Upcoming Art Exhibition

I am happy to announce this upcoming art exhibition of my Art Quilts in Mason Ohio.

Here you go:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/stories-from-life-quilt-exhibition-tickets-46158216468?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-source=strongmail&utm-term=listing


I hope you can attend!

Cathy

Dealing With Frustration

Frankly, I hate FRUSTRATION.

It sneaks up on you. For me I don't get all crazy in traffic, but messing something up just as you are sure you are almost finished drives me CRAZY.

Today was a true example of what I am talking about.  I had worked on a quilt for two days. I had decided to have a little fun and make a quilt of an old woman singing.
It was nearly perfect. It had great hair, eyes that were expressive, musical note fabric to give a hint to the quilt's narrative, all was well. Then as I was about to call it done, I realized the mouth was just awful.

I spent nearly two hours changing the face, and correcting the mouth. Then a truly "familiar" thing happened. I started to layer the fabric, to correct my bad mouth, until it became a "brick" and
the soft fabric was lost. I then gave up and cut a big hole where the mouth was and threw it away.
I had about an inch hole and I started over. (I've done this before.) The new mouth pucker weird and soon I had to toss the whole thing aside since to work on it anymore would have been a lost cause.

So what did I learn? Yes, sometimes you have to start over, that is true. But learning the hard way that not everything you create is "good" is facing reality. FRUSTRATION comes when things don't work out as you plan even though you have certain things you expect from yourself. I use to scream about this and make a mess throwing things around-- almost a ceremony before it actually ends up in the trash. I ask can I save it? WHAT will make it work?

Below is a link to the definition of frustration- and all of the effects it has on us.
Better learn to face the truth. No effort can be perfect every time.
But does it have to happen when a show is in under two weeks?



https://www.reference.com/world-view/causes-effects-frustration-4d34fc71b4e625d4

#frustration     #art    #giving up    

The Making of a Face

Designing a face has become one of my favorite challenges as a quilter. My faces lean more towards the abstract than the realistic and that is ok with me. The challenge for me is getting the eyes right. Once I am happy with the eyes, I feel like I have the soul of the person and it directs me to how I am going to finish the quilt.

Here are some faces I have created over the years.

                                                  Original Art Quilts by Cathy Jeffers 

A Bit About Backgrounds

I have been looking at my backgrounds lately.

I really have about two approaches. First, I use a solid background fairly often. But if I am planning to a landscape, I will usually divide the background into three parts also known as fore ground,

middle ground and background.  It is difficult at times to get a landscape quilt to work correctly due to finding the right colors.

Anyhow, here are some examples:

  Solid background is ready for applique.

                                                                                           This background uses just two fabrics.

This background has three parts. There is the sky, middle and fore ground.

Current Exhibition

Cathy Jeffers, Artist

Art Quilts Now On Exhibition

Front St. 1001 E. Second St.

Dayton, Ohio

Runs through 1/26/18

A few Art Quilts from "Winter Oasis"

All of these are one-of-a-kind made of fabric by Cathy Jeffers, they should not be copied or shared without the permission of the artist.
Contact: artworks1111@sbcglobal.net 

Posting About My ArtQuilts

Yesterday, I expanded my social media muscle and joined both Twitter and Instagram where I will be known as #quilter1111. Twitter was easy enough to do and didn't have any surprises. Instagram was giving me a fit. I had to remove an old email address that was inactive, and change things around. I finally was able to give myself a profile page- but quickly learned I couldn't download any pictures.

In these situations I go to my ladies who are 25-30 but neither of them had Instagram accounts.  So I re-read all the steps and still couldn't add any photos. The Help/Support had general answer statements, but not what I was looking for.

Anyhow, I have been working on creating a river bed quilt where I was making fabric rocks. It has been interesting to make these look both realistic and blended. First I cut out the rock shapes from fabric and then last night I painted the fabric with acrylic paint.

#abundantartshow   #cathyjeffersquilter   #artist  #fiberartist    #wallart   #fibercraft  #contemporaryart

Fabric alone

  Painted fabric

The Artist In Me

I am doing something NEW for me this week. 

I am participating in #abundantartshow a 8-Day Challenge to help you learn to promote your

own art on-line. Hundreds of other artists are participating and it is important to view

what they are doing too.

I have been following Cory Huff the art coach, behind this challenge for some time.

                              On Day #2 we are suppose to post some works in progress.

 ( Art work by Cathy Jeffers )