the jagged emotion is, so I like that.  Looking up jagged on Thesaurus.com, I found some other words that might work, one of which is “broken”.  I like the idea of broken, it can suggest a broken heart, something else in her life that seems “broken” and is ambiguous enough that it leaves lots of options for the viewer.  So at least for now, that is the tentative title.

On another note, I am thrilled that Quilting Arts Magazine has included my article “Figures in Fabric” in their Feb/March 2010 issue.  Please check it out!

This is where we were yesterday, when I left it to come back and look at it fresh to see what jumped out at me as being wrong:

On looking at it fresh two things jumped out as being problems that needed to be addressed:

1.  although I like the color and the pattern of the hair, it is not dark enough in value.  It really needs to be a deep dark halo around the face.  I can do this just around the face and still leave some of the textural fabric there;

2.  if the hair around the face is darkened, the eyes must be as well.  The hair cannot be darker than the eyes or the eyes will lose their drama.  Also, in looking at the eye on the light side of the face, it needs to be better defined.

The changes from here on are subtle, but I think they make a difference.  It is important to look at the little details once the big pieces are set.  Here you can see the darkened hair at the top of her head, the darkened and better defined eyes.  In looking at it now on the screen, I can see that the defined eye on the light side needs to be just a bit rounder at the bottom, which I will do before everything is set in stone.

Right now there is no background, and I like the lightness on that side, but think it looks too balanced with the white side of the face.  The whole composition here is asymetrical, so balancing the white doesn’t cut it.

Here is that golden fabric as the background.  I love the painterly quality of this fabric, and the color lightens this side of the face, but I want to look at other options before I make a decision.

Here the same fabric is used so that the back is what shows.  I still have that painterly quality, but with a lighter value.  This may be better, but I have more to look at.

This goes in a different direction, the lighter magenta fabric will make the magenta in the face more prominent, and may help to make the background receed…

Here I have tried a bright blue silk, in the hopes that it will play nicely with the blues and still provide some contrast between the foreground and the background.  I think I can eliminate this one from consideration right away, as the blue becomes much too vibrant and therefore much too important.

It is always helpful to take digital pictures of your options and look at them on the computer screen.  Here are four, let’s discuss them one at a time:

1.  The golden background.  As much as I love this fabric, here it doesn’t do anything for me.  It just looks like an inconsistent and irrelevant choice which adds nothing.

2.  The golden fabric used on the wrong side.  I like this one, it is light (which I liked when there was no background) but not as light as the white side of the face, leaving some dimension and contrast.  It also retains the nice painterly quality, although not quite as much as the right side.  This is a contender.

3.  The magenta fabric.  This was a nice idea, and I like this as a background fabric, but now the magenta in the face becomes so prominent that it looks like a scar or a tatoo and is distracting.  So this one is also out.

4.  The blue silk.  I like the fact that it has a shine, but the color is all wrong.  It doesn’t play nicely with the other blues in the face and makes the magenta in the face look disturbing.

For now, I think I like the lighter golden background, but am not sure.  But here is when every little detail counts, so I need to make the following adjustments:

1.  round that eye on the bottom so it is a more graceful shape

2.  bring some of the very dark around the bottom of the chin to break up so much of that cross-hatch fabric.

3.  make the line of the chin more graceful

4.  fill in that funny little white valley that extends below the eye on the lighter side of the face.

5.  see what happens if I make the eyebrows darker, the same value as the eyes themselves.

tomorrow…..

Lying in bed at 2 AM (I get my most creative solutions in the middle of the night when my mind is clear of all the other stuff during the day) I decided not to try the swirly fabric positioned horizontally, but to go in a different direction.  The speckled fabric on the side of the face, which I think is very interesting, takes too much attention away from that gorgeous shape that I wanted to be center stage in the piece.  This is the graceful curving line that goes from behind the eye down the face and into the lips.  Doing it again in that fabric, however it is oriented, would not be as important as the speckled fabric around it, and therefore would be the wrong choice.  Solution?  Something the same value (because the value worked perfectly) but in that red violet I had rejected.  By using ONLY ONE of the red violet fabrics, it would take center stage and draw attention to the shape that I thought was the most important in the face.

Here is where I was yesterday.  I like where it is going, but that fabric behind the eye and down the face isn’t standing out as much as I would like.  The value, however, works just fine–darker than the face but lighter than the eye.  So it has to remain the same.

