On the Road with Susan Carlson: Fabric Collage in Bar Harbor, ME, September 2022

Some of the venues where I teach fabric collage are really stunningly beautiful. I’m thinking of Tahoe and Santa Fe and Madeline Island and Pacific Grove.

But they ain’t got nothin’ on Maine (I’m starting to sound like a true Mainer).

Bar Harbor, the largest town on Mount Desert Island, is home to Acadia National Park (ranked the eighth most-visited national park in the U.S. with 2.7 million visitors in 2020). Acadia, with it’s entrance just a couple or so miles from our classroom, has it all: mountains, ocean vistas, secluded coves, quaint villages, hiking and biking trails. You want scenery? We got your scenery right here!

This was a class organized by MISA—the Madeline Island School of the Arts. Since their Wisconsin home location is difficult to access during the winter (in the middle of Lake Superior!) MISA has “remote campuses” in such places as Santa Fe and Tucson. Bar Harbor is one of the next places they hope to establish future classes, which range from quilting to photography to painting to writing, and we were the 2022 Maine Inaugural Class!

There’s a lot to figure out at a new location, and it all pulled together earlier in the summer. Though it ended up being a small class, none of my five students complained. Thanks to MISA for following through and running the class regardless, making for an intimate and relaxing and highly productive five days.

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A REMINDER

Upcoming Live Online Classes

For a description of our live online fabric collage classes, visit this link.

November 7-11, 2022 (as of 9/22/22, six spots remaining)
REGISTER FOR NOVEMBER CLASS

January 30-February 3, 2023
This class is now full, please contact Tom ([email protected]) to add your name to waiting list if you are interested.

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The attendees may have been few in number but they made up for it in enthusiasm. They took control of the out-of-class activities with runs to coffee shops and breakfast treats.

I have had four of the five students in previous classes. Lizzie Stebbins and Ann Carr attended my October 2019 Maine Quilt Retreat. Sylvie Aguilar and Darlene Determan (a student of mine for many years), both took part in my May 2021 Live Online Class. Because of their prior experience with the collage technique, I spent much of the days just giving encouragement and feedback as they worked away industriously on their planned projects.

All photos can be clicked on to view larger.

Even a brand new student of mine, Diane Keeports, took off running on Day One. She’s been a follower of this blog and well versed in the fabric collage technique. For two weeks prior to class, she scoured her newly purchased Online Master Class and was more than prepared.

On the first day of class I asked everyone what their creative goals were for the week. Diane, who was only going to be there for three days said that she wanted to first make a fish and then spend the last couple days getting started on a portrait of her daughter—her goal was to play with fabric and be fanciful.

The photos above are where she finished mid-week, colorful and playful with both, and a great start on the portrait. But before she put fabric to portrait, we talked about simplifying her drawing, below center. Diane had accurate detail, just too much. With a new piece of tracing paper placed overtop, we soon simplified the drawing to what was truly needed (below left).

Lizzie Stebbins began with the head of this Key West deer (oh so cute little creatures), but her goal, and concern, for the week was to do justice to the beautiful velvet antlers. I think we all agreed that she had definitely achieved her goal.

Those wonderful neon blue antlers somehow convey the fact that the antlers are still covered in the soft fur that deer have when they are growing new horns, called velvet. Her piece definitely proves the point that “color is irrelevant.” Her deer could have been any color, as long as the values were right, the form would read correctly. There is a nose, a snout, cheeks, a forehead and ears—all look “right” because of her use of value.

Darlene Determan brought along a piece that she has been working on with me online in fabric collage coaching. Her first goal of the week was to finish collating the piece below, her grandson’s cat Serena.

When it came down to it, Serena the cat was more than finished and Darlene was more than ready to move on. The cat background was completed and Serena got a bit of glitter on her chest. Then Darlene then turned to another in-progress piece of her dog, Sophie. Sophie’s portrait has been languishing for awhile with no real direction and Darlene hoped for inspiration in this class.

Well, something worked and over the course of the few days, Sophie transformed from a mostly pink pup to a mostly teal green pup, photos below, and Darlene was delighted. She seemed to relish ripping out the old bits of fabrics and replacing with the new.

Darlene’s previous dog, Claire, a Yorkshire terrier, was commemorated in several other fabric collage quilts, a couple of which you can see in a post covering Darlene’s quilts.

Sylvie Aguilar, who has taken a couple of live online classes with me (remember there are spots open for my November class, above), had a goal of working with a range of colors in this class. Her previous work has been, in her own words, “kinda monochromatic”. Though that is true, she has tended to pick a color and stick to it, they’re still lovely quilts (see here and here).

Sylvie mentioned that she appreciated that I had made the decision during our May Live Online to place her in a Zoom breakout room group with Darlene, whose tendency is to throw as many colors at a piece as she can. Seeing this freedom of expression helped Sylvie let go and utilize the entire rainbow for her cow collage.

Ann Carr tends to be drawn to more whimsical and fantastical subjects. Her first such “ocean spirit” portrait was begun in my Harpwell, Maine quilt retreat in October 2019. This time, she chose to re-interpret a favorite painting (with permission of the artist’s heir) into a fabric collage. Ann’s overall goal was to get as far as she could on a double portrait of Beauty and the Beast. Her initial goal was simply to create a successfully furry face for Beauty’s Beast.

Ann was truly inspired in this class and not only tackled that furry face in one day, but created a Beauty with beautiful hair, and left with background ideas using SKYDYE fabrics she had been saving for years.

To see how these collages progressed through the week, view the slide show below!

Student Work Slideshow

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Show and Share

Since most of my participants were former students, they brought quilts to share with the rest of the class. I think that other’s work, such as the quilts shown in my “Fabric Collage Finish Line” series of blog posts, can be as, or even more, inspiring to students than my own work—success is attainable to everyone.

Diane Keeports

Sylvie Aguilar

Lizzie Stebbins

Lizzie Stebbins—and the (special) subject of her collage quilt

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Tom’s Views of Bar Harbor

Tom joined me halfway through the week and spent Thursday and Friday on the water in his kayak exploring the surrounding islands. In the maps below, he’s pointing to the location we were staying at. The Porcupine Islands offshore were the ones he was planing on circumnavigating that first day in town. He did that, and explored a few other islands as well. Tom can’t wait to get back to the area for more.

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Wrapping It Up

What a lovely week this was, the weather cooperated, friendships were made and renewed, coffee was drunk and dinners eaten, fabrics and sparkly sheers were shared—all in good company. Thank you to my little class for being such big fun.

The center of Bar Harbor was only a mile away, but aside from coffee runs, these ladies kept their noses to the grindstone. Bar Harbor is quite a touristy town with shops and restaurants and knickknacks galore, but still cute and walkable. It makes a great destination, and in September it’s a lot less crowded. I look forward to seeing how this new MISA “campus” develops over time—and I plan to teach another class there in the future.

Addendum

Marden’s department store (below) is another great thing about Maine. Family owned and scattered over a few locations, it’s one of those places you can find anything, but not every time. “I should’ve bought it when I saw it at Marden’s!” is their famous (in Maine) jingle.

Darlene I stopped at their near to Bar Harbor location on our way back down the coast, just dropping in to see if we could find some fabrics. We did. An hour or so later, after getting to know the entertaining cutting ladies quite well, Darlene left with a few more fabrics for her stash, and I left with one or two sparkly and fancy sheer fabrics to add to my collection. I wonder if Tom will notice?