6 Facts You Didn't Know about Dorothea Lange on Off the Wall Friday

 

Dorothy's Lange

This week finds me traveling to Washington DC to visit the National Gallery.  We love the National

Dorothea Lange, Formerly enslaved
woman, Alabama, 1938

Mall since we are kinda museum junkies.  But we haven't been back since 2019 due to the dreaded plague.  I keep an eye on the National Gallery's webpage and discovered that they are running a Dorothea Lange exhibit through March.  So Paul is indulging me with a quick trip down to see it as well as the Mark Rothko exhibit and Masters of American Furniture, the Kaufman Collection (see a little something for me....a little something for him).

Am I the only one who is totally in love with Dorothea Lange's work?  Lange was a photojournalist who is best known for her work of depression-era migrant farm laborers in California and the documentation of the Japanese Internment during World War II.  What I love about her work is that she had a way of capturing her subject's true selves and it's like you are there talking to them.  

Dorothea Lange, Migrant agricultural worker's family, Nipomo, California, February 1936

Dorothea Lange, Nettie Featherston, wife of a migratory laborer with three children, near Childress, Texas, June 1938

It's been a while so I thought it was time for another installment of "Facts You Didn't Know".

6 Facts You Didn't Know about Dorothea Lange

1.  She had polio as a child.  Due to her polio, it left her right leg with a limp.  She felt it, "formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me, and humiliated me."  She credits this life experience with shaping the rest of her life and how she saw other people. 

2.  She was married twice.  She married young to the famous artist Maynard Dixon who had his own prolific career as a painter.  The couple had two children.  After 15 years of marriage, Lange was recruited by  Paul Taylor to work on his research paper on the migrant farm workers of the Dust Bowl. He felt that her photographs would be a good pairing with the written word.  During this work, both divorced their spouses and married forming a long working partnership till her death in 1965.

3. She started her career as a celebrity photographer first in New York City and later in San Francisco.  Here she learned about lighting, atmosphere, and composition.  She also realized that to get the best photos, you needed to be in touch with your subjects.  With the onset of the Depression, her business was affected leading her to start photographing street people.

Dorothea Lange, Human Erosion in
California (Migrant Mother), 1936

4. She could not be hired as a photographer for the government, but rather her title was stenographer.  Paul Taylor was given a grant through Roosevelt's New Deal initiatives.  With these monies, he was able to recruit Lange but the government wouldn't accept her as  "photographer" so instead she had to accept the title of "stenographer".

5. Her iconic photograph of Migrant Mother, Rose Thompson almost didn't happen.  Lange on the last day of the project, she was heading home when she passed the migrant encampment.  She traveled on for 20 more miles, before deciding to go back and photograph them.  She took 5 exposures.  Not only did the photograph become one of the most reproduced in the world, but once it was published in San Francisco, it raised $250,000 for the migrant workers crisis.

6.  Her work was censored.  In 1941, she deferred a prestigious fellowship, so she could document the Japanese internment camps.  Her work was so powerful, that the government seized the photos in hopes that they wouldn't persuade public opinion concerning the unconstitutional camps.  The photos were not publically shown till after the war in 1946.

Dorothea Lange, Grandfather and grandson of Japanese ancestry at a War
Relocation Authority center, Manzanar, California, July 1942

If you want more information concerning the life of Dorothea Lange, I can strongly recommend the YouTube documentary, Dorothea Lange - An American Odyssey. 

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The Color Cabal - It's a thing on Off the Wall Friday

 My day job is selling clothing.  Today, as I sold my 13th coral almond shirt, it had me asking - Why coral almond?  I'm not overly fond of the color, but my customers are eating it up (well not literally).  I long for the days of lime green which I love...but nope it's all about coral this year.  WHY?

Welllll....apparently..... there is a handful of companies whose job it is to decide what are the "In" colors are this year.  How?  Through a lot of research in cultural and psychological trends.  The crazy thing is that it's done years in advance!  Then these companies sell their services to fashion designers, paint companies, interior decorators, and even toy manufacturers!  Any company that has something to design needs to know what the next in-vogue colors are going to be.  

So what are the colors of 2023?

Verdigris - a bluish, greenish, gray that my company calls lagoon!

