Artist Profile: Sherry Kleinman

Sherry Davis Kleinman

Pacific Palisades, CA

www.sherrykleinman.com

1.  Describe your signature style in 5 words:  figurative, realistic, narrative, painted, drawn

2.  Do you ever work in another medium and, if so, what is it and what appeals to you about it?  I have tried many arts and crafts over my lifetime.  I work weekly in a mixed media figurative workshop.  I love translating the human form.  Faces have fascinated me since I was a child.  I love the challenge of "seeing" what  is in front of me and interpreting it.  Working with textiles combined with drawing and painting has provided me my most inspirational moments.  

 

3.  What's coming up for you in your artistic world? I am in the "pondering and planning" stages right now for a large piece due for an invitational exhibit early next year.  I have work currently traveling with SAQA traveling Exhibits:  Text Messages, Color Wheel of Emotions, and People and Portraits (I am a featured artist in Martha Sielman's book of the same name).

 

4.  Do you have any studio rituals?  I work on more than one project at a time (some times 3 or 4!)  Moving from one piece in progress to the other keeps my mind open and creative.  I can return refreshed to a project that I may have been stuck on, seeing it in a new light.

5.  Who has inspired you on your artistic journey?  My long time fine art drawing and painting teacher David Limrite.  He is a master teacher who encourages me to explore, see, and create in new ways that challenge me to grow as an artist.

6.  What are the 5 essential things in your studio that you cannot live without?  Sewing machine, textiles, computer and iPad, threads, and books.  Hard to limit answer to 5, as I could go on and on.

 

7.  What is on your design table right now?  As a new grandmother to a 7 month old granddaughter and a 5 month old grandson, my recent passions have involved making baby things.  (Lucky me!)  Currently next to an unfinished teddy bear are sketches of figures painted on canvas.  The figures are waiting on design wall for my inspiration to tell a story with them. 

8.  How do you juggle your artistic life, family, friends, etc?  With a retired husband who adores golf and tennis and 3 adult daughters, (married and with families of their own), I am pretty much in my studio most of the time.  Even with new babysitting duties I am constantly thinking of what I can create next.

9.  Do you have any studio companions (human or otherwise)?  My big black shaggy dog Mac (imagine a large body/short legs like a Bassett Hound) sleeps by my side when I am at my sewing machine or computer.  He is a very patient and non critical companion. 

 

10.  What was the biggest challenge in creating your piece for Reflections?  I chose to do more hand stitching than machine stitching; creating a perfect way to "reflect" and slow down as I worked.  Unfortunately some of my body parts (elbow and hand) objected to the hours of stitching!

Artist Profile: Desiree Habicht

Desiree Habicht
Riverside, CA
http:myclothesline.blogspot.com   website:www.desireesdesigns.com

1.  Describe your signature style in 5 words: contemporary realism with a twist

2.  Do you ever work in another medium and, if so, what is it and what appeals to you about it? Yes, I work in watercolor and pastel. I love the ability to create beautiful things with shapes, color and value

3.  What's coming up for you in your artistic world? I am working on some new pieces and I will be teaching at the San Diego Quilt Show this year.

4.  Do you have any studio rituals? I have my goals, ideas written on a giant sticky note on my wall which I review and add too everyday..

5.  Who has inspired you on your artistic journey? Carol Taylor, Velda Newman are just a few

6.  What are the 5 essential things in your studio that you cannot live without? My iron, design wall, My Truecut rotary cutter and ruler, paints - Oh I have more!

7.  What is on your design table right now? A new quilt pattern I am working on for Houston

8.  How do you juggle your artistic life, family, friends, etc?  I am scheduling my work week so that I have time in the studio, days that I am working on the business side and I still have time for enjoying time with my family

9.  Do you have any studio companions (human or otherwise)? My daughter Jennifer and her dog Chloe are my studio companions. When I am sitting doing quilting or piecing she and Chloe come in and we watch movies together, well they watch and I listen!

