Inspiration comes in many shapes and forms. My latest inspirational trek was to the Paducah Quilt Festival this past weekend. Aisle upon Aisle was filled with inspiration whether it was a finished quilt, fabric, thread or mountains of books. This is truly the motivation capital of the quilting and sewing world. If you never been to Paducah this is a “must do” trip. It is held annually, usually the last week of April. Mark your calendars now for 2011.
Smiling snowmen, funny frogs, grinning garden vegetables… these are just a few of the characters you’ll discover in the wonderful, whimsical world of Janet Wecker-Frisch.
Janet shares her art with the sewing world through licensed fabric and embroidery designs from her company, Tidings of Great Joy, LLC. Over the years, sewers, embroiderers, and especially quilters have fallen in love with Janet’s vintage-inspired characters and unmistakable artistry, and Janet has loved connecting with the people who use her drawings to create their own art.
Janet was born with a natural drawing ability, a talent that was encouraged by her artist father. As a child, Janet was always drawing, finding inspiration in vintage children’s books, and learning from her father’s training and critiques.
“It’s just a part of who I am,” Janet says, adding that, like her father, she eventually drew to love other art such as sculpting, painting and photography.
In fact, it was Janet’s love of sculpting and painting that led to her licensing adventures. In the early 1980’s, Janet created her company Tidings of Great Joy, LLC, named after a line from her favorite holiday special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. For 20 years, Janet sculpted and painted Christmas ornaments and sold them at art shows in St. Louis, Missouri. These ornaments soon became highly collectable.
About 10 years ago, a customer took one of her ornaments to an agent, and Janet soon began licensing her artwork for products such as dishes, decorations, wallpaper and more. However, Janet has found a real home in the sewing and quilting world with her gorgeous fabric designs.
“It’s the most fun industry to work in,” says Janet, who loves attending events such as Quilt Market whenever she can, “Just such a warm, more personal industry. I really enjoy it.” Janet puts a lot of care in designing artwork specifically for fabric and loves hearing feedback from quilters, as well as quilt shops and companies.
“I try to think about how the fabric will be used,” Janet says, adding that she loves seeing what quilters have created using her fabric lines, either in person or through emails and pictures.
In fact, Janet loves seeing what everyone can create, especially children. A page on her company’s website is dedicated to artwork that children send to her. Janet says that it reminds her of when she first fell in love with drawing and inspires her to keep drawing for fun.
“I have a granddaughter and niece who are both artists. Watching them develop and running into these little kids who love art just reminds me of what it was like as a little girl. When kids have that in them, it can’t be oppressed… they just draw all the time.”
Janet’s art is still inspired by her childhood favorites: vintage children’s books and nature. She has a large collection of books, citing illustrations by Harrison Cady and Garth Williams as her favorites.
“When I was growing up, I was always attracted to the illustrations and would pour over them. I have a lot of fond memories from childhood, things from within that need to come out” she says, “I also happen to live in the woods, where there are a lot of creatures running around.”
Janet’s love of animals and vintage illustrations are beautifully merged in over 20 lines of fabric featuring her fun characters. Her favorite characters are the frogs in “Tiny Tailors” and several characters from the newest line, “Animal Alphabet Games.” Janet adores her characters and loves meeting people who feel the same way.
“A retailer met me and just started laughing about one of the characters,” she says. “Sometimes I laugh as I’m drawing them – I just get a kick out of them and I think they’re really funny – and it’s so nice to meet people who get it.”
“The best part of this licensing experience has been all of the connections with people, Janet says, “It’s connected me with so many people around the country and even around the world. It has been a real pleasure.”
To see and purchase designs created from Janet Wecker-Frisch’s wonderfully whimsical artwork, visit the Amazing Designs website.
I’ve been in NYC now for several days and we had the awesome opportunity to see an art show that took place in the studio ours would be later in the summer. This was put on by the University of Minnesota and the work I was really attracted to was Tonya Balik. She used pattern pieces with some sort of mod podge to make them stiffer and did all sorts of things to them. She even sewed on them! Who would have thought about using pattern pieces lying around your house that you have no idea where they came from to decorate your room! Next to them were canvases that had a metallic spandex where she had sewn them on the machine, and also some hand sewing. I found it really interesting and I really hadn’t thought of fashion in this sence, it was very eye opening to see her work. None of it was perfect, but together it made such an impressive piece!
www.savegocco.com & www.saraprettyfun.com
Sara Martinez has always been an independent and creative woman … so it’s only natural that she would teach herself how to sew. In less than a year - with a little ingenuity and a whole lot of talent - she has already made a name for herself in the online crafting community and the art fair circuit with Pretty Fun, her own line of unique and affordable purses and other colorful accessories.