Tranquil Blue - we call it powder blue

Digital Lavender - Or our Dusty Lavender

Luscious Red - or the dreaded Coral

Sundial  - or Golden Sundance 

Let me tell ya, once you are "in the know" and you see them...it's hard to unsee them.  They are EVERYWHERE.  If you don't believe me, take a walk around your favorite store and start counting every time you see one!

Is it just me or is there something sinister about a secret cabal determining the colors the rest of us are going to have to live with all year?  Maybe it's just the fact that I'm the one that has to explain to my customer why they can't find their favorite shade of cherry red because this is the year of coral.  (It's true - not a cool red to be found!  It's about that warm orangish red).  It's annoying.  The only good thing is that if you don't like this year's colors, the cabal will come up with a whole other set next year!

So that's my rant of the week...

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5 Facts You Didn't Know about Michael James on Off the Wall Friday

North Rim, Michael James, 2022

Wow!  It's been a while since I did a "Facts You didn't know" post.  I love doing these since it gives me a good reason to take a minute and research some of my favorite artists.  This week I choose Michael James.  Now most of us know him, but how well??

Like did you know...

• In 1973, James was months from receiving his Masters of Fine Arts in painting when he stopped cold to take up work in work in fabric.  Can you imagine how THAT went over with his friends
  
  
  and family?  He felt that he had "nothing to say in painting" but was inspired from seeing an exhibition of Amish quilts.  It put him to mind that quilts could be more than blankets for your bed.  Not to mention he was brought up around the dying textile industry of Massachutes. 
• James was married 43 years before his wife died of complications of Alzheimer's.  From this painful experience, he created a body of work, “Ambiguity & Enigma,"

 that was exhibited in 2015.  This is considered one of his strongest series to date.

The University of Nebraska - Lincoln Library houses 40 boxes of Michael James correspondence and research materials.  This includes insights into the beginning of the Studio Art Quilt movement as well as correspondence with Nancy Crow, Pauline Burbridge, and Jan Myers-Newbury to name a few. The collection is open to research by appointment at the library.

Michael James isn't afraid to call his art quilts.  In an article on TextileArtist.org he said, "I make quilts. That admission is, unfortunately, damning in the contemporary art world. The favored term in use among folks who are a bit skittish about ‘the quilt world’ is mixed media Well, that’s fine if maybe a little pretentious. A quilt is a quilt is a quilt. Certainly, there’s some ambiguity here: he’s a man, and he makes quilts? And they don’t look like what you think of when you hear the word ‘quilt’. And he doesn’t quilt them himself, a woman does that. I don’t lose sleep over these perceptions and misperceptions. I just do the work."   (I swear I need to put that on a poster in my studio)

• James was inducted into the Quilter's Hall of Fame (okay raise your hand if didn't even know there was a Quilter's Hall of Fame (grin)) and has a quilt in the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian (here is my plug to put the Renwick on your Bucket list if you haven't ever been there).  His work also resides in the Museum of Arts & Design in New York City, the Racine Art Museum, the Newark Museum, the Mint Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Shelburne Museum, and the Baltimore Museum of Art to name a few.

Now that he's looking at retirement, I wonder how it feels to know that your work has inspired generations of artists after you.

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Facts You Didn't Know About Faith Ringgold on Off the Wall Friday

Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles, 1991

 I love female artists....all ages...all media.  Shrug...maybe it's because it seems like I can relate to their subject matter. Basically what they think is important is lots of times what I think is important.  The female condition.

That's what originally brought me to Faith Ringgold (age 89).  Not only was she a female artist, but she was one that took her subject matter from causes that were important to her...racism, sexism...segregation.  Every woman, especially every African American woman could look at her work and relate.  

Subway Graffiti #3, 1987

Facts You Didn't Know About Faith Ringgold

1.  Faith started out as an art teacher.  She enrolled City College of New York to major art but

The American Dream, 1964

instead had to major in Art Education because female students were limited to certain majors.  (Stop and let that sink in a minute!!)  While teaching, she was also raising two daughters alone with the help of her mother.

2.  Faith was an activist starting in the 1970's.  She was included in a protest on the Whitney Museum of American Art during an art exhibition that not only didn't include any women but didn't include any African Americans.  She was a member of Women Artists in Revolution and a founding member of the National Black Feminist Organization.  Her activism continued right through to the 1990's.