10.  What was the biggest challenge in creating your piece for Reflections? The biggest Challenge was creating and developing the quilt so that it told the story I wanted to tell. I required using photoshop, digital manipulation, photo transfer and then adding the applique and paints to get that look I wanted.

Artist Profile: Susan Fletcher King

Susan Fletcher King
Houston, Texas
http://www.susanfletcherking.com/ 

1. Describe your signature style in 5 words:  Illustrative, Graphic, Asian Influences, Nature

2. Do you ever work in another medium and, if so, what is it and what appeals to you about it?  Yes, as a graphic designer and illustrator, I worked with a lot of other media such as pen and ink, various paints and some forms of printing like silkscreen.  I am coming back around to these various applications and enjoy mixing them in with the art quilting.  The other media are useful to enhance or alter the purely textile approach which I had originally done when I began my art quilting journey.

3. What's coming up for you in your artistic world?  I will have a piece that is going to show in the Craft Texas Biennial this year at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Also one or two pieces will be included in The World of Beauty at the International Quilt Festival.  I am also beginning to branch out and do some lectures and teaching mostly in the Houston area since I am still tethered to the home with my husband and son.

4. Do you have any studio rituals?  A good studio cleaning after a project is completed so that I can start off with (literally) a clean slate for the next project.

5. Who has inspired you on your artistic journey? My own childhood and my mother surprisingly!  I find myself working on an idea for a piece and will often realize that it is from some deep memory of my childhood experiences.  My mother was always bringing bits of nature ( bird’s nests, an interesting stone, a lizard or bee) to my attention and even into the house.

6. What are the 5 essential things in your studio that you cannot live without?  Good outdoor lighting – one whole wall of my studio is windows, my Bernina sewing machine, air-conditioning!!!, design wall and music.

7. What is on your design table right now? A variety of aluminum cans for a new experiment.

8. How do you juggle your artistic life, family, friends, etc? Family will always be first and then comes my art along with my friends.  A lot of my friends overlap into my art world.

9. Do you have any studio companions (human or otherwise)?  No – in fact I am thankful that I have a good door to close my studio so my 2 cats stay out.  There’s enough fur flying in the house without their added bits in the studio.

10. What was the biggest challenge in creating your piece for Reflections?  I always try and set some new goal in each piece I work on, so this time it was experimenting with different paints and trying to do more of a 3-D construct.

Artist Profile - Natalya Aikens

Natalya Aikens
Pleasantville, New York
http://www.artbynatalya.com/

1.  Describe your signature style in 5 words:Architecturally inspired and delicately stitched.

2.  Do you ever work in another medium and, if so, what is it and what appeals to you about it? Occasionally I will paint with acrylics or draw with markers or draw in my iPad. When I use paints or markers, the appeal is getting messy with my hands and really feeling the tooth of the paper and the texture of the paint. The opposite is true when I draw on my iPad, I enjoy playing with apps and seeing what different effects I can produce and there is no mess!

3.  What's coming up for you in your artistic world? Lots! I’ll be teaching at the Create Retreat in New Jersey on July 9th and 10th. My former entry for D@8 Rituals exhibit “Dacha” will be on view at the Osilas Gallery at Concordia College in Bronxville NY from July 10th to August 10th. My piece “The City” is now with Quilt National 2013 at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles until July 20th. And I am really looking forward to teaching at the Hudson River Valley Fiber Art Workshops in March as I’ll get to devote five whole days to teaching playing with Photoshop and printing!

4.  Do you have any studio rituals? 

Not particularly, aside from making a huge mess when working on a project and then having a major cleaning and organizing session when I’m all done. Although sometimes that cleaning happens after several projects..

5.  Who has inspired you on your artistic journey? 

Oh that list would be long! All my teachers, and that includes my actual art teachers from high school through college and beyond, other artists that I have learned from in person or online and other creative people who have inspired my with their drive and perseverance.

