Living Language Land: Part 1

Our SAQA KS/MO/OK region is doing an exhibition inspired by the Living, Language, Land project.  The project is focused on conservation through the lens of endangered and minority languages, and the idea that different languages illustrate different ways of interacting with the land.  One of their goals is to inspire others to bring the 26 words selected from minority and endangered languages to life in their creative practice.  Our SAQA region has invited its members to make one or more small (12x12 or 12x24) art quilts based on these words, not appropriating imagery or symbols from the cultures where the words originate, but reflecting on how these words can relate to our own connections with the land.

I initially picked two words to make quilts on.  I decided do use the layered topography approach I originally explored back about 8 years ago, largely because I had signed up to teach that technique on Quilting Arts TV this summer.  That was a great trip, perhaps at some point I'll get a post up on that, but the two Living Language Land quilts were both illustrations for that segment.

My first word was Maloka.  

From the Living Language Land website:

• Language: Murui (Uitoto)
• Region: Amazon region, Colombia
• Contributor: Emperatriz López of the Murui Muina people

Ancestral longhouse

I decided to do an abstracted piece inspired by the shape and form of long houses, with geometric layers building up.  Layers like this have felt like "home" to me in quilting for a long time now.  

This was my quilted background.

These are some of the layered pieces after cutting and during painting.

And here are all the original layered pieces.  I decided the bright greents and yellows were too bright, so in the end, I just went with the under layers.

This is the final piece,  it actually wound up feeling more like a banner than a house, but that resonates with me too, think about family symbols and things like that.

Homecoming, 24x12, c.2024, Shannon Conley

The artist statement on the piece says:

Meditating on the idea of a traditional long house I kept coming back to the plain simple shapes used as little kids to draw houses. Houses turn out to be much more complex than that, but home doesn't have to be. My hope is that we can foster societies where home is a safe and loving place for everyone.

2024 SAQA Benefit Auction

 The 2024 SAQA Benefit Auction starts tomorrow.  It's a super great opportunity to pick up really wonderful small art pieces while benefitting a great organization.  I encourage all of you to click over and borwse through the available artworks and find out more on how to bid.  The auction runs from September 13 to October 6 and you can find out more information here:  https://www.saqa.com/auction

These are just a few of the pieces available in the auction this year.

I actually started mine last year.  It uses a free-motion openwork technique where you quilt over open spaces that are temporarily filled  by water soluble stabilizer.  After finishing, you soak the piece in water, the stabilizer dissolves, and you're left with a lovely openwork effect.  I've used this many times over the years, including in my VLA quilt, my SAQA donation quilt in 2018, and Listen Louder than you Sing among others.

Q is for...., 12x12, c. Shannon Conley, 2024

This is my mom's donation for the auction this year,  it uses her handcarved fossil blocks.

Miscellaneous Crafty Projects 2024

 As I try to catch up on quilts, I've realized there are a bunch of small crafty projects from this year I also haven't shared, so today is a roundup of those.  

Up first are a pair of book covers, the first is out of my favorite star wars fabric for one of my work notebooks.  I added some fun purple sequin trim that's been in my stash forever and that I had no idea what I was ever going to do with.

A little more sophisticated is this pieced leather book cover I made for my mom.  She and my dad had a catastrophic fire early this summer in which they lost their camper and big truck.  It was really really awful, and among many other things, my mom lost her national geographic US National Park Sites book.  She'd been collecting the National Park Passport stamps in that book for many many years.  My sister and I bought her a new book and then called all the National Parks after looking up the dates of my parents' travels and asked them to send us a replacement passport cancellation stamp.  We wound up collecting over 90 different NPS sites.  The book is a large hardcover and I made a cover for it out of some leftover leather scraps I had in my stash.  The fun trim on the front is because I had to sort of piece/applique the leather scraps together because I didn't have enough big pieces left.  The inner flaps are my favorite yellow hippo fabric I got years ago to make a wallet for mom.  

Last year I made a boxy bag for my nephew Alex and more recently I also made one for my niece Anna.  I like the boxy bags, they're pretty capacious and they go together easily.  The one I made from Anna used some super fun agate fabric I ordered from spoonflower and a really cool zipper with fun woven trim as the zipper tape.  I have no idea where it came from but it was great for this kind of project where the zipper could be really visible.

My nephew Alex turned 11 this summer, and he's always been a guinea pig lover.  He doesn't have any pet guinea pigs anymore, but he and my niece and brother-in-law volunteer as often as they can at a local guinea pig rescue.  I decided to make Alex a guinea pig throw pillow as part of his birhtday present.  I used the free-motion couching technique,  another technique I illustrated for Quilting Arts TV.  The whole surface of the pillow is covered with yarn.  I think it turned out cute.