Of the red violet fabrics I tried in the beginning, this was the one that was the same value, so this is the one I tried first.  It is very strong and stops in the middle of the face, so it must be extended into the lips.

Now that strong colored line runs down farther into the face, ending almost at the bottom–so the shadow under the chin is next….

I am liking where this is going.  The strong color creates a line that runs from one side at the top in a curving interesting shape down to the bottom of the composition.  This takes away the attention from the speckled fabric of the face, and makes the whole face appear more graphic and less representational.

Adding the hair will help define the shape of the face and will help me decide if that highlight on the side of her face needs to be changed.  In the original photo, the value of the hair is the same as the value of the eyes, but I did not want to use the same fabric.  I did not want the two areas to blend together as if they were the same thing in different parts of the face.  This fabric, with the cross-hatch design on it is the same value, is also a blue with a purple under-color, and the perceived texture of the surface is reminiscent of hair.

As soon as the hair and the shadow under her ear and around her chin goes it, the face begins to take shape–literally.  The dark value next to the white on the highlighted side of the face defines the shape of her face.

Here I have added just a touch of a golden yellow at the side of her face in hopes of lightening that side and providing color compliment to the purple/blues.  I am not sure it works.  When I get to this stage, I often find that it helps to walk away for a while and then come back.  There is a saying about getting dressed up that you should look in the mirror and take off the first thing you notice.  The same is true here.  Walking away for a while and looking at it fresh, I need to take it all in with one glance.  If something is wrong, it will jump right out at me.   That is how I will know it needs to be changed.

After evaluating the changes that needed to be made on the current piece, I went back to my stash to pull the fabrics I was going to try.

Here you can see the seven fabrics I have chosen–white is number one and the dark blue with the dots is number seven.  There is a more gradual change from each value to the next, with no real big leaps between any two.  The first three fabrics have remained the same from my failed attempt; number four is the back of a tie dye blue that was very dark, but just the right value on the back.  Number five is a wild card, I love the fabric (the purple with the lighter blue specks in it) but cannot be sure if it is too “out there” yet.  The number six fabric, the one with the swirls on it is perfect for that section around the right eye where I wanted a zinger with a lot of fluid movement.  The final one is a dark that still has some interest.

So here she is reworked.  This is coming along much better than before.  It still needs tweaking, but I feel that I am more on the right track.  What has changed:

The colors are on a single path from light to dark.  Even though there is some movement between blues and blue purples, there is no more of that red violet that was throwing everything else off.  I still love those fabrics together, so I will use them in another piece.  It is always important to remember that you can’t get every idea into every single piece.

The values are more contiguous.  Here the fabrics flow more gradually from light into dark, with no big leaps from one to the next, and allowing the lighter side to be less contrasty (but still enough) from the darker side.

The eyes show now.  In the last incarnation, the eyes were lost, but now they are much more important to the overall composition, adding the drama that the first attempt lacked.

Finally, that speckly fabric that I wasn’t sure was going to work–I think that maybe it does work.  It has a lot of movement, and it becomes even more of a zinger than the number six fabric (which was intended to be the zinger) but I think it makes the whole piece kind of interesting.  Not a “texture” that one would normally associate with skin (it looks like really bad acne) but I think it makes this much more of an artistic interpretation than a realistic portrait.  So, at least for now, it stays.   But nothing is set in stone until everything is in place and I can evaluate it all.  Then I can confidently glue the pieces in place and move forward.

Where do I go from here?  First of all, that swirly fabric (#6) around the eye and down the side of the nose to the lips doesn’t look right to me.  I had thought that using those swirly lines in a vertical position would draw the eye up and down the composition.  But now that I am looking at it, I think I will try re-cutting that piece so that the lines run horizontally and then compare it both ways.  This is when it is great to have a digital camera, so that I can make the change and then look at them side by side to see which I like best.  Even when you look at this image on the screen now, step back from the computer or squint your eyes and the image appears as it would across the room in a gallery space.  If you don’t have a digital camera (get one, they aren’t expensive anymore) you can use the back end (the reducing side) of binoculars to get an idea of what the piece looks like if you step way back.

Then I want to relook at the right side of the face, where the highlights are not quite working for me yet.  The same for the bottom under the chin.  Both of these may just be waiting for the hairline and the shape of the chin to be determined, so all of that will be evaluated at the same time.  Baby steps, but I am glad I did not just abandon it and start something else.  Slow and steady wins the race, remember?

