Art as a Business

Before I get to some more serious discussion, here are a couple of small pieces for you to ogle. The first is a fairly recent piece that is completely hand stitched and beaded. I worked on it in small bits of time over a year or so. It was the piece I took with me when I needed some handwork to do at my weekly casual quilt group gathering. It is rather heavy with beads and embroidery floss! The title is: "With Silver Bells and Cockle Shells"

Here is another piece I did fairly recently which sold right away at River's Mist Gallery to our local newspaper owner. It is called "Haiku" because of its somewhat oriental feel and it is a small, simple piece. It received a lot of nice comments when it hung in the gallery.

I have a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and one in Hotel Administration so I have taken my share of marketing and business classes. I am currently not working a 9 to 5 job where I would apply my education, but I find that I am using many of the skills for marketing and promoting my art and myself in the art/quilting community.

I have been successful in getting my work into 8 different area galleries over the past few years and I am continuously showing work in three of them. I prepare paperwork to keep inventory records of what I take and pick up from these venues, I have images of all my work so I have a record of what it looks like, I make up price tags and artist statements and sometimes prepare an artist profile for these various venues, I rotate my work in and out every month or so to keep them fresh, I have insurance coverage for my work and I claim all my art-related expenses and income on my taxes. This serious business!

I spend quite a bit of time organizing my inventory of work for preparing show entries and determining what can be entered where and what is available or in galleries. This is a very complicated task since each show has different requirements for size, type, deadlines for entry and length of commitment for the quilts, and some need the quilts to be for sale so they are then unavailable for entry to later shows until that show is over. I have a good inventory of pieces and I enter quite a few shows, so keeping track of what is available for a particular show can be difficult. My husband is in the process of creating a database for me that might help with this, but I don't think it will eliminate all of the issues. Some of the decisions I have to make are purely subjective like trying to find a piece to fit a theme or style of show.

I try to keep my website and blog updated but haven't been as prompt with that as I should be. I have a slow dial-up computer connection and that makes it a chore to upload images to my blog and even get in and out of the management site for it. I am hoping to keep more current with my blog and vary my topics so that readers might actually feel like they get something out of it. I've tended to go on about my accomplishments more than anything else! I'd rather start sharing some knowledge about how I create my art and run my business.

I have done some lectures and some trunk shows and a few small mini-classes and have found these things rewarding and fun---although I do get very nervous. I am trying to decide about whether to pursue the teaching thing right now and am leaning towards devoting time to writing instead of teaching. Maybe down the road I'll feel more comfortable charging people money to learn something from me, but now I don't feel I can devote the time and effort into it that will make it worth what I want to charge. I'd rather be creating! And writing I can do in little bits of time that I have available as opposed to the intense preparation of materials and curriculum for a successful class. I think I'm just not ready to be a teacher quite yet, but I'm still debating this.

Donating

"Oxygen"
[leaves dangle from beaded strands]

It is an interesting proposition when you are deciding to donate work to various causes. I have recently given several pieces to my church and will soon be selecting some for my guild's silent auction at their show in June as well. The pieces I gave to the church are for their fundraising efforts at the annual Outdoorsfest they sponsor. I had to ponder what to give based on whether the pieces were to be given out as "door prizes" randomly or if people would be bidding on them as auction pieces. It would be too bad for someone to get a quilt who had no use for it or interest in it. I know that I am giving them up and whatever happens to them is really none of my concern now, but it still would be sad!

When I give them to a guild effort I know that whoever wins the piece or buys the piece will likely enjoy it so that is not as difficult. The pieces are not usually my best or most sellable ones but they are nice pieces that I feel comfortable using to represent me and my work. I don't want to give them really bad pieces that I don't think are any good, but I don't want to give up my most sellable or show-worthy pieces either. And larger pieces are difficult for most people to find room for in their homes so I usually give small pieces.

Here is one of the quilts I gave to my church. It is one I made last fall that I really like and felt that it fit in with the outdoor theme of the event. It is called "Flyway".

This next quilt is one my mom wanted to buy from me so I gave it to her. I really like the abstract imagery of this piece that really has a lot of feeling and evokes memories for me. I really enjoy creating pieces that are very abstract in nature but definitely are suggestive of something real. This one works for me.

Friday evening (May 6) is the opening of the Bitterroot Artist's Showcase sponsored by SASS (Stevensville Art and Sculpture Society) at River's Mist Gallery. The reception will be from 6-9pm so please join us!

Back to the studio to churn out some more work for my upcoming solo exhibit at Art City!

