On the Road: Portland, ME Collage Quilt Two-Fer—October 2018

I pretty much squeezed the month of October full with my Maine Quilt Retreats. I reported on my Harpswell Retreat a couple weeks ago. Now you get a two-for-one deal with my Portland retreats. My advanced student class and my all-levels class were held on consecutive weeks at the Hyatt Place Portland-Old Port hotel. This modern establishment is located in the heart of Portland (Maine’s biggest city) and a short stroll from its historic working waterfront, which includes a floating restaurant and a marina, as well as craft and art shops, boutiques, and more restaurants than you can shake a glue bottle at.

Advanced Class

It was a pleasure working with each of the students I had over the two weeks, but of course it was extra special to renew my acquaintance with my advanced students, all of whom had taken classes with me before. Many of them brought pieces that were already in progress. Some brought finished quilts for show and tell. Others came with new projects to start. Marilyn and Barb, we missed both of you!

Cynthia Chaddick brought back her self-portrait with elephant (above left) to make more progress in her face, her hands, and the elephant’s head. Kay Burns brought two projects to work on—to begin her beloved horse, Bubbles (above right), and putting the finishing touches on her steer-roping cowboys (below), an impressive piece which she had begun on her own.

Chris Stern (below left) told us about the painting that inspired her swimming bear collage in my blog post from a couple weeks ago. She had come to this retreat wanting to work on the background, creating the shafts of sunlight surrounding the bear, as well as to get a grasp on the rocks and sandy bottom of the image. Those shafts of light were a challenge for me to help her with too, but she carried on and got the idea successfully conveyed.

Joanne Hannon Shaw came to continue creating her eight colorfully individualized turtles (below left), begun earlier this year in April’s Portland retreat. Follow the turtles’ progress in the slide shows in both posts.

Darlene Determan returned to begin a new project, a portrait of her grandchildren as they march along a beach boardwalk (above right). She has a great idea for the background and I look forward to (eventually) sharing the finished quilt in a Finish Line blog post.

We have lots of space to expand into at the Hyatt. On the left, Joanne Schwartz is working on a second portrait of her two cats. To the right, Eileen Doherty is continuing detail work on her mother and baby gorillas. These two met at last April’s Portland retreat and picked up the friendship where they left off.

On the first day, I asked folks to tell us a little about their goals for the week and maybe a little show-and-tell. Too late, I thought about videoing their talks. I only caught three of them, but here they are. Both Joanne and Eileen are entertaining as they talk about their April projects in the videos below.

In that same retreat, Laurie Levesque began a portrait of her Boston terrier, Suzy. In the third video below, she tells us her goals for this retreat—something that’s very helpful for me to keep everyone on track and focused for the intense week to come.

In the video, I zoom in and remark what a great job Laurie had done with creating Suzy the dog’s feet and toenails. What turned out to be very funny, is that it took a couple more days before I noticed something unusual about Suzy’s back paws—there were three of them—totally unbeknownst to Laurie or anyone else who had already admired the portrait. Upon closer look at the original photo, it seemed that Laurie misinterpreted belly folds and bumps into foot pads and nails. But you know, to me it meant that Laurie was “in the zone” as she was working on this—it’s when concentration is so deep that the overall image disappears and what you see is the relation of one shape next to another—the color, value, or contour as it moves across the subject. In the best of times it happens to me when I really get into a piece. It’s like a meditation. Laurie was spot-on with the contours of those feet and legs, who cares that a fifth one crept in. You can always edit later. Which she did.

As you can see in the photo above, Laurie more than made good on her wishes for the week. She figured out what the background for her pup would be, and she got an awesome start on her frog’s face. She also surrounded herself with a lovely mess, though was quite organized in separating her fabric into a range of values in a variety of colors (below right)—creating a fabric pallet to work from.

And one more thing about Laurie’s frog—his eyes. She tackled those first since that is what attracted her to the photo. She analyzed them down to the reflections caught in the dark of the pupil. In the photos below, are the battered remnants of a piece of a small floral print. Laurie saw the texture of the frog’s iris in the small leafy part of the print. With some fussy-cutting and collage, she got the realism she was going for. Great job.

