I have been invited to be the guest speaker for this year’s Festival of Quilts, a fundraising event for Cunningham Children’s Home in Urbana, IL. I will be presenting my 25 min video “A Piece of Me” followed by a question/answer period during which I will show three of my quilts. Talks will be at 10:30A and 2:30P in the Administration Lounge.
Cunningham Children’s Home, 1301 North Cunningham Avenue, Urbana, IL
Cunningham Children’s Home’s Festival of Quilts joins the Boneyard Arts Festival this spring as one of more than 90 galleries showcasing the arts in Central Illinois. This year Cunningham is excited to present a collection of show quilts that creatively blur the lines between conventional quilt making and fine art.
As part of it’s year-long focus on the role of place in quilt making, the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky will host a collection of quilts from Linzee Kull McCray’s book Art Quilts of the Midwest. I plan to exhibit One Life, as neither of my quilts featured in the book (Venus Transit, Portmanteau) are available for exhibit at this time.
I was recently thumbing through a book about weaving when I came across a design that really excited me as a potential quilt idea. I wouldn’t make the quilt in black and red, but this is just a simple way of remembering that basic concept so that I can later have the fun of choosing colors. One thing I love about this design is that it holds together no matter how it is oriented.
July 11, 2015
I’m advancing the inspiration of this found design (weaving pattern) toward one of my latest creative goals: colossal quilts. I want to make large-scale (~8′ x 25′) work inspired by my fascination with the patina of industrial objects (boxcars that pass by my window each day, and the fishing boats recently encountered in Bayfield, WI)
July 20, 2015
Cross Quarter Embrace as imagined completed and on exhibit (projected size 8.5×24 feet):
December 2015
It’s early December 2015 and Iowa City’s had its first snowfall. I’ve embarked on creating this colossal quilt, Cross Quarter Embrace, but have struggled to get it off the ground. My typical use of a variety of tones and fabrics of similar color to create one overall color isn’t working for a piece of this scale. So, I am exploring new options. As I start down this path, I am reminded of how inspiration comes from so many places – including Keith Haring’s iconic Act Up imagery engaged to educate the public about the HIV/AIDS crisis during the mid-80’s. The AIDS crisis was concurrent with my own coming out process and permanently shaped me spiritually, sexually and artistically. It’s funny how experiences, some barely even memories, linger and seep into present-day experience and into that which I feel so deeply compelled to express. It is through the expression and creation of quilt objects that I come to a deeper understanding of why I need to do so – through the recall of all that has brought me to this present moment.
January 2016
My progress is slower than I would’ve liked or projected, but I am happy with the results so far. Life has a way of intruding on studio time. I’m having some structural problems with the piece being 100% square, but I am hoping that it will “quilt out” in the hand-quilting process. I will quickly run out of room in my small studio/home to view the quilt in total as I make it. This will present a new creative challenge for me which I’m determined to find a way around, as it is critical to step back and view the piece in total to make sure it’s working as a whole. I plan to have the top completed by the end of April 2016 at the latest.
…and on Memorial Day, May 30, 2016, I picked up this project again. I discovered a mathematical miscalculation in the first section I finished (red/turquoise) having to do with alternating rectangles and squares which resulted in odd/even number of seam allowances per finished sewn row. I would ultimately decide to “salvage” my second version by finishing it with only square pieces – and it may in fact be my favorite of the three. In order to avoid total demoralization, I started fresh from the center and will work my way out from there. My new finish goal is by end of August 2016.
As of September 2016, I had three distinct pieces completed on the road to the final piece. As of January 2017, I have the mid-sized piece (~8×11 ft) back from the hand quilters, and the binding is on. I am waiting for the first small (~4×5 ft) “sketch” and the final piece (~7×21 ft) to be hand quilted. Here are a few more photos:
version 1
version 2
stepping off possible quilting design for version 2 with my hand-quilting broker in Shipshewana, Indiana
all remaining photos are of the final version (3)
on my way to final version
final version (top only) complete, September 2016
August 2017 Putting finishing touches on the final version which I have renamed Poppy Field after this one along Morse Road, just north of Iowa City, Iowa.
binding
laying out 21-foot long quilt to measure for hanging sleeve
Drawn from the recent book, Art Quilts of the Midwest, by Linzee Kull McCray, the quilts selected for this exhibition hint at the ways in which the Midwest’s geography, weather, people, and culture influence the work of quilt artists from the region. The exhibition will be presented in two rotations between January 5 and May 8, 2016. Venus Transit will be exhibited in the first rotation (January 5-March 5, 2016).
Thanks to the generous loan of collectors Stephen Kotsines and John Hecht, the IQSC will be exhibiting Venus Transit, one of two quilts of mine featured in Art Quilts of the Midwest.
Iowa City Public Library Meeting Room A (1st floor)
123 S. Linn Street, Iowa City, IA
Art Quilts of the Midwest author Linzee Kull McCray, foreword contributor and fiber artist Astrid Bennett and I will each participate in this Prairie Lights bookstore-sponsored event. Linzee will talk about the genesis of the book, as well as featured artists’ motivations and inspirations.
