Loris Bogue's Blog About Her LIfe as a Textile Artist

2011 Blog Stats

lorisbogue — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:58:42 +0000

Today I received an email from WordPress with my blog statistics for 2011. Sometimes you just don’t need a reality check.

Art Quilt Tahoe 2011

lorisbogue — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:12:49 +0000

I just returned from a wonderful week at Art Quilt Tahoe in Zephyr Cove, Nevada. This was my first trip to AQT and my third to Lake Tahoe. Paula Chung, who lives just two miles from AQT, was my hostess for the week.

Paula and I both studied with Valerie Goodwin, who uses maps as her inspiration. Valerie is a college professor who teaches senior architecture, so taking her class is like taking a college level art class. She arguably gives the best crits I’ve ever had in any of my art classes or quilt workshops.

My workshop piece was based on a map of Washington, D.C., my hometown. It is about 36″ x 30″ and will use a color palette I based on the paintings of Modigliani.

At the end of each day we were treated with beautiful sunsets. If there are no clouds, there is a still an orange haze over the mountains that reflect off the lake.

This is how my piece looks today. After the pieces are all stitched down to the crinoline background, I will add sheers and paint it. I also have a trick up my sleeve that will be added last. Tune in for results at a later date!

Show at Ventura County Government Center

lorisbogue — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:04:07 +0000

Just having come off a very successful show at the Thousand Oaks Gallery, several Extreme Quilters had their art quilts accepted to be shown at the Ventura County Government Center as a part of the current Ventura County Arts Council show. I was fortunate to have my piece entitled Analogy be accepted into this exhibit. Here is a photo of the 4th floor, where our work hung outside the County Supervisor’s office.

And here I am, next to my piece.

And even though there was some discussion about the location, my husband and I DID in fact get married in this very building 16 years and one month ago!

Second Annual Extreme Quilters Show Begins!

lorisbogue — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:53:42 +0000

Tomorrow begins the second annual Extreme Quilters Show entitled Art from Cloth. I am proud to have been a member of this group for many years, and it’s exciting to see all the members’ work in one place.

The show runs from October 4 through 16 at the Thousand Oaks Community Center in Newbury Park, California. Opening reception is October 9.

Art from Cloth

Hanging around at the International Quilt Festival Long Beach, July 2011

lorisbogue — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 03:20:25 +0000

Once again, it was a big weekend in Southern California. For the second year in a row, I helped hang the Space Between exhibit for the Dinner at Eight Artists, who were the curators. Each of the past three years D@E Artists Jamie Fingal and Leslie Tucker Jenison have organized a juried invitational art quilt exhibit that has opened at Long Beach, then traveled to be on exhibit at the Houston, Cincinnati, and Chicago Quilt Festivals. They work long and hard to curate the exhibit each year and to find sponsors so that the exhibit can travel to each of these venues. My piece entitled Sedimentary Silk was juried into the show this year, and I am so proud to be a part of such a wonderful group of artists. Our catalog is available for purchase at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2362383

That evening was our monthly art quilt group meeting where we took a class photo. As you can see, we enjoy a wonderful meal and a glass of wine whenever we get together!

“Sharing Stories” at Front Porch Gallery

lorisbogue — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 22:09:45 +0000

There’s a new exhibit at the Front Porch Gallery in Carlsbad, California, a local community gallery in a great beach setting. The exhibit is called “Sharing Stories,” and is sanctioned by the Studio Art Quilt Associates. My piece, “Migration,” was juried into the show. Yesterday was the opening reception on a beautiful sunny day. The show runs from now until September 4, 2011. If you are in the area, and particularly if you love the Pacific, please stop by and visit the Front Porch. You’ll come away with a smile on your face after you read the stories behind these colorful works of textile art!

Extreme challenge

lorisbogue — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 03:06:24 +0000

Last winter, Eileen Alber, owner of Quilters’ Studio in Newbury Park, California, gave each of us in our minigroup, The Extreme Quilters, a piece of thin, shiny plastic and challenged us to make an art quilt that she would hang on her walls during the coming Quilters Run.

With the thoughtful input of my cat, Tom, and some painted Tyvek, I made a little 8″ x 13″ piece depicting one of my favorite subjects, a cityscape.

Wet Felting Workshop

lorisbogue — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:18:13 +0000

Last weekend I took Jane LaFazio’s wet felting workshop at Quilters’ Studio in Newbury Park. This was an entirely new technique for me, but I guess they’ve been doing it in Tibet for a long time.

We each chose a small bag of wool roving, then laid it out in five layers on bubble wrap.

Next we sprinkled it with hot soapy water and rolled it in a foam noodle, where we rolled it on the table hundreds of times to make the wool weave itself together from the friction we created.

This is what the piece looked like after the manipulation. It shrunk about an inch or two all around:

Then after rinsing out the soap, we threw our work on the floor as hard as we could a few times:

The next day, after the piece was dried, we added a bit more roving in places for added interest, then added embroidery, stitching and beads. Last night I stitched together an 18″ silk dupioni pillow and tacked the felt to the top. Now it sits proudly in my living room!

Discharge workshop

lorisbogue — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:46:44 +0000

Last week I spent five days in Bob Adams’ workshop at Quilters’ Studio in Newbury Park, California. Twelve of us spent time bleaching, “anti-chloring,” Thiox-ing and Formosul-ing primarily black fabrics into new fabric, ready to be used in our next art quilt pieces. It’s a messy process, but somebody has to do it! Here are a couple of the pieces I made. One is stitched, shibori-style, then briefly boiled in Thiox. The other piece was discharged used Thiox and Formosul, the Thiox being the less discharged red areas and the Formosul the lighter. The patterns were made using a Thermofax screen and a borrowed piece of scrap in the shape of a gear.

More shibori!

lorisbogue — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 18:50:58 +0000

Time spent watching TV with my husband in the evenings just doesn’t seem right unless I’m stitching or knitting something. So this week I grabbed some pieces of pdf fabric and some waxed dental floss and stitched some pieces for shibori. I mixed my own recipe of yellow, red, and blue, which gave me not quite the black I was hoping for, but a dark auburn brown and some interesting halos. These pieces are about 20″ square. Now to assemble them into something interesting so I have more handwork to do while I watch my favorite shows!

Click to view slideshow.