Exhibitions and Activities

I just completed a quilt for entry into the “Deep Spaces” exhibition being organized by Larkin Van Horn. I am very happy with how the piece turned out and very hopeful that it will get into the show. She is an artist that I greatly admire and I like the theme she chose. I'm sure there will be great competition, so I'm just hoping that my images can compete. The piece I made has three large cutouts and two layers added behind the cutouts to create depth and interest. It also has fabric leaves dangling from seed bead strands. Both of these techniques are ones that I use quite frequently in my work and really enjoy experimenting with. This was a rather dramatic experience for me in regards to the cutouts because they are so large. It is an interesting experience to cut large holes in a quilt that you have just spent a good deal of time creating, layering and quilting! Luckily I think it turned out well and if the piece does not make it into the show I will be happy to show it locally in one of the shows I have set for this year.

I found out recently that one of my pieces, “Glorious Leaves”, will be traveling with the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) exhibition entitled “Sense of Adventure”. It will be first exhibited at the Houston International Quilt Festival which is very exciting. They are publishing a catalog for the show so that will be my first time having that experience. This piece incorporates some of my shibori dyed fabric and some hand embroidery along with the thread-painted leaves and extensive machine quilting.

"Glorious Leaves"

I am busy creating new pieces for my June/July solo exhibition at Art City in Hamilton, Montana. I just finished creating an image for a postcard. I was happy to be able to figure out how to collage some images together and put them on a black background and I am happy with the result. The show will open on First Friday, June 6 so if you are in the area please join me and see some new and some not so new work! Also, if you are in that area in May the Recycled Art Show is still up and there are some interesting pieces there. I have 3 quilts in the show made with plastic shopping bags fused together and combined with fabric and some other found or re-purposed items. It was a fun project to work on, but plastic is not my favorite medium!

Last Wednesday I gave a presentation to the Bitterroot Quilter's Guild about my work and inspiration and it went very well. I had lots of nice comments and it is always good to have it reinforced how supportive they all are of my work. I think I was able to combine a little bit of education and information with some eye candy to make everyone happy! Now I am ready to do more programs like that for other guilds or fiber art groups in the region. Will have to look into that.... Will also have to work on reducing my nervousness. My mouth started drying up as soon as I got into the car to drive to the guild meeting and continued all the way until I was done with the program!

Ready to start a new piece tomorrow after I attend my son's final field trip of the year to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in Missoula. His school is getting out early this year (May 6) because of construction on the campus, so I'll have to work around him in getting new work ready for my show. I'm sure he'll be able to occupy himself for part of the day and let me get some things done although I will definitely not have the nice uninterrupted big blocks of time that I have when he is in school. It's ok---I enjoy having him around and taking him with me wherever I have to go as he is well-behaved and usually doesn't mind going places.

Next week is my 48th birthday and I'm starting to think about that milestone coming up—50! Boy, I don't feel that old. Hopefully 50 is the halfway point since people seem to live longer and longer these days. I guess I'll have to get myself out from behind my sewing machine and get some more exercise so I can have one of those long lives too!!

Judging and Jurying

I just got my quilt, "Twilight", back from the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival out in Hampton, Virginia. The comments from the judges were good, but I did not get an award. It is nice to get feedback from these nationally known teachers/judges about your work and I find it worthwhile to enter these shows for that reason. Here is what they said:

"Beading is very effective. Juxtaposition of quilting designs is interesting. We like the use of textured fabric. Stitch techniques (and we are nitpicking here) needs to be neater--watch your binding."

I usually get comments about my stitching since I'm not a perfectionist in that regard. I usually do try to make neat bindings, and I think this one is pretty good, so I'm not sure exactly what they mean. I always wish I could be there to hear their discussion about my work and get even more hints on why a piece is not a "winner". I believe that usually for me it is my lack of perfectionism that puts me out of the running. Sometimes I'd like to know where I was in the standings---did I get out right away or was I considered for an award and bumped out because of my stitching.......? Always all these questions cross my mind and make me wish I was a fly on the wall!

This weekend I am driving to Billings, Montana for their retreat and quilt show (I'm not participating in the retreat). I entered three pieces in their show just to get my work to other side of the state and see what people think. I'm staying with a friend for a couple of nights and hope to "peddle my wares" to a gallery or two while I'm there. I'll take some of my work with me as I always do and see if anyone has time to take a look. It has worked before!

Next week I'm taking a design workshop with Lyric Kinard here in Hamilton and I'm really looking forward to that. It is rare that we get anyone of her caliber in our rather rural setting so it is a great opportunity. No matter what she was teaching I would have signed up!

The local gallery where I show my work, River's Mist, is having a show this month of artwork from Stevensville Highschool students and it is a very nice show. If you are in the area I recommend you stop in to what these young people are doing. You will be impressed. Many of us in the community thank Gretchen, the proprietor of River's Mist, for hosting shows like this. She is very supportive of local artists and we greatly appreciate it!

