Sally Ride Science

 I enjoyed working with Suzanne Labry for her thoughtful Quilts.com blogpost about my work. QUILT MARKET HOUSTON QUILT MARKET PORTLAND   Few objects are so loaded with meaning as a quilt, and it is hard to imagine another item that can encompass so many varied emotions. The quilt as an object can represent any number of things, both tangible—such as warm cover or wall art—and intangible—such as comfort or grief. As a medium for creative self-expression, the quilt offers seemingly endless options for articulating ideas, representing feelings, and working through internal issues.   Certainly that is what Erick Wolfmeyer has found with his painterly, abstract quilts. As he searches to know his origins—his mother relinquished him for adoption when he was seven months old. And he only recently learned the identity of his birth father (who died in 2005), Texas songwriter Jerry Lynn Williams —the quilt provides him a supple vehicle for coming to terms with his puzzlement and sense o

I was pleased to spy a bit of my quilt Portmanteau in Michael McCormick's magazine Quiltfolk Issue 02 - Iowa.  Each issue of the magazine is less a periodical and more a luxurious book as the publication contains no advertisements.  My quilt is seen in the feature on the Iowa Quilt Museum in Winterset, Iowa.   Portmanteau  was there for the exhibit Art Quilts of the Midwest , on loan from the permanent collection of the Iowa State Museum in Des Moines, Iowa.

           Here is the original transcript of the interview questions I answered:   Information About Me...   I am a 49 year old, single man living and working in Iowa City, Iowa USA. My full-time day job is as a dispatcher and field trip coordinator for the local school district's bus service. I started as a part-time school bus driver in 2007, but have worked as full-time office staff since 2010. It can be a very demanding and intense job while I am there, but one I can leave at the door and it affords me generous time off and a modest living. I have a dog, named Laffy Taffy, who I brought home with me from the local animal shelter nearly five years ago. She is a great companion and makes her home in my studio, which is what would otherwise be a living room for most, in my small 565 square-foot home. Built in 1900 as railroad lineman's cottage, it is only a few hundred feet from the railroad tracks that form the south end of my property line. My Bachelor of Fine Arts

Every year around my birthday (July 10), I attempt to find what we used to call "summer apples," typically a Lodi.  This year I found them at Stringtown, an Amish grocery just north of Kalona, Iowa.  The apples are yellow-green in color and are much more tangy than fall apples.  My paternal grandmother, Nannie, was known for her cooking.  Her house always smelled of something delicious.  Nannie and Papa raised chickens and had a "summer apple" tree that grew up over the chicken house.  The chicken egg yolks became the best homemade noodles ever, and the egg whites, Angel Food cake.  The fallen apples provided a nice treat for the chickens.  Every summer I looked forward to Nannie's summer applesauce and count it as one of my all-time favorite foods.  It's easy to make.  The only special equipment required is a food mill.  I found mine as a freebie give-away on someone's curb at just the time I was looking for one to make applesauce.  Ah, serendipity!   w

Pearson Lakes Art Center, Lake Okoboji, Iowa I have the pleasure of working with the PLAC on my first solo show, Rerum Novarum (of new things).  I will exhibit a total of 8 quilts, 4 of which have never been publicly exhibited, including the  debut of  Poppy Field  (8'x21' colossal-scale quilt).  The exhibit will also include my 6'x8' self portrait  Face of a Stranger .  Opening & artist talk: Thursday August 31, 2017 5-7pm. The Monte Pearson gallery is a beautiful space for the Rerum Novarum exhibit.  I am inspired by the namesake's hand-written statement which is posted just inside the gallery: "It will be the artists who lead the final revolution - a revolution within each person's soul - until we realize that freedom is not something which is fought for, but something which is found in trusting and loving - as we trust and love each other - we've all got to find that freedom within ourselves to create - to tell them all - let them see the mas

  My work is scheduled to be included in a group fiber exhibit, featuring four Iowa fiber/quilt artists, curated by Eric Anderson of the Blanden Art Museum in Fort Dodge, Iowa.  I will be premiering my self portrait  Face of a Stranger ( 2016 ) as well as showing One Life  (2013) and Humans Race (2012). Opening Reception Saturday, January 28, 3-5pm with Artists Talk at 3:30pm. Opening and gallery talk for Quilted Expressions Saturday January 28, 207

Marianne Fons (co-founder), Linzee Kull-McCray (author) and Megan Barrett (Museum Director) at the Iowa Quilt Museum opening for Art Quilts of the Midwest, January 28, 2017  A collection of quilts featured in Linzee Kull-McCray's book Art Quilts of the Midwest will be exhibited at Iowa's new and only museum dedicated exclusively to quilts, the  Iowa Quilt Museum in Winterset - Iowa's quilt epicenter of sorts, thanks to Fons & Porter.  I'm pleased to be exhibiting there within it's inaugural year of opening.  Quilts and quilting are such a fundamental part of Iowa heritage.  My quilt  Portmanteau will be on display as part of this exhibit.  It was one of two of my quilts featured in McCray's book and is currently in the collection of the Iowa State Historical Museum in Des Moines. Portmanteau (aka Revolution), 2011