You met most of these ladies (above) already, if you saw the blog post of two weeks ago. In that post they each gave us a favorite tool, hint, or insight for fabric collage. I’ve already heard feed-back from many readers as to how helpful and encouraging their thoughts were. Thank you, ladies.

Because they’d taken classes with me before, I skipped the morning technique demonstrations. Instead, I used our time to coach them individually on their use of color, the complexities of value, and the creation of form—more like an independent study. Each quilt is unique and presents its own set of challenges. One size does not fit all. Which is challenging and fun for me. It certainly doesn’t get boring!

Here’s a couple more class pics—Joanne Schwartz’s obviously adored cat, and Brigitte Schoen’s (much) larger-than-life-sized betta fish—with lots of progression photos in the following slide show.

Advanced Student Retreat Slide Show

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And finally, I also asked this class of students what extra skills or points they’d like to learn more about during the week. One thing was to learn how to take better photos of their finished quilts. So Tom, my husband and personal photographer, brought by some studio lights and tripod to demonstrate how to get a good shot of a quilt with a smart phone. We still recommend a professional photographer for the photos you’d send with a show application, but this works for social media, or to send to me for a Finish Line blog post! The extra benefit was that a few students learned how to use their smart phone better as well. As I also reminded them, “there’s a blog post about that,” and you too can check it out here.

All-Levels Class

We had a special guest for this second week of Portland retreats: Claire the Yorkie. For such a small dog, she makes a big impact on people. Mostly, she slept quietly in a corner while her mom, Darlene, stepped in to fill a last minute cancellation and the chance to start a second project.

This new group of students were truly all-levels with most first-timers, one who had taken one of my newer on-line classes, and a few with one or more classes under their belts. Each morning began with a cuppa for me and a presentation of one fabric collage aspect or another for the class. They had really good questions and comments and if you’re new or not, it helps to hear these points more than once.

As did the class before them, these ladies allowed Tom to video them, this time talking about their subject matter choice. You’ll be able to see those videos in next week’s blog post. We thank them again for sharing their insights with others.

Roll over or click on collage subject photos below for names of makers and to enlarge the images.

As mostly first-time students, they were figuring out what subject matter works for best for them. As a teacher, that’s one of the things that’s tough for me. In my 24 years of teaching, I’ve learned that there’s no way to know ahead of time how someone will take to this process. If someone has painting or drawing experience, it can be a plus but not a guarantee that they can interpret what they see in a photo into what they collage in fabric. A complete novice may “get it” from day one, and a seasoned artist can grapple for days with the best way to initially cut the fabric. But we all approach creativity from our own directions, and my hope is that by the end of the week each student may be exhausted, but satisfied with whatever progress was made. No matter what, I’m always so proud of the work and concentration that “my ladies” put into each day.

And below are progress shots of the individual projects.

All Levels Student Slide Show

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In each week of a Maine retreat, I take students out for a group dinner. Some bring along extra folks—partners, friends, family—and the number can grow. Week one in Portland was a smaller crowd, so we headed to a favorite restaurant, Pom’s Thai restaurant in the center of town. Week two added a couple husbands to an overall larger class size to begin with, so we headed to the waterfront and a larger restaurant, Flatbread Company (below)—with salads and pizzas made from locally sourced ingredients, plus built on a pier that juts out over the water. Good location and good food (complete with hard-to-find dairy-free, gluten-free pizza for me!)

The two weeks in Portland had showers and sunshine here and there and weren’t particularly warm, but there was some fall color for the leaf-peepers to enjoy. I did get out for early morning walks through town on a few of the days—one week Tom joining me, and the next week Darlene and Claire the Yorkie coming along. Below are morning shots from both weeks”“including a farmer’s market—to finish off your virtual visit to Portland, Maine.

Downtown Portland, Maine Scenic Slide Show

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Speaking of Retreats…

I know some of you are waiting to hear when I will open enrollment for my 2019 Maine Quilt Retreats. I announced the dates in a previous blog post, but fair warning, I’m planning on making some changes to that schedule. Since the time to iron everything out has not presented itself in the last couple months, further information will be coming in early December instead.

Thank you for your patience.