I have two of my pieces on www.infinityartgallery.com which is a site that sponsors on-line art show competitions. The pieces in the Spring Expo will be out there in this "pre-exhibit" until the juror chooses the winners and then those will be there through April. There is quite a variety of art there so evaluating it must a difficult job. Take a look and see how you think my fiber art compares....

Fibery February

No excuses for the long hiatus, just pure procrastination! I really need to try to get into a routine with my posting and do it on a regular basis. Anyways, here I am!

We had the Tarts fiber art show, An Affair of the heART, over the Valentine's Day weekend in Hamilton, Montana, and it was a great show. There are many wonderful fiber artists involved in this group and it was nice to see such a variety of styles and talents. Many pieces were sold, although only one of mine (to one of the members of the sponsoring company, In Good Company!), but then mine are a little pricey. I was very pleased with the continued positive response to my work and loved all the accolades I received about it. No one guessed which challenge quilt was mine as it was unremarkable. I didn't even place in the voting this time. I entered quite a number of pieces this year in a range of prices hoping to sell a few, but even without sales the exposure to the number of visitors that attend this show is a definite positive advantage to showing here. The show is hung in a gallery type style and the four women from In Good Company do an excellent job of it. I hope the show will continue for many years to come!

I did sell one new piece on opening night of the floral theme show at River's Mist Gallery in Stevensville. It is a beautiful little beaded piece called "Haiku" and I wish I had longer to bond with it! It is still hanging in the show and when I see it I grow more and more fond of it. One of those that I could live with myself if I ever chose to keep any of my work! "Everything's for sale" I always say, since that is the goal of my efforts.

In January the show at River's Mist was all photography in one form or another so I thought I would play around with some digital images on silk. Here are two of the pieces that were in the show and at the Tarts show.

This one is from a picture I took of a bright orange and black poppy in my garden. I manipulated the color and created a collage. Technicolor Poppy - $300.00

This next one is a small piece with an image taken in my back yard looking through the cottonwood trees along the creek. The Glow at Dusk - $64.00

These next pictures are from one of my sketchbooks showing some of my doodling to try to come up with new quilting designs or variations of designs, or sometimes just to get the hang of the directional aspects of a design. Just moving your hand with the pen/pencil gives you a good feel for moving the quilt under the needles when you are creating free motion quilting designs. In the class I am hoping to teach one of these days, I will highly encourage my students to keep a sketchbook and use it for doodling. I also use my sketchbooks for recording ideas for quilts or for parts of quilts. Sometimes I sketch and then make small notes about what I'm thinking so that when I look at it months down the road I might remember why it was such a good idea! I also use my sketchbooks to draw variations on a theme when I need to make a piece for a challenge or show that requires a certain theme. I find those most difficult to be inspired for, but drawing out whatever ideas come to mind and then choosing the most interesting one has worked pretty well. Most often the finished piece is only loosely based on the original sketch, but that's what creating is all about for me. I rarely have a complete vision of a how a piece is going to end up, it just evolves as I go along.

I just completed my little 12"x12" piece for the next SAQA Auction and am very happy with the results. In order to travel to the Cincinnati quilt show and be considered for some of the marketing efforts for the auction it has to be there by March 15 so I have a little while to bond with it before shipping it off. The piece goes back to a style I haven't done for a while with cutouts, dangling leaves, and a reversible panel. The logistics of creating this type of design, particularly in a piece so small, was rather daunting, particularly since I did not account for how I was going to hang the piece and had to some up with something that would work with the reversible panel. I think it works fine and hope that someone will enjoy the color change opportunity that it presents. The piece is called "Choices" for the reversible panel as well as for the choices we as fiber artists make throughout our processes and in our creative journey.

My next project to tackle is my tree trunk for our group exhibition which is due at the end of April. I have it started on the design wall and am ready to pin it together and start stitching down the components. I think I like it, but it might be a bit cumbersome to quilt. We'll see how that goes. I seem to have a bit of a block for working on it and I'm thinking it is because of it being in a group show and wanting it to turn out well---and not being sure it will! As always, I will just hope that through the processes of quilting and then embellishing it will become worthy! I am really hoping to create at least two trees, so I better get moving!

I now have some work at Madison Creek, a very nice furniture and gift store in Stevensville. They will soon be opening their "Gallery at Madison Creek" upstairs. I'm hoping to hear from them any day that they are ready to open it up for visitors.

This weekend one of my quilts will be at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival on the east coast. "Twilight" will represent me well I think. I really like getting my work to other parts of the country to see how well they are received and have been very happy with those efforts so far.

New Year's News

Well, I have survived through the holidays and I sold a few ornaments for some spare change (but not much else)! Now I am hoping for some success in this new year in selling a few pieces and maybe getting something published. I am planning to submit some articles to see if there is any interest in publishing my writing but first I need to get images to go with them. Most of the magazines seem to want images illustrating your discussion up front so that is what is currently holding me up. Hopefully I can work on that in between upcoming deadlines.