I haven't accomplished very much knitting this year, but I did manage to finish one pair of ankle socks.  I like these socks for summer especially when the regular tall handknit socks are just too warm.  I like the color-  I wear a lot of turquoise and purple so these fit into the wardrobe rotation fairly well.

Finally, the most recent crafty project was this small embroidery I made for my friend Tamas who got married this summer.  I was super excited to get to attend his wedding while I was in Hungary just a few weeks ago.  The design is loosely inspired by their wedding invitation.  I really like the colors, but the letters could definitely have been better.  I guess it turned out ok. 

I like #330

 I haven't done an I like post in a while.  It's been a rough and tumultuous summer with some family health challenges and stress related to fires, but things are settling down.  I'm going into fall crazy time at work, so I'm not sure I can keep up with weekly I like posts, but I will try my best.  

So amid the chaos, what have I been liking over the past few months?

I love getting to spend time with my family.  We had several family get togethers this summer, the best was 4th of July weekend at my parents' place in New Mexico.  Among other things my mom organized a wonderful family mountain olympics with seven different events and five teams (mostly sibling pairs).  My sister and I won, largely I think because we won the costume contest and won scattegories.  Our efforts at lawn games were mediocre at best.  But it was such a wonderful time.  My dad was the referee and he definitely kept us all in line!

I love getting to hike and explore outside.  In July I took a road trip to Colorado where I met up with my mom and dad for a few days.  Mom and I were filming an episode of Quilting Arts TV, but along the way I visited and hiked in Washita Battlefield National Historic Site, Clayton Lake State Park (with fossilized dinosaur footprints!), Capulin Volcano National Monument (very cool volcano), Red Rocks Park, and Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Beautiful native prairies at Washita Battlefield National Historic Site (Oklahoma)

Clayton Lake State Park (New Mexico)

Dinsoaur footprints!!!!

Capulin Volcano National Monument (New Mexico)

Trail along the volcano rim.

Red Rocks Park (Colorado)

Beautiful green rattlesnake we saw in the trail at Red Rocks park.  Luckily we had good hold of the dogs and just watched him slither across with no problems to anyone.

Great Sand Dunes National Park (Colorado)

Hot and sweaty hiking on the dunes.

Drenched and sweaty and swarming with mosquitos hiking in the mountains.  But such a beautiful trail (also at Great Sand Dunes National Park).

There are many more things to like to catch up on, but for now this is enough.  I did get to blog in the past couple weeks about some catch-up quilts I hadn't yet shared, so take a look at them here and here.

I hope there are things to like in your worlds now!  For more things to like, click over to Lee Anna's.

New Quilt C. Bauri, Feathers or Scales

 In the ongoing effort to catch up on blog posts,  here's a new quilt I made close to the beginning of this year in preparation for this summer's 3D exhibit at the New Mexico State Capitol (which just came down last week).  

This started out as some weird upholstery weight kind of scratchy stiff fabric that was sort of beige with orange and brown flowers on it?  I had a fairly large roll of it that I inherited from my sister's mother-in-law (thanks Mary!) and was determined to use for something.  I decided to paint it and quilt two layers of it together with no batting and see what kind of 3D thing I could make.

I decided to try to make a vessel, and so I trimmed it into this weird shape and sewed up the corners, but it really just wasn't working.  It was too floppy and too open and really just not coming together like I thought.  So I unpicked all the stitches and since the Capitol show was coming up I decided to smock it. 

I went looking for a new smocking pattern and found an article from a computer science journal on 3D modeling of predicted pleat patterns/smocked patterns which very much delighted the nerd in me.  I'm not sure if anyone has ever smocked these patterns in person but I decided to try one of them.  Unfortunately now I can't find the paper- if I ever do I'll link it back here. I wasn't sure how it would work since it was cut to such a weird shape but I thought I'd give it a try.

It turned out pretty cool- this is the first time I've made a smocked pattern that goes horizontally rather than vertically.  And the shape reminded me of the shape of an arrowhead or a scale.  The scale vibe is what led to the title of the piece,  C. Bauri: feathers or scales.  C. Bauri is my beloved Coelophysis, the carnivorous theropod that has shown up on my quilts before.  I think historically we always thought of them as scaly, but I think current thinking is that they were feathered!

I like the way this came out, I like that the shape is different from others in this series, and I love the blendy earthy colors.

C. Bauri: Feathers or Scales, c. 2024, Shannon Conley, 43x50x5