Art, Art Exhibit, Fiber Art

Art From Cloth

Guila Greer
Postcard Art Work By Sue Rasmussen

Art From Cloth is an annual art exhibit presented by Extreme Quilters of Southern California. It opened this past Thursday at the Thousand Oaks Community Gallery in T.O., California and runs through 9/27/23.

The Show is open Daily from 10am to 5pm. There is no admission fee.

A bonus feature of the show is always our Gift Boutique. You will mostly find small art works by our members in the boutique – ranging from fine jewelry to hand dyed fabric and pottery. You may even find a previously sought-after issue of an art journal or a special book that will guide you in your stitching adventures.

Annual Challenge Quilts

Every year the group comes up with a special theme for our quilt challenge. This year it was – to design and make a quilt that portrays an Idiom or Adage.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Idiom: A speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, as in keep tabs on.

My contribution to Idioms – What a fun challenge to work on. Can you guess the title? (answer below)

If you’re in the area and have a chance to come to the show – please do.

Thousand Oaks Community Gallery, 2331 Borchard Road, Unit A, Newbury Park, California. Open Every Day through Wed. Sept. 27 from 10am until 5:M

Please contact me if you have any questions. You can message me at: honeyquilts@gmail.com or email using the same address.

ANSWER: the name of my idiom quilt is Loose Lips Sink Ships!

Fiber Art

works in progress

Guila Greer

It’s THAT time of year again and I’m pushing to complete work prior to the opening of the annual Art from Cloth Exhibit. This year the show opens September 14 and runs through September 27, 2023.

One of the pieces that I’m working on is a sequel to International Freedom Festival – more about it when it’s DONE! I’m also doing prep work for my entry in our annual challenge – this year: Idioms/Adages.

Work in Progress – Beading, beading, beading!
Fiber Art

Soaring into Spring with Henri Matisse

Guila Greer

Au Printemps – a la Matisse

When presented with a challenge to make a quilt 1) to honor Spring’s arrival and 2) to do so in the style of a chosen artist, I decided to create a Spring homage to Matisse.

As Matisse grew older (he lived almost to his 85th birthday), and his health declined, he developed ways to make art even when he was unable to leave his bed and stand at an easel. He painted paper with gouache using various brush techniques. He then free cut the shapes he envisioned from these painted papers and incorporated them in his art.

For this quilt I attempted to emulate Matisse’ process by painting pieces of stabilized white cotton cloth with gouache – one color per piece of cloth. I then free cut shapes that I had previously worked out with sketch according to the scene that I envisioned. I pinned my shapes in place – in layers – then stitched the shapes in place, added some batting and quilted the piece.

Fiber Art

Springtime in Mariupol

Guila Greer

In the Spring of 2022, I was fooling around with some of my fabric – cutting shapes, cutting strips and arranging them into more shapes. The resulting images reminded me of the invasion of Ukraine that was dominating the news. I considered that they (the images/shapes) had been informed by what I had been hearing and seeing – and just went with it.

Art, Art Quilt, Fiber Art

Sadly, Vincent Was Not Helped By His Stay at Arles

Guila Greer

In 1890, Vincent Van Gogh, eager for the sunshine, moved to Arles, in the south of France. His aim was to develop his painting skills further and, at the same time, he strove to fend off the demons that plagued his short life.

Vincent Van Gogh’s stay in Arles was a prolific period and he painted many of his best known and admired paintings during this time.  

Van Gogh’s yellow bedroom was the subject of 3 of his paintings.  But this art quilt is the only rendition that depicts those demons.  It becomes more clear why Vincent left Arles in 1899 and obvious why his state of mind was more fragile than ever.

P.S. This quilt and statement is not intended to make light of Vincent’s dire situation. It seeks to give some shape to his very real health problems – his demons were real.

17 inches W by 14 inches H

available for purchase

Art Quilt, Fiber Art

Springtime in Mariupol

Guila Greer

In the Spring of 2022, I was fooling around with some of my fabric – cutting shapes, cutting strips and arranging them into more shapes. The resulting images reminded me of the invasion of Ukraine that was dominating the news. I considered that they (the images/shapes) had been informed by what I had been hearing and seeing – and just went with it.

Springtime in Mariupol

23″ W by 26″ H

available for purchase

Fiber Art

Soaring into Spring

Guila Greer

The latest art challenge from Quilts on the Wall was a lot of fun for me to do. The theme was “Soar into Spring’.

We were shown a couple of paintings referencing Spring for inspiration; one being an Henri Matisse collage, Madame Pompadour. That in turn prompted me to tune in to a London School of Drawing zoom workshop entitled Painting with Scissors.

During the workshop we had the experience of free form cutting shapes on painted paper – the way that Matisse did when he made his painted collages later in his painting career. I went with the freeform concept and was further inspired by Matisse’s color palette as I designed and created my challenge piece: Le Printemps de Matisse. 16″ by 12″ Hand dyed cotton.

Le Printemps de Matisse by Guila Greer (all rights reserved)

12″ W by 16″ H

available for purchase

Art, Art Quilt, Dharma Trading, Fabric Dyeing, Fiber Art, Hand Dyed Fabric, Indispensable Tools, Mixed Media, Pro Chemical & Dye, works in process

I Love What I Do!!!

Guila Greer

hand dye multiOften. to get the look that I’m after for an art piece,  I have to dye my own fabric.  Now, that’s not something that I see an a hardship – although it is a lot of work:  messy work.  Especially now that I have my own studio with a SINK!!  And there was a reason I wanted to leave the concrete floors “as-is”  during the garage conversion.

So last night I tackled the job at hand and set about to dye several lengths of fabric for a couple of upcoming quilts.  The fabrics were all immersed in their respective color baths and I left them to cure overnight.  This morning, after oohing and aahing at the lineup of color on my worktable, I took the fabric/dyebath containers to the sink one by one to do the rinsing.

So far I’ve discovered that when rinsing “Deep Space” (Dharmatrading),  I rinsed out Purple; when rinsing “Emerald Green” (from Pro Chemical & Dye),  I rinsed out Turquoise, and while I swished around the “Gunmetal Gray” (Dharmatrading),  RED water drained away!

Well, I do realize that a lot of these dyes are mixtures – but I’m always delighted when I see the elements right in front of my eyes.

I’m reminded of being 10 years old and playing with my chemistry set.  This was my favorite toy as a kid.  Mostly I loved mixing the chemicals to see what color I could get.

I LOVE what I do!

Fiber Art

Habitat

Guila Greer

I designed this piece very loosely around a photo I took a couple of years ago up at Tomales Bay.  One of the reasons that I love that area so much is that it – and the nearby marshes – are home to so many shore birds.   And that is the basis for the title.

This was such an interesting piece to construct.   With the theme “water” guiding my choices and my personal desire to create depth of color and texture, I searched my stash for possible fabric to include.   This included an amazing variety of blues – occurring in silk, cotton, blends, rayon, ribbons.

A few of my fabric pieces were pre-fused with Misty-fuse; the rest I just pinned on until the stitching.

Greer_Habitat 12by12_ a variety of fabrics and textures_225 dollars

This piece will be shown in August as part of the Surface Art Association Cloth Stories Exhibit.

The exhibition will be at the Betsy Lueke Creative Arts Center Gallery in Burbank, California from August 3 – 23, 2018.

Opening reception is on Friday, August 3, from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

More info to come – follow my Facebook page Creations By Honey