In this week’s second of four Summer Rerun Saturdays, we continue with the theme of summer travel. For I don’t know how many summertimes in a row, I travelled to the Quilt Gallery in Kalispell, Montana to teach two weeks of workshops. That’s why this repeat blog post is doubly long—it’s actually two On the Road posts in one Rerun Saturday.
These posts, originally written in July 2017, are from when the Quilt Gallery had just transitioned ownership from founder Joan Hodgeboom to new owner Marianne Buller. In past years, I usually stayed the two weeks at Joan’s home, and I did so this year too. Joan is a rock hound, collecting rocks and minerals. Her interest rubbed off on me, which is why my bags were usually several pounds heavier on the return trip. She’s also the one who introduced us to our mini-Schnauzer Kali (litter-mate to Joan’s Sally, pictured at the end of Part 1, below). Kali—named for Kalispell—became my unexpected Montana souvenir and flew home with me back in 2013.
Summer in Montana arrives late. Sometimes the mountain passes into nearby Glacier National Park wouldn’t open until July, after I had already come and gone. But even without visiting the park, the surrounding area is beautiful, as you’ll see in the scenic shots.
But you came to my post today for the fabric collage quilts, and we have a passel of them on display here—two classes worth. Hopefully, they will help inspire you to be creative during this pandemic. Working in our studios (or spare bedrooms or dining room tables) is something we can all safely do. Let’s keep our chins up and keep creating.
On the Road: Kalispell, MT 2017—Part 1
July 8, 2017
A trip to Kalispell, Montana has been an annual tradition for several years now. Joan Hodgeboom first invited me to teach at her shop, the Quilt Gallery, way back in—I believe—2013 (you’d think I’d have better records). I do know I was there that year since I came home with a very small, unanticipated, squirmy and adorable souvenir—our mini schnauzer, Kali, sister to Joan’s new puppy, Sally—both of which have now celebrated their fourth birthdays. The Quilt Gallery has recently changed ownership, but Joan remained my host (it’s kinda like we’re dog in-laws now) and also attended both of the week-long classes I taught this year.
Kalispell is Big Sky Country—in the northwest corner of Montana, not too far from Canada, and just 45 minutes west of Glacier National Park, another beautiful part of the country. I couldn’t resist taking photos from my passenger seat as Joan and I commuted from her home to the shop. One particular day the colors and clouds were especially inviting.
Speaking of Joan, she proved herself very lucky, and quite tough, when earlier this year she fell nine feet off a woodland rock cliff and onto a log—breaking her scapula, several ribs and vertebrae, multiple times each. Yet, she still attended both weeks of my classes and made the best of her accident by her choice of subject matter.
I talk to my students about using the idea of telling a story with their quilt to help with the choice of subject matter, colors, fabric, backgrounds, even quilting and binding. Joan did this in spades with her buzzard (a.k.a. vulture) quilt. Why a buzzard? She and her family were on a hike to see buzzard nests in the cliffs. Colors? All the colors her body turned as she was recovering from her fall: black and blue, purple, red, green, yellow… Fabric? Prints with curves, contours, and lines that represent feathers and rock formations. Background? Woods in early Spring, with cliff face and leaf strewn ground—complete with the log she landed on. The completed quilt will certainly tell the story!
Check out all the great creations from this class in the slide show below. For the sake of continuity, I have included both week’s of Joan’s buzzard quilt progress in this first week’s collection.
Student Work Slideshow
Click here to see last year’s Quilt Gallery blog post and what those students accomplished!
As the class was dispersing at the end of the five days, we had a special visit from two small 5-week old people who’s itty-bitty feet were very familiar to both their mom Amanda Robinette, and now myself. Amanda’s mom and two aunts also took the class, enjoying a visit with the new family members during off-hours! All are pictured below with their projects and, of course, the twins.
And now for a special addition of a time-lapse feature to this post. I had this “great idea” in the middle of the two classes: keep all the intermediary photos I take of the class works-in-progress in order to string them together in a time-lapse progression video. I take many photos as instructional tools, usually keeping only the basic beginning, middle, and end shots and discarding the rest. Now, someone else besides me may have had some better ideas of how to format, crop, and enhance all 97 of the original photos (and that’s just class #1), but it took me a few hours plus another one or so for Tom get the images from photos to movie . Granted, the effect is pretty cool and a step up from something like the student slide show above. I’ll do it one more time for next week’s class #2 post (don’t want to discriminate between my MT students), but I don’t think it’ll be a regular feature yet!
So, sit back and enjoy this week’s mini-matinee.
Time Lapse Movie of Student Work
I leave you with a few parting photos of Joan’s home and acreage—the enchanted woods above left was the view from my bedroom window. I had two days off between classes, getting my pup-fix with Sally and Harley (below), and doing a little sight-seeing with Joan. Tune in to next week’s Part 2 of my On the Road: Kalispell, MT 2017 blog post. Until then!
On the Road: Kalispell, MT 2017—Part 2
July 15, 2017
Between my two weeks of teaching fabric collage classes at the Quilt Gallery in Kalispell, Montana, I had a two day “weekend” to catch up on a little sleep and do some sightseeing. I used the time to soak up MT sunshine and sniff the canola (also referred to as rapeseed), which had begun to bloom across the fields in brilliant yellow profusion during the course of my stay. In combination with the sky, clouds, and mountains, the effect is vibrantly colorful.
My host and former owner of the Quilt Gallery, Joan Hodgeboom, is always open for a jaunt in one direction or another. This year we had to curb the hike destinations (such as Glacier National Park) due to Joan’s falling-off-a-cliff accident of a couple months ago—as mentioned in Part 1 of this blog post. But after four years, Joan has a good idea of the small-town eclectic gallery/boutique and vegan eateries that I particularly enjoy exploring.