3.  Faith is not just a quilter.  She started out as a painter letting her trip to Europe first influence her work and later starting letting the plight of an African American woman push her into new series.  In the early 1970's she started experimenting with other media including textiles sculpture and masks.  The masks lead to a natural progression to performance art where she explored African story telling and music. 

4.  Faith is not your average quilter.  She originally made the switch to fabric to better align herself with a traditional African American medium.  Plus her mother, Willi Posey, helped in her quilt construction since she was a popular Harlem clothing designer and seamstress.  Her quilts are painted canvas, cut and stitched into quilts (3 layers) with stories written within them  The written word is very much a part of the quilts themselves.

Faith and Willie Quilting

5.  Faith is a award winning author.  She has written and illustrated numerous children’s books, including Tar Beach, Harlem Renaissance Party (2015), as well as an autobiography titled We Flew over the Bridge (1995).

I'm always a little shocked when I do one of these "Facts You Didn't Know" posts.  It's amazing how one woman's life can contain so much ... a lot of which people along the way told her she COULDN'T do.  Can you imagine how her life would have gone if she had listened to that art teacher in college who told her she didn't have what it took to be an artist?  It boggles the mind.

After my quick trip to my parents cabin, I haven't quite gotten back to my studio, but I've been itching to do it!!

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EPP According to Tula Pink on Off the Wall Friday

La Passacaglia, Tula Pink Style, 2016

So yes, it's true.  My English Paper Piecing bug has been reawaken and has been taken to new heights.  I knew that my creative juices would start to flow again...sooner or later...but I would have never guessed that a simple EPP kit in little girls colors would spur it!!  While I finished up the 40 little umbrella blocks of the Abbie quilt I'm making, I started to think what next?!  As usual I started

researching what other people are doing currently with EPP.  Well, apparently, while I've been in my Menofog....there have been truly creative artists dragging bringing the technique into the 21st century (who knew?!  apparently not me...but yeah I'm always the last to know).  And what they are doing with the technique is

  A-Mazing!

One of these artists is Tula Pink.  Now...she.... I have heard of. She's an illustrator, fabric designer, author, quilter etc. What I didn't realize though is that not only she is crazy talented  but she's crazy funny and not one to hide that light of hers under a bushel!! Her designs are featured on all sorts of creative things plus she has sponsorships for Aurifil and Bernina.  Let's just say that Tula is one smart chick that has put the B into Branding which is exactly what every artist should be doing!

What finally put her on my radar though is when I took time to watch her EPP  videos she put out on YouTube in conjunction with the Fat Quarter Shop. Not only were they super informative without a lot of fluff (OMGosh am I the only one that hates fluffy videos?!?!) but they were FREE!  The set of videos were truly informative AND entertaining.  I highly suggest them for anybody doing EPP.  If you're interested in her creative process, you can get a nice glimpse of it here!

That all said ... coming from her videos  ...  I thought I would share some words of wisdom she's gleaned over 15 yrs of doing the technique. 

On Time Management . . .

"I have a lot of quilts to make before I die, so I have to get through them as quickly as possible"

"Maximum Impression. Minimum Effort. My goal every time"

On Perfection . . .

"Striving for perfection is admirable.  Achieving perfection is super boring and never gonna happen."

"Don't try to be perfect.  Put your effort into hiding your mistakes."

On Quilt Sizing. . .

"If I can't fit myself under a quilt, I'm really not interested"

On Friendship. . .

"Anybody who judges you by the back of your quilt, and not your front isn't your real friend."

Upon Thread and Glue Use . . .

"We are not in a thread drought.  Please do not sew till the last inch or two."

"The glue does not need to survive the apocalypses"

Tula teaching during her video

I'm sure I missed a bunch more but I was stitching and listening so I'm sure you understand!  I'm quite sure that the world today needs more people like Tula Pink in it  ... interesting... creative...smart & Fun!

It's amazing what inspiration you can find online!!  We are truly blessed by those that share!!!

hmmmmm... there is a segue in there somewhere ....

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5 Facts You Didn't know about Sewing With Nancy for Off the Wall Friday

Nancy Zieman, 1937-2017

This week we lost the host of Sewing with Nancy, Nancy Zieman to cancer.  Nancy was fundamental to my fascination with all things sewing since I started watching her show in high school and continued on to this day.  Even though at first I didn't sew, I loved watching Nancy with her easy going, peaceful approach to the craft.   Sew in honor to her, here are some interesting facts you might not have know about her.