I have always believed that it is easier to learn from seeing what goes wrong than seeing what goes right.  Sometimes it is difficult to see a finished piece and hear discussion about why this color, why this fabric.  It is more instructive to see a piece that isn’t working and discuss why.  For that reason I am airing my “dirty laundry” so to speak, and showing you my disaster du jour.  Hopefully, if and when it is fixed, you will understand what I changed and why.  So here goes, it is like standing before you in my underwear!

Here it is.  I was so excited to get started on this piece, it looked so awesome in my head.  There is the seed of something decent in here, but it isn’t working.  So let’s discuss why.

1.  Color:

In my head this piece was blue tones on one side and purples on the other.  In reality the purple side goes in too many directions, some are red/violets and some are grape purples.  Too many different places to look, no real harmony.

2.  Value:

If you have ever read my blog before, or my book, you know that value is a biggie for me.  Makes all the difference in the world.   Where do the values here go wrong?  First, on the blue side, the dark area of the eye is much darker than the blues around it, making too large a leap in value.  This needs to be fixed.  On the purple side, the values are too close to each other, there isn’t enough of a leap.  Plus the purple side is so much darker than the other side that it looks unbalanced.

Here is the pattern from which I am working.  You can see that although one side is darker than the other, the difference is not as extreme as it looks in the fabric.  The eyes are the darkest part of the face, making them very dramatic.  In fabric, they almost blend in and disappear.

The solution:

1.  first, although I will keep some of the fabrics, I need to revisit the fabric selection to make sure that they blend from one into another, probably staying more blue into blue purple and losing the red/violets.

2.  secondly, I need to lay the fabrics out and look at them again through the red viewer to be sure that they not only move from light to dark,  but that they do it in a way that looks more even–that is to say that each incremental step is about the same change in value from the one before and the one after.  This will give the piece a more coherent and harmonious look.

Sometimes it helps to reprint the pattern or photo in black and white.  This prevents the brain from being too distracted by the colors and allows me to focus on the values from light to dark.

3.  finally, I want to make that piece that runs a ragged line from the eye to the lips a fabric that will stand out more, as this is the most interesting shape in the piece.  It will also (probably) be the inspiration for the stitching when I get to the quilting part.

So there you have it.  What went wrong and what I plan to do to fix it.  So many times artists get started down a path and when the emerging piece doesn’t look right, it is abandoned.  But when you do that you lose out on two scores–the piece is never realized and you never learn how to evaluate and analyze in order to make it right.  Learning to fix the pieces that go wrong is crucial in being able to move forward and evaluate your work with a critical eye.

For the past several months, I have not shared work in progress–and for good reason.  I have been working on a series of pieces for a show called “sightlines” and am not supposed to show it prior to the opening at the Houston festival this October.  But I have been told I can show pieces of it, and more importantly, I wanted to discuss what I learned from this experience.

Sightlines is an interesting concept, fourteen artists have been chosen to participate in a hard wall show that will flow from one artist’s work into the next.  Each artist will have about ten feet of wall space and each must start and end with two pieces–each 8″ square.  In the main section there can be up to four pieces any size and all pieces have only an inch of space between them.  The “sightline” is a visual cue that begins and ends at the center of the 8″ pieces and meanders through the central section–thus allowing the sightline to flow from the work of one artist directly into the next.  Cool idea.  Not hard to accomplish with something abstract, but since I don’t DO abstract, I took a different route.

I decided to examine couples in various stages of their relationships.   The couples, which vary in size, are placed on yellow rectangles which form the sightline, and everything is placed on a background of deep purples and blues.  A “poem” (I don’t know what to call it, it isn’t REALLY a poem) meanders through the central pieces.

Here you can see one of the pieces.  OK, so now you have the lay of the land.  What I really wanted to discuss in this blog post is working outside of one’s comfort zone.  Often, we don’t push ourselves to do something that isn’t safe and comfortable, so a challenge like this one is good for growth.  For me the three areas that were challenging were:

1.  to work large.  Originally, I thought I would do the center section in one large piece, but quickly decided that three semi-large pieces would be more managable.  These are not SO large, but for me they fell out of my safe zone.  Hard to quilt, hard to square off, hard to handle.  Don’t let anyone kid you, size matters!