Whitefish, MT is definitely a yearly destination. We time the visit to catch their weekly farmer’s market. Besides the fresh produce, there’s a park full of art and craft vendors, musicians, food trucks and tables. We discovered the INDAH Sushi food truck this year with their amazingly delicious tempura bowls. My travel schedule coincided nicely with market days, and Joan and I dined at Indah twice. A culinary delight I’ll be looking forward to next year!
After the two days off, it was time to return to the Quilt Gallery to meet my new class of students ready to jump into a five-day fabric collage experience. And again, daily, it was a pretty nice commute getting there. One day Joan drove us by Echo Lake (above). Beautiful.
And so it begins with introductions and subject ideas being unveiled and discussed. Ready, set, go with drawings, fabrics, scissors. Deb Zimmerman jumped right in with a portrait of her beloved dog, Bailey Boo (above). She described Bailey as having had a bright and colorful personality and Deb’s choice of fabric reflected that. Deb also took a very playful approach as to how she used the printed contours she found in the fabrics to convey the sense of tussled hair and energy she remembers about Bailey.
Usually, I’m so caught up in the individual projects that I forget to step back and take photos of the big picture—the individual space itself, the wonderful chaos of fabric flung here and there, the increasing messiness of table-tops and floor, and the intent concentration in the faces of my students. This time, I remembered.
One pleasure of returning to Kalispell every year has been to see Sunne Brandmeyer (below left) again. She has taken every class of mine ever offered at the Quilt Gallery and has proved herself quite prolific with my fabric collage technique. This year she arrived with two projects in progress, which she brought up to the quilting stage in week 1—a pink flowered pig and a portrait of her granddaughter. In this second week she bit off the goal of commemorating the final deterioration and sinking earlier this year of a derelict cement ship that had been docked off of a pier in Monterey Bay, CA for decades. Of the hundreds of subject matter I’ve helped students convert to fabric, this was the first of a sinking ship. And I do believe that smile of satisfaction is well deserved. See more of Sunne’s quilts in last year’s Kalispell post and this Finish Line post.
Sharon Steele (above right) was half of the mother/daughter combo of this week’s class, attending with her mom, Edwina. Edwina first saw my work years ago at the International Quilt Festival in Houston when my quilt Dixie Dingo Dreaming was first exhibited. She was quite taken by the quilt and finally made it to a class, bringing her daughter along in the process. Edwina chose to learn the collage technique with one of my designs, a gecko. She admittedly struggled with the glue part of it, but you’d never guess that based on her result, which can be seen in the slide show below. Sharon chose to commemorate a Galapagos tortoise seen on a trip with her husband. Her color palette may not be evolutionarily correct, but I certainly think pink is a fine choice and I look forward to seeing how the old fellow evolves.
To see the week’s progress of all the great class projects, check out the following slide show.
Student Work Slideshow
We had a few visitors over the course of the five days: Susan Geissler’s schnauzer (above left) arrived for a cameo with her portrait-in-progress; Moon’s husband (above right) was one of a few husband’s to drop by and check out the proceedings. He and Moon looked so perfect together I just had to get a photo of them. I don’t recollect his name, but I sure wish it was “Sunny”.
The show-stealer of the week was Tucker the Hedgehog. Tucker was rescued from a breeder by store employee (and past student of mine) Sammy Leonard. He has obviously now found his forever home with the care and attention Sammy is providing. Best yet, he loves burrowing in fabric (a readily available commodity), especially his custom-made travel pockets of hedgehog printed fabrics.
And now, as promised last week, the Part 2 time-lapse movie where you can (almost) see the quilts materialize (pun intended) in front of your eyes. Grab the Jiffy Pop (cause it’s not that long) and enjoy.
Time Lapse Movie of Student Work Part 2
To wrap this up, let’s just say there was lots of activity and progress during my two weeks spent in Montana. The days were full of creativity and each evening was a scenic drive returning to Joan’s home. And just like in my own home, pups were waiting to greet us.
Final photos for this week will be of Joan’s garden—a true “rock garden” where just a few hardy plants find root-holds in spaces between the endlessly varied specimens of rocks. Joan is crazy about rocks of all kinds, and her rock gardens are showcases for her collection from all over the country. During my stays at her home, I’ve developed an appreciation of rocks, whether laying in the ground or as polished specimens from the local rock shop, Kehoe’s—another enjoyable side trip. If you’re a rock hound as well, there are other rock and gemstone photos in the slideshow at the end of last year’s Kalispell blog post.
As I arrived home to Maine from my travels and Tom grunted as he lifted my maximum weight luggage into our car, he knew better than to ask, “what’s in here, rocks?!” Of course. Rocks, and fabric.
Farewell Quilt Gallery and Montana, until next year.
Wow, I would love to attend your classes in Montana, but alas, it is so hard to get in because previous attendees have first choice. Could you have classes for new students only? It is very frustrating to be turned away over and over again, only to see the same students enjoying your teaching. PLEASE
Yes, I agree with Virginia, it is very hard to get into a class there. I tried last year…..or teach for a third week of just newbies, we just want a chance!!!!
I also wanted to say how much I enjoy your previous class posts. They look like alot of fun and the resulting quilts are just plain eye candy!!!
It is on my bucket list to take a class from you, I hope it happens!
Thank you for taking the time to make the blogs and send them out. It’s a little piece of heaven every week.
I almost feel like I had a little vacay! Been in lockdown for too long and missing people and being out in the wild. Thank you for sharing your adventure and the wonderful motivating work of your students.