6.  What are the 5 essential things in your studio that you cannot live without?

My Bernina machines (home and industrial), my thimble, scissors, matte medium and currently my stash of plastic shopping bags.

7.  What is on your design table right now? 

A home portrait for a client. It’s being created from the ephemera collected by the owner, including sheet music, passport page and a wedding veil.

8.  How do you juggle your artistic life, family, friends, etc?  

One day at a time, and sometimes just 15 minutes at a time. I’m striving for balance always…

9.  Do you have any studio companions (human or otherwise)?

Nope, it’s just me usually. Although my youngest daughter has been known to invade every now and then… ;)

10.  What was the biggest challenge in creating your piece for Reflections?

Finding just the right photo to start me off from my gazillion of images.

Artist Profile: Lyric Kinard

Lyric Montgomery Kinard

Cary, NC 

www.LyricKinard.com

1.  Describe your signature style in 5 words:  whole cloth, textural, simple, complex

2.  Do you ever work in another medium and, if so, what is it and what appeals to you about it? I sometimes layer and screen print and paint on board. It’s almost instant gratification compared to the slow process of working with cloth. Every autumn I get the irresistible urge to paint individual leaves in watercolor. It’s a completely different type of meditation for me.

3.  What's coming up for you in your artistic world? I’m working on two new instructional DVD’s, one on thermofax screen printing and one on different mounting methods for textile arts. Stay tuned at www.LyricKinard.com if you are interested. 

4.  Do you have any studio rituals? I clear off my drafting table before starting any new project. It feels like clearing the cobwebs.

5.  Who has inspired you on your artistic journey? My parents and siblings for their artistic creativity, Caryl Bryer Fallert for her incredible generosity and business sense.

6.  What are the 5 essential things in your studio that you cannot live without? Social media, photoshop, my thermofax machine, my iPad with it’s art and photo apps and a good length of blank cloth.

7.  What is on your design table right now?

A crazy colored self portrait.

8.  How do you juggle your artistic life, family, friends, etc?

Not very well often. My balance is more long term, like a see saw that is often all the way up or down.   

9.  Do you have any studio companions (human or otherwise)? No. Blissfully alone after 18year of having toddlers home with me.

10.  What was the biggest challenge in creating your piece for Reflections? For almost the first time in my artistic life a piece flowed through me. Almost (not quite) effortlessly.

Artist Profile: Deborah Boschert

Deborah Boschert

Lewisville, TX 

DeborahsJournal.blogspot.com

www.DeborahsStudio.com

1.  Describe your signature style in 5 words: layered, iconographic, narrative, graphic, stitched

2.  Do you ever work in another medium and, if so, what is it and what appeals to you about it? In the past, I created zines and artist books, but over the past few years, I’ve chosen to focus on art quilting. I never tire of choosing fabric, designing compositions, creating patterns with paint and stitching details, so that’s where I’ve put my time and energy.

3.  What's coming up for you in your artistic world? I have quilts in several traveling exhibits. (They see more of the world than I do.) I’ll be giving program and workshops around Texas and developing some new online workshops.

4.  Do you have any studio rituals? I need to de-clutter and clean up regularly. It’s not really a ritual, but it’s a cycle. When I’m working on a project, there is a certain amount of active chaos, but it needs to be reigned in before it becomes passive chaos.

5.  Who has inspired you on your artistic journey? I am continually inspired by my artist friends. When a friend really knows me as a person, but also understands my artwork, that creates a kind of intimacy and support that I treasure.

6.  What are the 5 essential things in your studio that you cannot live without? a variety of fabrics, fusible webbing, embroidery floss, paint and podcasts on my iPhone

7.  What is on your design table right now? I’m working on a landscape that will be constructed in a completely new way. I also just pulled out the fabric pieces of the silhouette that were cut away to create my Reflections piece. I’m thinking about making a companion piece with those “opposite” pieces. Maybe I’ll use a waxing crescent, rather than a waning crescent.

