Cultural Red

I'm so excited to have just found out that two of my quilts, The Yucca and the Moth and Do You See What I See, have been accepted into the new SAQA NM show, Cultural Red.  This show will be hanging at the Capitol Rotunda Art Gallery at the NM Capitol building in Santa Fe, NM from April 17-August 17.  If any of you are in or around Santa Fe, I'd encourage you to stop by and see it, it should be a great show.

The cool cochineal bug quilt on the bottom left is my mom Vicki's (so cool).

Do You See What I See

The Yucca and the Moth

Also, I've designed a website for my quilts.  In addition to galleries of quilts, it has a list of upcoming shows.  It was fun to build- I'm not sure I won't still change it around some, but I think it's good enough to be going on with.  Check it out at Shannonconleyartquilts.com or by clicking the website link in my tab.

Bloggers Quilt Festival: ROYGBIV Entry

This is the second of my two entries into this fall's Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Three cheers to Amy and many thanks for hosting, it's always so much fun to see what everyone has been working on.

My first entry was the cuttlefish, which is in the mini-quilt category.

This is my beloved photoreceptor quilt which I'm putting in the ROYGBIV category.  I thought about putting it in the Art quilt category, but its rainbow color scheme combined with the subject matter (without photoreceptors we wouldn't even be able to see our favorite rainbow colors) tipped the scales to this category.

Do you see what I see, 2014, Shannon Conley, 23 x 37

Some of you may know this already, but in my non-art life I'm a photoreceptor cell biologist and here, I've jumped straight into linked-to-my-scientific-work territory with a quilt featuring photoreceptors.

The quilt was based on an electron micrograph taken by my quilty crafty friend Barb, who is a fabulous microscopist.  Photoreceptors are the cells in the very back of your retina which are actually responsible for sensing light and converting it into the chemical/electrical signals that are eventually processed by the brain and register as vision.  They have quite different ultrastructure from other cells, characterized most obviously by a giant long extension from the cell body.  This is called an outer segment and is filled with stacked membranous discs (like a stack of flattened whoopie cushions or something).  These discs are packed with all the proteins necessary for sensing light.  All the photoreceptors in this picture (which came from a mouse retina) are rod photoreceptors which mediate peripheral and low light vision.

Photoreceptors really are the first step in determining how we see the world, thus the name for the quilt, "Do You See What I See" (for me the answer is almost always bright rainbows of color...)

The quilt features lots of machine quilting, hand embroidery and beading, and bobbin quilting using a fabulous hand sun rainbow yarn I picked up in Germany a couple years back.

Thanks again to Amy for hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival, and everyone say a silent thank you to his or her photoreceptors; without them you wouldn't see anything!

Fiberworks 2014 Opening

I'm still here, sewing away in the background.  Just wanted to pop in to say that I have had two pieces accepted into Fiberworks 2014, a fiber arts show put on by the Fiber Artists of Oklahoma.  The show runs from May 16th to June 10th at the Individual Artists of Oklahoma Gallery at 706 W. Sheridan, Oklahoma City.

The opening is Friday May 16th from 6-9, and the show is sure to be fantastic, we have a ton of excellent fiber artists in the area and it's so wonderful to be part of a show that features so many types of fiber arts besides quilting.

The two pieces I have in the show are Do You See What I See, and S is For...#2

I hope if you're in the area or passing through that you'll stop and see the show!

Second Finish of 2014-Do You See What I See

Some of you may know this already, but in my non-art life I'm a photoreceptor cell biologist.  I've always said I don't really make science-y quilts, (in contrast to my mom), but in looking at my previous work, I find that's not necessarily the case.  Both Seymour the dinosaur and Ring Around the Mole were very much science-y in their development and outlook, even though I'm in no way an ecologist or paleontologist.  Here, however, I've veered into without-a-doubt-linked-to-my-scientific-work territory with a quilt featuring photoreceptors.

The quilt was based on an electron micrograph taken by my quilty crafty friend Barb, who is a fabulous microscopist.  Photoreceptors are the cells in the very back of your retina which are actually responsible for sensing light and converting it into the chemical/electrical signals that are eventually processed by the brain and register as vision.  They have quite different ultrastructure from other cells, characterized most obviously by a giant long extension from the cell body.  This is called an outer segment and is filled with stacked membranous discs (like a stack of flattened whoopie cushions or something).  These discs are packed with all the proteins necessary for sensing light.  All the photoreceptors in this picture (which came from a mouse retina) are rod photoreceptors which mediate peripheral and low light vision.

Photoreceptors really are the first step in determining how we see the world, thus the name for the quilt, "Do You See What I See" (for me the answer is almost always bright rainbows of color...)

Do You See What I See, c. Shannon Conley, 2014, 24"x37"

In this second picture I've labeled what these structures are, OS: outer segments, IS: inner segments, CC: connecting cilium.  Protein is synthesized in the inner segment and then is transported through the connecting cilium to the outer segment (by processes which remain highly contentious, in case anyone was wondering what photoreceptor people argue about).  

The quilt is pieced using Caryl Fallert's Appli-piecing method, and the photoreceptor discs were bobbin quilted using some fabulous rainbow wool yarn I got in Germany a couple summers ago. I had monofilament in the top, so in some cases you can see that my discs overlap in a most unscientific fashion, since it was kind of tricky to see where I'd already sewn! All of the organelles/trafficking vesicles/basal bodies/microtubules in the inner segment and connecting cilium are hand done.  There's embroidery with wool crewel yarn and with the rainbow yarn, as well as a fair amount of beading.  I feel like handwork is still one of my weakest skills, but I enjoy it, and it was fun to have something on which to practice.  The blue background was free motion quilted.

Do You See What I See, c. Shannon Conley, 2014, detail

Do You See What I See, c. Shannon Conley, 2014, detail

Do You See What I See, c. Shannon Conley, 2014, detail

Do You See What I See, c. Shannon Conley, 2014, detail

Do You See What I See, c. Shannon Conley, 2014, detail

Do You See What I See, c. Shannon Conley, 2014, detail

Do You See What I See, c. Shannon Conley, 2014, detail

This quilt feels very "me", and I hope you enjoy seeing it.  Many thanks to Barb,  I can tell you the skills required to capture images like hers are very very rare.

I'm linking up with link-a-finish-Friday, TGIFF, and as always, Nina-Marie's.