2.  to work in a very specific size.  I didn’t realise what a challenge this would be until I got there.  When I work, I finish all the quilting and then trim where I think it should be cropped.  Something a bit off, no problem, square it off by shaving somewhere.  Not so with a very specific size.  All the pieces and their 1″ spaces had to be a very specific size.  For me, that was a huge challenge–they all had to be the same height and had to be a very particular width.  Without going into too many details, this eventually ended with me on the floor with painters tape, tape measure, tailors chalk and a certain amount of cursing.

3.  to keep the backgrounds abstract.  This is a direction I decided to explore with the pieces “Joy and Wisdom” and “Little Lotus” both of which were completed over the summer.  For each of these, I decided to focus attention on the face, leaving the background (which are usually recognizable environments) more like color washes.  This is the direction I wanted to take my work, so it seemed only natural that my sightlines pieces would be constructed this way.

I did not find this part to be as challenging as I had expected, and enjoyed the process of adding strips of color here and there, looking for a balance of light and dark, with hints of brighter colors to pull the eye around the surface of the work.  This is something I have decided to continue to experiment with, and to incorporate into upcoming work.  I have decided, however, to work even smaller than I have been.  I would like to work on making the faces larger but the overall pieces smaller.  More face, less background.  That is where I go from here.

Think about challenging yourself.  Perhaps it is a color you don’t usually work with (I am not a purple person, but have found that I love the way deep purple looks with the oranges and yellow that dominate my palette, so purple is becoming more prominent in my work).  It could be a size–smaller or larger, or attempting a new theme–landscapes, abstracts, architecture, whatever–start with something and push yourself through to the end.  It is a great learning (and growing) exercise.

If you don’t work outside your comfort zone, you will never evolve as an artist.

The last of the creative writing inspired by Stories in Stitches at the New Rochelle Library is also by Sharon Latimer-Mosley and was inspired by the quilt “Market Day, Hong Kong.”  If you are close enough to New Rochelle, the show will be at the library until January 28, please visit and let me know what you think.  I would love to see your quilts and/or the stories that go with them.  Please email them to me at Leni@leniwiener.com and if you are willing,  I will share them with other readers of this blog.  Of course, if you don’t want me to share, I won’t! (But I would still love to see them.)

Here is Sharon’s story:

My son has asked that I join them in the United States. My husband is too ill to travel. My temple is here. My home is here. I shop here.  All things I need are right here. Dr. says my feet swell from too much water. Too much salt.  I tell him, I am 82 years old, because of me, he is a doctor. They can swell.

It is a son’s duty to care for his parents. It is a grandparent’s duty to care for grandchildren. Tell them about their ancestors. Help them grow. Children of today have lost sight of this. My son and daughter in law moved to the United States 7 months ago. Business. They will live there for two years. My precious granddaughter was born in the United States. I have not yet held her. They send me pictures of her by computer. Pictures by computer.  My neighbor’s son is a good son. He cares for his parents. Shops for them. Keeps his children nearby.  He makes sure I get the pictures of my granddaughter. She is so beautiful…reminds me of my mother.

Today’s writing comes from Sharon Latimer-Mosley and was inspired by the quilt “Outstretched Hand.”

Ahhh..…Peter…hadn’t seen him in at least 12 years.  He needed a wife at a time when something rose up and shook me- I wanted a child.  We met at one of those Museum Garden parties. He was the Assistant Curator of some exhibit. I was a sustained member. We became fast friends, best friends.  At 35, I had spent most of my young adulthood searching East Africa for a new skin graft agent. When I finally got it to market, we discovered it removed wrinkles too…Cash Cow.  Peter and I agreed to separate lives upfront.  I would donate to the museum, insure his directorship, smile, shake hands, pretended to care and he would give me Dolly.

Lives were private then. If there were whispers, we never heard them, didn’t really care.

At some point it all changed.  The business needed me more. So, Peter assumed the role as, what do they call it these days? Oh, stay-at-home Dad before anybody knew what that was. He changed diapers, wiped chocolate éclair from Dolly’s chin. He even taught her a mean lay-up.  Yes Peter was a Great dad…. Great dad. At Dolly’s graduation, he pulled me aside, said he’d found the love of his life.
Wanted a divorce. Don’t know why, but just couldn’t let him go. Wouldn’t let him go.

“So Mother will you come?” Dolly asked again her voice flat, reminiscent of so many arguments. She had been the first to extend a hand by calling. I’d be a fool now not to take it.