Our yearly TART's show of fiber art will be February 11-13 at the Hamilton City Hall (old Bedford Building) at Bedford and South 2nd streets in Hamilton, Montana. I will have some pieces in the show and am currently working on a piece for their challenge. Hopefully I will have some new work that no one has seen yet. This has always been a pretty good venue and I usually sell a piece or two so I'm hopeful!

There has not been much success in getting people to sign up for the classes at Patchwork Quilts and I think I will try to come up with a condensed class that will be more inexpensive for people. Maybe just a one day class on a Saturday. I'm planning to work on that this week . Since I have all the plans outlined for the three session class I'm sure I can work up a shorter class fairly easily. I certainly understand why people don't want to spend the money I'm asking for, so I'll just have to adjust my plans and see if I can't offer what they want. That is really the goal, isn't it?

I have mentioned that my piece, "Blackberries and Dandelions" is in the Art Quilts XV show in Chandler, Arizona. I was interviewed by a reporter from the Phoenix newspaper (Arizona Republic) about my piece. The article was about the new space that the Vision Gallery is occupying and they mentioned several other artists in the show who are from Arizona and the names and prices of their work. She went into a little more detail about my work and my background. The reporter incorrectly stated that I created the batik fabrics in the piece, but they are commercial fabrics. I did dye one of the fabrics in the piece and she misunderstood what I said about that. Unfortunately they did not publish a picture of the quilt as she had hoped and they didn't give my website address, but it was nice publicity to be mentioned prominently in the article. The reporter told me that my piece was her favorite in the show which was very flattering since there are almost 100 pieces and many much more seasoned artists than I. Hopefully the article will send some more people to the show--and someone will buy something. I heard that only one piece has sold so far. I believe the exhibit is supposed to be taken down on January 18.

I am currently working on a small piece to send to Studio Art Quilt Associates for their Traveling Trunk Show. The pieces are supposed to give people an idea of the great variety of techniques and styles being used in art quilts and hopefully my piece portrays what I am doing. I have finished the piece and need to write up a description of the work and techniques used so I can send it off. The pieces are sent out to lots of places all over the country for interested people/groups to look at and be inspired by. We had some of them come here locally last year and enjoyed the variety and quality of the work very much. I regretted that I hadn't submitted anything for that grouping, so I'm making to sure to get one in this year! I'll put a picture up soon...

Friday evening I attended the opening of the Missoula Art Museum's auction exhibition at which one of my pieces, "In A Heartbeat" is displayed. It is in the silent auction which will take place the same evening as the live auction in February. It was a wonderful exhibition of art from many local artists (and others) and I enjoyed the great variety and quality of the work. I do hope that there is interest in my piece as I would be somewhat embarrassed for them to have to give it back to me! There was only one other fiber art piece and it was quite different from mine (by Nancy Erickson) and I don't believe it was a recent work. This was a juried submission process so we had to send images of some pieces to be considered and I was honored to be included.

I have been somewhat disappointed in the lack of comments on my blog and wanted to ask if there are any problems people are having doing that, or if you just don't have anything to say. Please e-mail me at heidi@heidizielinski.com if you experience any problems with commenting. I'm curious as to how other bloggers get people to make comments and get feedback for what they are sharing. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Small Art Quilt Classes at Patchwork Quilts

For those who are in my neck of the woods, I am pleased to announce that I am offering a 3-session class in making a small art quilt at Patchwork Quilts in Hamilton, Montana this coming February. The classes are on the first three Thursdays in February (2/3, 2/10, and 2/17). The first session is on making an art quilt top, the second is on layering and quilting the top, and third session is on embellishing and finishing the quilt.

Patchwork Quilts is at 1720 N. First St. in Hamilton which is the main road through town (Hwy 93). You can call them at 363-5754 for details, or stop in and see the samples for each of the sessions that I just dropped off at the shop.

By the way, you can take one or two or all three sessions as you like. If you only want the quilting one, just sign up for that one. I will be attempting to make them independent of each other, but if you take all three they will definitely be a nice progression towards a finished piece.

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions about the classes. I would really like to share what I know with you and hope that you will let me know what you'd like to learn. I've had many people tell me they would like to do what I do but don't think they can. I think I can teach you some things that will help you move in the right direction. I will hopefully even share some things with you that you can use no matter what kind of quilting you like to do.

Also, if you sign up and need help with the supply list please don't hesitate to contact me. I'll be bringing some fabric, thread, and embellishment stuff for each relevant session that will help to supplement whatever you bring, so there is no need to stress out about it!

Hope to see you there! Thanks!