Facts You Didn't Know About Sewing With Nancy Zieman

1.  Sewing with Nancy first broadcasted in 1982 and was the longest running sewing television program of its kind (Over 800 episodes ).  The early episodes were filmed in her own home living room and broadcast on local cable tv.Nancy was much more than the Saturday morning sewing guru. 

2. She authored over 40 books (including an autobiography), designed notions for Clover Needlecraft Inc, designed a line of fabric and sewing patterns, authored an interactive blog, and founded Nancy's Notion catalog (which was always my go-to place to find the hard to find notions I wanted).

3.  In 2001, she was the first elected member to the Sewing Hall of Fame (didn't know there was a Sewing Hall of Fame??  Me, either!!  

 

4.  Nancy's face was partially paralyzed by Bell's Palsy which she developed due to an ear infection as a toddler.   She was always open about the condition and talked about it on her show. 

5. Charity Projects were a heart felt passion with Nancy.  Not only did her and her husband Richard give quietly through the years, she also inspired others to give with her blog's page - Sew To Give where you can find several organizations to sew for.  Nancy often said, "The Gift is in the Giving". 

 

 

 

Facts You Didn't Know about Quilting - Off the Wall Friday

The AIDS Memorial Quilt

Thought you knew everything about quilting?

Well you thought WRONG!


1.  The word Quilt comes from the Latin word, culcita, meaning stuffed mattress or cushion.  There is evidence of quilted clothes in Egyptian tombs as far back as 5000 years ago.

2.  Dr. Dunn, the Father of Occupational Therapy (1868-1966)  used quilt making as a form of therapy. He was said to have taken up quilt-making in 1915. He felt that the bright colors were pleasing to patients, and that the cutting and sewing helped to take their minds off their inner
problems.

3.  The largest quilt in the world was the AIDS Memorial quilt consisting of 48,000 3' by 6' panels and 94,000 names.  It is the largest community art project in the world.

4. A 2014 study showed that quilting is a 3.7 billion industry in the United States alone.

The First Rotary Cutter

5.   The Rotary Cuter was invented in 1979 by Yoshido Okada, the founder of the Olfa company.

6.  The most expensive quilt ever sold at auction is a Civil War-era quilt known as the Reconciliation Quilt. It was  bought for $264,000 at Sotheby’s in 1991. It is now at the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska .


7. Over 61,000 quilters attended the International Quilt Festival - Houston, Tx from over 28 countries in 2014.


I could go on but its getting late and my eyes are closing.  Researching this post I got kinda carried away reading about what  an amazing art form I've gotten myself into.





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6 Things You Didn't Know About Hundertwasser - Off the Wall Friday

For me there is always an emotion connected to art -  it angers me, surprises me, saddens me.  It evokes feelings of digust or pure joy.  And Joy is exactly what I feel when I look at the work of
Austrian born, Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000).  His work always entertains me, enchants me, enlivens me.  It always draws me in to look more closely.  So, I wanted to share my fascination with you!!

6 Things You Didn't Know about Friedensreich Hundertwasser

1.  He was born Friedrich Stowasser, but changed it to Hundertwasser when he was 21.  His name translates directly into English as "Peace-Realm Hundred-Water". The other names he chose for himself, Regentag and Dunkelbunt, translate to "Rainy day" and "Darkly multi-coloured".

2. Hundertwasser is one of the richest artists in history branding his work throughout Europe and then investing his earnings in real estate and businesses.  Through his stock company Hundertwasser managed his intellectual property rights

3.His eclectic artistic vision was not limited to wall paintings.  It is  expressed itself in pictorial art, environmentalism, philosophy, architecture, postage stamps, flags and clothing.

"Regenturm" (the raintower) ,  Plochingen, Germany

4.  Rejecting the the straight line and calling them "godless and immoral" and "something cowardly drawn with a rule, without thought or feeling" he used bright colors and organic form to achieve a
reconciliation between humans and nature. 

5.  For Hundertwasser, human misery was a result of the rational, sterile, monotonous architecture we lived in  and he designed his buildings with enlivened colors that took on organic non traditional forms.  With strong ecological beliefs, he incorporated nature in many of his buildings.

6.  He died aboard a ship, the S.S. Queen Elizabeth II, in late 2000. He was 71 years old when he passed away, and was buried in New Zealand where he got his second citizenship in years earlier.

