Susan Carlson Specimens at AQS QuiltWeek – Paducah 2022!

I’m home now, but what a whirlwind tour was last week at AQS QuiltWeek – Paducah. Whew! It was a thrill for myself and the thousands of excited attendees who descended on the small town of Paducah, Kentucky—doubling the population for those few days—or at least that’s what Tom heard on an NPR radio interview while I was down there.

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Getting There

Readers of my travel posts know that I take in-transit photos to help entertain myself. Below are: a Maine sunrise from a bus on my way to Boston’s airport; landing in Chicago photos since I couldn’t resist the water color and directional arrows on the plane’s wing, Chicago’s underground passage from one terminal to another—jazzed up with music and lights (I always feel like I’m walking through large, illuminated paint chips).

A reminder that you can always click on any of my blog photos to view them larger.

Above and below are photos from Paducah’s Barkley Airport with Debbie the Ambassador, a quilted map of KY and surrounding states, and a welcome display for all us quilters.

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Evening Premier

I arrived ahead of opening day so I could enjoy some of the evening premier festivities—an award ceremony hosted by the fun and entertaining Susan Cleveland, and early viewing of most display quilts and vendors. I did rent a car for a couple days, after which friends from WI arrived who I could share a car and Airbnb with. I was quite happy that since I was giving a lecture later in the week, I qualified as “AQS” staff, as nearby parking grew harder and harder to come by as the week progressed.

A fellow instructor (below), Barb Vlack, who I haven’t seen in a long time, met up for pizza one evening and caught up a little. I also got to drive another teacher friend, David Taylor, on a short errand. So when I thought about what to name my rental car (a quirky little thing I do), my car’s name became “Taylor Vlack”—catchy, eh?

You’d think that as my first time to Paducah and the show, I’d have taken photos of the Convention Center and outside welcome banners and such. Well, no. Too much chatter and distraction and excitement I guess. The inside of the main lobby of the is above in the photo of me and Barb. Below is the upstairs hallway leading to the one of the show quilt rooms (and my “Monarch Maia”).

Not too far from the display room doorway, I spotted my portrait quilt, “Monarch Maia”, in lovely cubby-company with quilts “Fire on my Mind,” by teaching friend Melinda Bula, and “Canopy,” by Julie Bohnsack. Below is short video of the the mini-display taken by my friend Nancy Blake. Following the video are photos and close-ups of these three quilts.

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Specimens is Open at AQS QuiltWeek 2022!

About a week or so before the show a reporter from the Paducah Sun, Levi Brandenburg, contacted me for an interview about my Specimens special exhibit at the AQS show. A past student (thank you Misty!), alerted me to what to look for and I found the article in The Spring Quilt Week publication, above. You should be able to read the article if you click on the photo to enlarge. He did a really nice job (thank you Levi!), and answers many of the questions I answered over the week as I hung around my Specimens quilts.

My exhibit plus a few others were set up in the Dome Pavilion (a.k.a. the Bubble), photos above. To the front of the entrance were vendors, and as you made your way to the back, you could begin to see my “Crocodylus Smylus” quilt (a.k.a. Stevie the Croc).

Every time I left the exhibit to return later, it was (of course) interesting to see who was checking out the exhibit and what they were saying. There’d be arm gestures indicating Stevie’s length and I overheard one woman saying her arm hair was all “tingly” just looking at the croc. And that was so perfect for me to hear—the reason that Stevie is 20 feet nose to tail is because that’s how long these Australian Saltwater crocodiles really grow to. I wanted people to get all “tingly” with that fact as they were standing in front of my big girl.

Off and on during the week I’d be at my exhibit to answer any questions about my twelve quilts on display. But let’s face it, Stevie dominated the other specimens, and garnered the most questions (and photos, below). It took me maybe until the afternoon of the first day that I wished I had printed out the answer to, “How long did it take you to make the crocodile?” It was by leaps and bounds the most asked question. I already had especially printed postcards to hand out, but it  would have saved my voice if I could have handed out an additional piece of paper with that answer at the same time.