Why Pretty Fun? According to Sara, these adorable purses wristlets and messenger bags are as fun to sew as they are to wear.
“I love being able to imagine something and actually turn it into something tangible and show it off,” she explains.
Sara has always been artistic, a trait she picked up from her mother and grandmother - both avid sewers. As a child, she loved to make necklaces and other crafts but never took the time to learn sewing until recently, when she found herself in a department store with a pocket full of birthday money. She bought a sewing machine and started sewing right away.
“It was hard at first because I didn’t know a lot of the basic steps,” says Sara. She taught herself mostly using sewing patterns and “a LOT of trial and error. In the beginning, everything took a little bit of work.”
Sara originally began exploring sewing because she wanted to make skirts. “I wanted to make them my own way, so they wouldn’t be like the clothes that everyone else has.”
However, after attempting to make a purse, Sara discovered her passion. With all the different possibilities of fabrics and embellishments, she started devoting all of her free time to sewing. After mastering her purse designs, she began adding her own touch to purses and accessories with beads, buttons and more - she even taught herself hand embroidery!
Soon it only took her an hour to make a purse, and her closet began to fill up with all of her creations. “I had a big pile of them,” Sara says. She decided to share her purses with her friends and other fashionistas. Plus, ” I needed money for more fabric!” she laughs.
Pretty Fun began with the same D-I-Y mindset that Sara used to learn sewing. Rather than start with the traditional avenue of craft shows and art fairs, she decided to create her own virtual shop at saraprettyfun.com. She and her husband Dave used a simple Yahoo site builder to create it.
“It was a lot of fun, even though it took some time. I’m not super computer savvy, so if I can do it, anyone can,” says Sara. Plus, “you can control the way it looks and works, which is great.”
Pretty Fun’s popularity skyrocketed right away, and she began to meet other sewers in the online crafting community, especially fellow merchants at etsy.com, a handmade haven where Pretty Fun customers place their orders.
“It’s a great way to network and connect with people… and it’s a support system where you can bounce ideas back and forth,” she says. “People reach out through emails and cheer each other on.”
Sara says she has formed strong friendships with artists that she has met through Etsy. What’s more, all of her online networking has led to opportunities to sell her purses at art shows. “Those shows can be hard to find, so meeting people through Etsy has been a big help.”
In addition to networking, Sara’s online friendships have helped her discover new ways to make her purses unique, such as Japanese crafting. “I had actually discovered it by reading a blog from a crafter in England,” she says. “My favorite Japanese trend that I just recently discovered is called Gocco. It’s a way of screen printing onto fabric that produces a great handmade result.”
One thing Sara loves the most about her fellow crafting friends is that they inspire each other. When it comes to new ideas and techniques, there’s no end in sight. Currently, she’s been exploring embroidery possibilities on her new Baby Lock Ellure. “I’ve used so many of the built-in designs and I’m already like, ‘I want more!’”
And talk about inspiration - Pretty Fun is proof that your passion may be somewhere unexpected, and with a little imagination and determination, there’s no limit to how far you can go.
No matter how much Pretty Fun grows, however, Sara’s ultimate goal is to keep Pretty Fun just that - an enjoyable outlet for creativity and meeting people. “I have so much fun with it, and that really is the most important part.”
Pretty Great Advice From Pretty Fun
I write a lot about getting creative with fabric, but what about some of our favorite embellishments, enclosures and notions? As you can see above, sometimes you don’t need fabric to sew something beautiful.
Artist Lisa Kokin creates astonishing works of art using buttons and other small objects. The buttons are woven together with patterns that are just as beautiful close up:
Kokin also creates amazing sculptures, installations, sewn photos (trust me, it’s awesome) and sculptures and collages made from books. If you’re lucky enough to live in the San Francisco area, you can even attend one of her classes.