“All right. Where is this place?”

“It’s called the Empty Hand Zen center a few blocks from where we used to live in New Rochelle”

“New Rochelle?!” My back Dolly. I’m due for a steroid shot soon, the nurse is not on today and Joe is off too, I have no one to drive me there.

“Please mother. Please.”

“That’s 25 minutes on the train. I don’t know if I can sit…. “

“Just this once…don’t be difficult. It starts at 3:00pm”

I arrived in New Rochelle on the 2:08 train, remarkably my back still intact. It was a balmy 38 degrees in Manhattan. I had forgotten how much cooler New Rochelle could be, my bones ached a little.  The city was not how I remembered it. High rises poking the skyline. The K building was still there. Found that a bit reassuring.

The Empty Hand center was a small unassuming brick building, tucked behind a small neighborhood restaurant. If memory serves me, it’s the old Trolley Turn-around-strange place for a house of worship. A young bearded man with black wire glasses and in a black bib greeted me with  a bow at the door, I reached out my hand….”I’m Dolly Livingston’s mother.”

The following story was written by Glenn Slaby, inspired by the quilt “private world.” Here is Glenn reading his story in front of the quilt at last Sunday’s opening of Stories in Stitches at the New Rochelle Library:

Come be inspired to write your own story!  The show will be opened during library hours through January 28.

Here is Glenn’s story:

The stranger watches as the woman somewhat absent-mindedly steps in the snow and continuous to walk on the unshoveled path even though the sidewalk was cleared just a foot or so to her right.

She continues her walk, oblivious to the slight beauty offered up by the minor snow fall from the nigh before for the city has yet to fully awaken and ungainly mark the streets. Her senses fail to pick up the city sounds muffled by the blanket of white cotton, or the smell of air freshly filtered by nature’s condensation of moisture. Even the odor of fresh bagels from Steins Bakery does not seem to distract her from her quest.

Heads turn as someone slips on some small patch of ice near the corner light. Here the sidewalk changes from cement to steel marking the sewer. As this is the first snowfall of the winter, pedestrians have not yet garnered up the wisdom and experience of walking in winter’s not always small challenges. Two strangers come to assist the fallen, elderly gentleman who was somehow able to keep the morning edition of Sunday’s Post from getting wet. The coffee, however, added its ugly tint to the snow. The stranger watches as many heads turn, to confirm the fallen’s status as he gingerly and slightly embarrassed continues his journey. The snow has also brought with it the compassion of neighbors. These few early walkers nod affectionately to themselves upon the elderly man’s renewal of his journey – all that is expect for the young lady. Lost in thoughts known only to her or perhaps a lover.

What caused this internal solitude - was it this unknown lover or perhaps a sick child in need of some over the counter remedy. Or maybe she was on her to work, but would she have been more aware of the path to take snow, and not end up wet feet in the office

A dog, some mutt of various ancestries, tries to garner her scent, but is pulled back by his elderly owner who tries to make an apologetic glance but the women avoids all eye contact and continues on her journey in fog thicker than that of her breath. The mutt, male, showing some signs of grey protruding through his black and brown mange making him only slightly younger than his owner. He sniffs, finds a familiar scent - a dog he has known for some time, but never had the opportunity to meet. A female, he concludes, a few years younger than himself. How he knows this he cannot comprehend or explain if ever given the chance to, but that is likely, for no one ever asks. He is thankful that his pampered life has not dulled an instinct horned and sharpened by earlier generations of powerful hunting dogs of Europe’s Royalty, or so he wants to believe. It’s better than the truth which is generations of bitches and bastards making a living in the back alleys of the Village.

Slowly the mom and pop stores are waking up. The giant metal grates open with a clanking sound. Like eyelids of some giant monster featured in Chaplin’s Modern Times or Metropolis or some other Industrial Age gone haywire movie, the world stumbles to life. McDonalds has been open for some time now for a few hours. The smell of manufactured plastic food begins to dominate the street. Diesel fumes from some van heading for Chinatown tries to compete with that of Mickie Dees. Where else in the world can one get such an abhorrent mixture? Well probably throughout most of world. So much for globalization.

She heads toward the intersection and what seems like the last moment notices the ‘Don’t Walk’ sign turning to red. With her determined path, interrupted, she heads around the corner bypassing the Pakistani shoveling the sidewalk of his small establishment. In an instant she disappears.