So dear reader, you may now be wondering yourself, “How long did it take me to make the crocodile?” Here’s what I said—more or less:

It’s not as easy as you may think to answer that question. The most straightforward answer is that she was on my design wall for two years. There were stops and starts and I hit a wall for awhile, but as far as concentrated work time, probably about a year?

 

However, the idea for creating a life-sized Saltwater croc was in my head for maybe six to eight years before I began the collage itself, and I started collecting “crocodile” fabric back then. I also didn’t have a wall that was big enough to accommodate her length when the idea first came to mind. This was not a practical thought. But when my studio changed and I did get a large design wall, I was ready to dive in since I had had years to develop my fabric palette. So do those “dream” years count?

 

And then what about the 23 prior years of developing my fabric collage technique? The way I was working when Stevie started coming together in 2012 was way different than when I started to collage with fabric in 1990. How do you figure in experience when you determine how long something takes to make?

At that point, people were either ready to move on or hardy enough to ask more questions.

One day, a woman told me how she saw the village I had included in the crocodile. Excuse me? What village? In the video below, she explains what she saw, and now I see it too. Then another woman pointed out the “mask” on Stevie’s back—also included in the video. I love when my work engages people to really look and to see such things. Thank you ladies, for sharing your thoughts with me.

Having Fun with Stevie

Q: How long is Stevie? A: Four Quilters.

Q: Does she like to be smooched and have her chin tickled? A: Of course, just look at her smile.

A lot of people wanted me in their photos with Stevie, so I got to smile a lot. Below left I’m with Yvette Ayres. She was just bouncing with excitement as we talked. I guess I long ago converted her to collage quilts and she’s since been a long-time Patreon supporter of mine—she and many other monthly donors have helped support and encourage Tom and I as we’ve written six and a half years of (free) weekly blog posts, and especially as we scrambled to provide new online learning options the past couple years. So thank you again Yvette and all our other Patrons.

Below right, is another fellow instructor I got to meet at the show, Pat Sturtzel. I had the chance to hear a short talk of her batik process and see the beautiful sunburst patterns she dyes and quilts.

And then there’s the guys. You know, when you see a fellow intently inspecting your quilt, you just have to go up and chat with them. The marine in the blue shirt above, just about had his nose on one of Stevie’s legs when I asked if I could answer any questions. He jumped back with his hands in the air and declared he didn’t touch anything. It was kinda funny—obviously someone had made that “no touch” point to him previously, but I already saw that he was being very good about that. He told me that he had lived all his life in the area, but never had come to one of the quilt shows—and now the quilt world was blowing his mind. When he said he lived on his own in a house with five rooms, I said that maybe one of them needed to become a quilt studio. He admitted that that’s what he was beginning to think as well, and that his four years of Home Economics in high school may come in handy. I noticed him later that afternoon in vendor booths, collecting patterns in his hand.

And that young guy, almost the age of my son, is a fellow artist—a musician in a band. He strode straight up to Stevie and just stood and looked. I had to ask. He had heard of the croc quilt being there and took a break from work to see it. We talked about inspiration and where it comes from. Something I said resonated with him and he told me it reinforced his own thoughts that he was ready to take a leap of faith to write his own music and lyrics. I wish him all the best.

For all the attention that my crocodile attracted, my other specimens got their attention as well, above. I did catch people posing in front of other quilts, asking questions about them, or sharing something they particularly liked. A couple Next-Gen quilters picked my pet quilts because, well, they had their own pets that they loved.

Manning, pictured above with his dad and expressively posing for me with Stevie below (thanks Manning!), is a young member of the family that founded and still owns AQS—he’s got quilts in his past and future. And the young lady below is Parker, one of the most self-composed kids I’ve ever met. She started telling me about her own art and I quickly asked her mom if I could interview Parker. In the resulting video below, Parker tells us of her art, her pets, her new sewing machine, and her favorite color. A girl after my own heart. Thank you for sharing with us, Parker.