Really, I don’t know what else to say - it’s just so incredible! Check out the rest of her portfolio at her site. It’s making me see everything on my desk in a whole new light. I wonder what other cool effects could be created by sewing unconventional objects together. Any ideas?
Texan Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts wanted to recreate a famous work of art through embroidery. Not only that, but she wanted to craft the patterns herself without any help from a computer or embroidery software. What did she want to make? Oh, only the SISTINE CHAPEL CEILING.
After 628,296 stitches, 1,809 color combinations, 45 patterns and almost ten years (six longer than Michelangelo took to paint it), Lopianowski-Roberts has finally finished her masterpiece. Believe it or not, it gets more impressive: there are only 1/4, 3/4 and full cross stitches in the piece; no special stitches allowed.
You can find patterns for the entire project in Lopianowski-Roberts’ book, “In The Footsteps of Michelangelo”. And if you’d like some support while you create your own, there’s even a Yahoo Group for Stitchin Women inspired by this amazing project.
Quilting is such a time-honored tradition – so how can you keep it fresh and let your own style shine? Artist Courtney Kennedy does just that, combining her deep appreciation for traditional quilting with her love of modern, contemporary art to create portrait quilts that are nothing short of extraordinary. Courtney displays her fiber work at art shows throughout the Midwest, impressing everyone from young painters to seasoned quilting veterans.
Like many quilters, Courtney comes from a long line of Stitchin’ Women. “Both of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers quilted, and for years our house was full of ancient hand-pieced blankets passed down through generations,” says Courtney. But during her childhood, she focused her creative energy on painting, drawing and other artistic expression.
While attending the School of Art Institute in Chicago, Courtney’s creative environment inspired her to try many new things, including sewing by hand. Courtney enjoyed fabric so much that she took a job at fabric store, and eventually she taught herself how to quilt.
“My first quilt was a really simple block called the rail fence block. It helped me get used to strips and blocks,” she says. “Then I jumped right into portrait quilts… I have the tendency to dive into difficult stuff right off the bat.”
When Courtney returned to St. Louis, she took a job managing a fabric store. She found herself surrounded by quilting experts who were more than happy to share everything they knew. “It was intimidating bringing in projects to show them, because they’re really accomplished and they really know what they are doing,” says Courtney. “It always meant a lot when they would say they liked it.”
While learning new techniques, Courtney was also inspired to read about quilting - everything from worldwide fiber art to the history of the textile industry. She developed a deep appreciation for the craft and women who, she explains, “used quilting and embroidery as a means of expression when there were few acceptable outlets for females to oust their creative spirit.”
“I really feel drawn to quilting,” says Courtney. “I think it is a true art form that women have perfected for centuries, and when I make quilts now, I really feel connected to past generations who used them for everything from a cover to keep warm to sign posts on the underground railroad.”
Courtney’s knowledge of quilt history and contemporary art gave her a wealth of ideas and the creative vision that most artists strive to find, and she soon developed a unique perspective of Past Meets Present Meets Punk.
Courtney regularly displays paintings, drawings and other modern art pieces. However, in a world of paint, clay and pastels, Courtney’s quilting stands out from the crowd. She also incorporates hand embroidery into her shows. “Embroidery is a good skill to have in case you have an art project. Like, ‘It’d be good to draw it, but it’d be even COOLER it embroider it.’”
Courtney gets involved in her local art community by watching for ‘open calls for artists’ in the paper and online, and submitting her work. For the past two years, Courtney has been involved with Venus Envy, an all female art show.
And even when she’s not creating work for shows, Courtney continues to look for inspiration, both through new mediums like the underground comic scene and older quilters who have mastered time-honored techniques. “It’s a great way to bridge the generation gap,” she says. “I think it’s cool that you can sit down with someone’s grandma and geek out about quilting together, and they’ll think you’re the coolest girl in the world.”
Stitchin’ Advice:
On Quilting: Measure twice, cut once. Make sure you cut items straight, and make sure you are using a flat surface. Press and iron. It was hard at keep that ¼” seam allowance at first, but I got it. If you make sure to cut straight and give yourself that ¼” seam allowance, your pieces will come together perfectly.
On Getting Involved With Your Local Art Scene: Don’t be afraid! Take some good pictures and really think about your work. Make sure that the medium you are using is the best one to express the concept you wish to get across.