8.  How do you juggle your artistic life, family, friends, etc? I just try to make good choices about how I spend my time day to day. I go through cycles where I spend more time in the studio and cycles when I’m focused on other parts of my life. 

9.  Do you have any studio companions (human or otherwise)? My dog, Lincoln, used to love to sit on the red couch in my studio, but he’s got a bit of arthritis in his hips and he hasn’t been jumping up as much lately. 

10.  What was the biggest challenge in creating your piece for Reflections? Once I settled on the concept and how it related to the theme, the size and symmetrical composition were the biggest challenges. I had to create the silhouette so it fit the space and then she needed to be aligned just right within the dimensions of the quilt. (Actually, she is leaning just a tiny bit.)

Artist Profile: Victoria Findlay Wolfe

Victoria Findlay Wolfe
New York, New York
http://www.bumblebeansinc.com/ 

1.  Describe your signature style in 5 words:

​  Scrappy , tradition with artful twists

 

2.  Do you ever work in another medium and, if so, what is it and what appeals to you about it?   ​ I'm trained as a painter, although these days, Fabrics are my paint. My paints have all been put away, as fabric holds my attention the best and is less smelly. haha.​ My camera is always attached to me, I need to be bale to snap a memory. I don't like forgetting....anything.

3.  What's coming up for you in your artistic world?  I have 12 D

ouble wedding ring

 quilts, 5 star quilts and three 

​o​

f my grandmother, Elda Wolfe's quilts on exhibit at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts June 25-October 24th, 2015. Traditions Made Modern: 12 Double Wedding Rings, "Full Circle" sketches from life by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.  March -June

 ​ 2015,​

 I have an

​other​

 exhibit of the Double 

​W​

edding 

R​

ings at the 

​ International Quilt Study Center & Museum.

I'll be teaching at ​

​Quiltcon! See you in Texas!  A new book releasing in January,

4.  Do you have any studio rituals? ​Not really, only that I spend hours on end in my studio....​and I may or may not have a secret stash of Jolly ranchers and chocolate on it's own special shelf....

5.  Who has inspired you on your artistic journey? 

 ​ 

My grandmother, is my biggest influencer.

​ Her quilts, instilled color, and pattern in me at a young age. She didn't need patterns to make her beauties... she found joy in the fabrics she had, even if they were polyester! Also,​ Inspired by 

 

​al

l the quilters who came before me. I'm always looking to see where they took liberties, inserting their personalities into the quilt...​ where they tried something new, and just went with it. 

 ​Creative freedom!​

6.  What are the 5 essential things in your studio that you cannot live without?

 ​ my Juki TL2010 Q​ machines... fabric, of course... toothpicks, sharpies, and my havels seam ripper...

7.  What is on your design table right now?  A huge mess. 

​ A mountain of SOLIDS, about 30 different colors... and fabrics from my last project that hasn't been put away yet... Very little space left for cutting. 

8.  How do you juggle your artistic life, family, friends, etc?   Very good question...I am constantly reevaluating what I am doing 

​to balance

 

​quilting and family. Well, not balance really, tip the scales towards family... Family is numero uno.

9.  Do you have any studio companions (human or otherwise)? In my new studio, I can't have any pets... If I am at home in my classroom studio, my furrbeasts, 

​(​

dogs,

​)​

 Jenny Egg and Kia

​,​

 are always in my scrap bi

​n​

s or at my feet.

​ Sometimes my daughter comes over and scoots around on my chairs with wheels. I do that too.​ Like mother like daughter...

10.  What was the biggest challenge in creating your piece for Reflections? 

​Working out the design and proportions, and ​p

iecing the full 

​ovals

 was a challenge... But I didn't want to do a quilt without there being a good challenge involved. Each piece of multi colored fabric holds a memory, and all the red ones are memories yet to be made.... I like that the red gets to be more and more the further out it goes... I have so much more to do and reflect on.