Green Tower, 1978

I've always wanted to do a series of pieces in the style of  Hundertwasser because I would love to evoke as much joy with my work as he does with his.

So What Have Been Up to Creatively?

Fun Facts You Didn't Know about Sonia Delauney - Off the Wall Friday

Sonia Delaunay, Prismes electriques (1914)

So last week, I mentioned that I've been in a Sonia Delauney mood.  Now, I know Susan Lenz is  right and I should be worrying about being in a "Nina-Marie Mood", but lately Sonia's work seems more interesting than my own.  And why wouldn't it be??  I mean, gosh,  she co-founded "Orphism",
a style of art that is characterized by strong colors and geometric shapes.  But she was much more than bold colors!

Fun Facts You Didn't Know about Sonia Delauney

• By the time she was 18, she spoke and read Russian, French, German and English
• Her birth name was Sarah Stern.  
• She credited a quilt she made for her baby son as the inspiration for orphism: "About 1911, I had the idea of making for Charles, who had just been born, a blanket composed of bits of fabric like those I had seen in the houses of Russian peasants. When it was finished, the arrangement of the pieces of material seemed to me to evoke cubist conceptions and we then tried to apply the same process to other objects and paintings"

  

  Market at Minoh, 1915

• Robert Delauney was NOT her first husband.   She was married two years to a homosexual German Art Gallery owner she befriended in Paris.  She divorced him once she met, Delaney since  - well - the heart wants what the heart wants!
• She was a fabric designer who advocated strongly through public lectures for change in women's clothing freeing them from corsets and couture that bogged down fashion of the era.
  
• She was the first living female artist to have a retrospective at the Louvre. It took place in 1964 and consisted of 117 works that she personally selected and donated to the museum.
• She did not paint for 10 years after the death of her beloved husband.

I don't know about you, but I love strong multifaceted women.   It truly is a man's world - even today and to survive you have to be strong, innovative and bold.  The more I learn about Sonia, the more I think she was exactly that!


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8 Things You Didn't Know about Bob Ross - Off the Wall Friday

During the lazy, hazy days of summers, the Sayre family has been known to study new things.  Like the summer my husband and 7th grade daughter decided they were going to learn Japanese.  (I'm still finding taped Japanese words on things all over the house!)  Well this summer, it seems that its the summer to discover the treasures of Netflix.

To that extent, we've re-discovered  Bob Ross.  Yes the soft spoken Happy Tree painter from PBS.    Something about his gentile way of painting peaceful paintings really is soothing during this summer of turmoil.  Its amazing too how much you can learn about color, value, and composition watching him paint too.  He's inspired me with all new ideas of how to mix colors as well as how to shade effectively.  Because of this I've done a little research on him!

8 Things You Didn't Know about Bob Ross 

1.  He painted a lot of paintings.  A REALLY lot of paintings to the tune of at least 30,000 in his lifetime which equals to over 500 a year!  Once he connected with PBS, he donated most of his work to their fundraisers.

2.  He was into "Branding" before branding was cool!  Bob Ross never was paid for his work on PBS.  Instead he used his name to build a 15 million dollar a year business selling supplies, books, and videos that continues to this day.

3.  He wasn't always a PBS icon.  First, he spent 20 years in the Air Force rising to the rank of Master Sargent.  His time stationed in Alaska developed his love of mountain ranges and yes, trees.  He retired from the military, when he started making more money selling his paintings and giving lessons.

4. His iconic hair-do was a perm that he originally had done as a cost saving measure.  It became so much of his image that when he grew to hate it, he couldn't change it!

5.  Most episode paintings were painted 3 times - one done beforehand planning the composition, the second on the episode itself and third for close ups shots.

6.  90% of Bob Ross Joy of Painting viewers don't paint - ever.    And yes you can count the Sayre family as part of this statistic.

7.  His fast paint style wasn't a TV trick.  He literally would tape a whole season of  Joy of Painting in just two days doing one episode after another.  The show only ran for 11 seasons but still the 403 episodes are  played to this day.

8.  Sadly, Bob lost his fight with lymphoma in 1995 but his peaceful presence is felt to this day.

Even as a teen I would sit memorized  as Bob created a pretty world were nothing bad ever happened.  Isn't it nice that we can still visit that  world today even if its only for 30 minutes at a time? 

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