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Friends at the Show

My Wisconsin friends that I mentioned earlier in the post and pictured above, are Nancy Blake and Joe Clark. I will have the distinct pleasure of spending time with them four times in one year. Last November I spent time with them before and during a class at Woodland Ridge Retreat, this March they attended an Empty Spools Seminar in California at the same time I was teaching there, then there’s this visit to AQS, and back to Wisconsin in September. I’m very lucky to count them as friends.

While here in Kentucky, we shared an Airbnb cottage just outside of the downtown, and they took care of me. Nancy packed nuts and apple slices to sustain me at the show, Joe drove us around, Nancy took and shared many of the photos you see in this post, and Joe took over handing out my postcards when I needed to hydrate. You guys are awesome.

A mutual friend of ours is Shiela Frampton Cooper (above and below). Shiela is a fabric artist and instructor who’s exhibit was at the National Quilt Museum—just a few blocks from the Paducah Convention Center—overlapping QuiltWeek. On Wednesday, Shiela was giving a talk about her quilts at the museum, so Nancy, Joe, and I went over to surprise her. Since we all three had face masks on during her talk, she didn’t recognize us until we went up to say hi afterwards. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Shiela, and I got such a wonderfully welcoming hug from her.

During the walk back to the AQS show, we all caught up just a bit—it was a short and sweet visit—but Shiela wanted the chance to finally meet Stevie the croc. At one point she dropped to the floor in front of the quilt, to show what a big girl Stevie is. Though it turns out that my pink rhino is Shiela’s favorite quilt of mine.

In next week’s blog post, I’ll be covering some of the other AQS exhibits and MORE quilts—including Shiela’s exhibit at the Quilt Museum. So come back for my “More is Better” quilt show post.

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Friday Specimens Lecture

Hanging out at my Specimens exhibit was a self-imposed job of the week, but giving a lecture late Friday morning was the big reason as to why I needed to be there at the show.

It was an enthusiastic crowd even before showing them my socks. You see, a lady in the front row asked about my socks as we were waiting to begin the slide lecture. I mentioned that they were actually printed with artwork by my art quilt friend, Sue Benner. Then more people wanted to see them. I promised to share a link to buy your own Sue Benner socks, and there it is—through the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska—though they really need to add Sue’s name to the item page!

Anyway, socks are a great ice-breaker to loosen up the crowd and myself. Who knew.

I especially arranged this lecture to cover the twelve quilts in the Specimens Exhibit, including how my art progressed over the years to get to the point of creating these quilts. I used FAQ’s (frequently asked questions) as a base to build the information on—adding in the super big FAQ that I forgot about, “How long did it take to make the crocodile?”—the evening before.

I thoroughly enjoyed this talk and the interaction of the Q&A after. I’m sure it was due to the reactions and energy I heard and felt coming from those in the audience, so thank you, folks. I’ve given online lectures in the last couple years and they were well received, but the given silence of an online audience (they could be jumping up and down in excitement but I wouldn’t know) takes a lot more energy to push through.

I managed to keep the slides to one hour (as scheduled) but ran over with the Q&A. In answer to these questions, or even to those I answered in the exhibit itself, I kept hearing myself say, “There’s more information (about this or that) in my blog,” or, “There’s a post about that!”

So for the benefit of any lecture attendees, Specimens exhibit visitors, or any of you that are now reading this post—I’ve added links to the Quilt Stories about each quilt in the AQS exhibit. Just click on the names of the quilts pictured below, and you can read all about them—original ideas, how I chose their fabrics, how they were put together (what glue do I use), how did I quilt them—there’s posts about all of that.

Specimens quilts: above left to right—Fire Beetle, Samuelsaurus Rex, Exuberance, Tickled Pink, and Gombessa.

Below left to right—Million to One, Polka Dodo, Fructos, Dixie Dingo Dreaming, Golden Temple of the Good Girls, and Kaloli Moondance.

And of course, Crocodylus Smylus.

Next week’s “More is Better” AQS post will cover other parts of the show and parts of Paducah that I got to experience in the five days I was there—see you then!