13th Steet Studio

Bull in a China Shop

Every year my quilt guild sells small quilts at our show. The money goes to local organizations that help people in need. This year the owner of Sarah's Fabrics has decided to jump-start the production of these quilts by doing a challenge every couple of months. The first of these challenges was to use one of Terrie Mangat's fabrics. Her work is always so crazy, fun and bright! I signed up immediately. The challenge fabric made me think of exploding pottery, so I just appliqued a bull on it and called it "Bull in a China Shop". Too much is never enough... I decided it needed some sequins too.

Here is my inspiration bull. This is a West Africa flag showing the emblems of several of the military ruling organizations. I bought it for the birds, of course, but I haven't used their shapes in anything yet.

Artists' Trading Cards: Sadness

The theme for this month's artist trading card swap is "Sadness". I have to say that this theme was not much fun to work on. I found some astrology fabric in my stash that had the words "fire" and "cancer", and a sad grey color, so that is what I used. Here is the result, which I call "Tears and Sadness".

Perking Again

Once again it is time for the "Dime Bag Show" at the Percolator. This is a duel benefit exhibit where the first step is to go to the Social Services Thrift Store and buy a bag of art "supplies" for $10. Then the art created is donated to the Percolator and hopefully sold. Two great organizations get a boost and the work is fun to creat. A win, win, win situation!

Here is the bag of stuff that I hauled home:

And here is what I made:

I call him/her Turqasaurus... because Godzilla was the inspiration...but a little too hard to sew on a short deadline. Six legs where needed for stability, but I don't think there were any six legged dinosaurs. So the name is not the best. For more information on the exhibit go here.

Here's looking at you, kid.

Artists' Trading Cards: Love...the return

Here are the "Love" themed artists' trading cards that I got back in the last swap. I made the two on the bottom. Our next theme is "Sadness". So far, I haven't had any inspiration on that theme and the deadline is coming up fast.

I guess missed deadlines could be sad.

Big Apple Birthday

Another fun thing we got to do in NYC was attend Jimmy Mirikitani's 92nd birthday party. Jimmy was the subject of the excellent film "The Cats of Mirikitani" by Linda Hattendorf. There is information about this film here. If you get a chance to see it, do it. I think it is my favorite documentary ever.

This past year Jimmy's artwork was exhibited in the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of the exhibit "The Art of Gaman,"  and he travelled to Washington DC to be a special guest at their screening of THE CATS OF MIRIKITANI.  He saw the White House and the Memorial to Japanese American Patriotism. His work was also exhibited at the Japanese Canadian National Museum;  and the Lawrence Arts Center in Kansas, in conjunction with Roger Shimomura's exhibit "Shadows of Minidoka." It was at the exhibit in the Lawrence Arts Center that we heard about his birthday party, and it just felt like fate insisted that we go when we were in his neighborhood on the right day and time. We told Jimmy we were from the same town as his friend Roger Shimomura, and that was good enough for him. It was an honor to meet him!