The evening will conclude with a large-screen full screening of my video “A Piece of Me.”
with longtime friend, Suzanne Koury
introductions by Maeve Clark, ICPL librarian Linzee Kull McCray presents
This is my latest, and most ambitious project to-date. It is a large-scale (6′ x 8′) self portrait quilt made of 1″ squares. When finished, the quilt will contain more than 7,000 pieces – all scraps from my fabric collection. This is my progress as of February 27, 2015.
July 11, 2015:
Back at work in the studio after a 4 month hiatus.
Added a few neutrals to my palette I found on a recent trip to Lake Superior.
(Orchard’s Edge Quilt Shop, Bayfield, WI and Hannah Johnson Fabrics, Duluth, MN)
Getting rid of the former 8’x8′ design board is a sacrifice, but have gained so much more space and sanity as a result of karate chopping it into oblivion.
July 12, 2015:
July 19, 2015:
The top is finished in late September 2015 and on its way to my Amish hand-quilter. I expect it back sometime in the spring of 2016. This piece has been an incredible journey for me, taking over a year to complete (the top) – and one of the most significant events of my adult life occurred during its creation – the return of my mother after a 22 year absence.
Hanging on the walls of St. Ambrose University’s Catich Gallery are pieces that are not typical pieces of art. These pieces are not comprised of brush strokes or captured by a camera. They don’t display well in frames or require intense abstract thinking. Rather, they celebrate the simple things in life: fabric and paper.
The Catich Gallery in the Galvin Fine Arts Center will display works by Erick Wolfmeyer and Brian Borchardt from Sept. 10 to Oct. 24. A special artist lecture by Wolfmeyer and Borchardt will take place in Galvin Room 141 on Thursday, Sept. 18, from 4-4:45pm. Join the artists in the Catich Gallery for a reception following the artist lecture from 5-7pm that same evening.
Erick Wolfmeyer designs and creates quilts. His work is filled with detail and finesse, so it is no wonder that there is more beneath the surface. Wolfmeyer’s journey began at a young age after being adopted. Although he had parents, he always wondered what his biological family was like. Through the years he grew to better understand himself, his adoptive family and eventually his biological family as well. This exprience has shaped who he is today, and is reflected greatly in his quilting.
“My work is inspired by the search for and construction of identity and relationship,” Wolfmeyer said. “Much of it is, like many art forms, at the deepest level – autobiographical.
“The quilts are the results of my wrestling with parts of my life in this medium of quiltmaking, which I think of as abstract expressionism. I essentially paint and construct with fabric. The quilts become a metaphor for piecing my identity together, day by day, year by year, as I acknowledge, honor and integrate the losses I experienced as an adoptee.”
Wolfmeyer created his first quilt for a friend in 1998. From there, he created quilts for purchase and for gallery showings. One piece in particular, “Portmanteau,” brought him numerous opportunities. The word portmanteau can be defined as ” a large trunk or suitcase, typically made of stiff leather and opening in two equal parts.” Although this definition is reflected in Wolfmeyer’s quilt as the main shape of the piece, it also can be seen on a deeper level.
“The quilt brings together light and dark and addresses the dichotomous split in consciousness I have experienced as an adoptee between nature and nurture, my two names, two sets of parents and two parallel realities,” Wolfmeyer said. “There is a phantom life that walks beside the one I am living – one that begs the question: ‘What if…’ It is this very question that drives the creative process for me.”
For Wolfmeyer it is hard to choose a favorite piece of art, mainly because it is the process he enjoys the most. The quilt is created over a long period of time, usually between six months to a year. The quilt can only be enjoyed in the short-term due to the fact that it will either quickly be purchased or sent off to be shown in a gallery.
“No quilt is a favorite,” Wolfmeyer said. “Like children, each means something different to me. It’s usually connected to what was going on in my life at the time I was making it and/or what came about as a result of having made a particular quilt at a particular time.”
Showing alongside Wolfmeyer are a collection of books celebrating paper and typeface created by Brian Borchardt.
“My work combines my passion for books, reading and printing,” Borchardt said in an artist statement released to the university, “The physical nature of books is strongly ingrained in my desire to create pieces that are tactile, intriguing and accessible.”
Borchardt started making books after being introduced to Book Arts through two close friends from Stevens Point, Wis. Shortly thereafter, he started making books with little to no background training or education in teh field. In 2003, he created a private press located in Stevens Point called Seven Hills Press that produces limited edition letterpress books.
“The name Seven Hills Press was inspired by my first trip to the wonderful city of Rome,” Borchardt said.
The Catich Gallery is open Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm or by appointment. For more informartion about Erick Wolfmeyer, visit his website, www.ewolfmeyerquilts.com. To learn more about Brian Borchardt, his website is located at www.sevenhillspress.com.
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