Life Along the River

The Longest Day, detail

I'm having a solo show of my work at the Pennsylvania Arts Experience Gallery at Marketview Arts, 37 West Philadelphia St., York, PA.  The exhibit opens with a reception on Friday, March 3rd from 5:30 - 9:00 p.m. I will be giving an Artist Talk on Saturday, March 25th.

The Longest Day

Sue Reno: Life Along the River, will feature my narrative art quilts depicting the Susquehanna River and its environs. There will be several works making their exhibit debut, including The Longest Day, a celebration of the summer solstice, as experienced by the Veterans Memorial Bridge over the Susquehanna..  It includes wool and silk fibers, cyanotypes on cotton, digital prints on cotton, needlefelting, hand embroidery, machine stitching, hand beadwork with seed beads and semi-precious stones.  Size is 77"h x 49"w.

I'll be posting more of the work that will be in Life Along the River in the coming weeks before the exhibit opens. I hope many of my local friends will be able to attend.

As always, thanks for reading and commenting.

New Work - The Longest Day

The Longest Day

I am happy to share my latest work, The Longest Day. It's a celebration of the summer solstice, with an emphasis on observing it near the Susquehanna River.  It joins the other works in my ongoing series The River.

The Longest Day, detail 1

 The center panel, which was made independently and attached to the supporting quilt, is made from luxurious silks and wools.  It is needlefelted, hand embroidered, and heavily hand beaded.  There's a lot of textural richness there that could only be achieved through textiles. I greatly enjoyed the process of stitching and beading it, slowly over a period of time.

The Longest Day, detail 2

 The supporting quilt features cyanotype prints, from photos I took of the Veterans Memorial Bridge in Columbia, PA.  They are framed by patchwork made primarily from Mysore silks.

The Longest Day, detail 3

 The composition is framed again by digital prints of the same bridge.  The entire piece is heavily machine stitched.

The Longest Day, detail 4

It's a complex piece, with a lot of interplay between the various visual and textural elements. The size is 77" high by 49" wide.  I'm thrilled with how well it all came together--now the challenge is to find a good venue to display it.

You can track this work back as a work in progress by clicking on The Longest Day under Labels in the right sidebar. 

As always, thanks for reading and commenting.

Work in Progress - The Longest Day, update 3

What began as a small needlefelting demo piece, one of the step outs I made when I taped a segment for Quilting Arts TV, has morphed into a large quilt.  I began to border the embellished panel with patchwork strips, then decided it would benefit from cyanotype imagery.  Plus, I really enjoy making cyanotypes.  I began with some pictures I had taken of the Veterans Memorial Bridge, which spans the Susquehanna between Columbia and Wrightsville, PA.  I enhanced the images and made them grayscale, above, and then negative, below:

I printed the images on transparency sheets and used them to make exposures on treated cyanotype fabric.  These were layered, had a preliminary round of stitching, and then fitted into the patchwork.

I bordered the whole works with more of my photographic imagery that I had commercially printed onto cotton sateen.  It's a complex composition, but I'm excited about how well all the elements contribute to the aesthetic of the whole. And the intensive quilting that ensued since this photo was taken has further unified the piece and added texture and movement.

You can track "The Longest Day" back as a work-in-progress by clicking on it under Labels in the right sidebar.

As always, thanks for reading and commenting.

Work in Progress – The Longest Day, update 2

I wanted to add more beadwork to the center panel of this work in progress, The Longest Day. I had done a lot of hand embroidery on the needlefelted portion, and stitched in rows of seed beads along the path of the river, so I had a large investment of time in the work already.  But I felt the borders would benefit from the addition of chunkier beads to represent the islands and rocky outcroppings prevalent in the river. I used a combination of larger glass beads and semi-precious stones to evoke that aspect. It was slow work, but very satisfying. (Pictures enlarge when clicked.)
In the meantime I was thinking about the my options for the background/supporting quilt.  I made a large strip pieced panel using my stash of silks from Mysore, India.  It will be sliced up and reconfigured. I did some digital alteration on a photo of the Veterans Memorial Bridge, in Columbia, taken at sunset.  I had it commercially printed as yardage.  It will also be sliced up and reconfigured.

I am additionally considering adding some cyanotype images.  It’s all starting to come together; now I need to block out some time without distractions to do the final design and construction of the quilt top.

Thanks for following along!

The Longest Day – New Work in Progress

At the last minute I wanted a hand stitching project to take along on our recent vacation to Reno NV and Berkeley CA. I still had several of the small needlefelted pieces I started as step outs for the Quilting Arts video shoot last year. I took one of them and added some borders, pulled some likely embroidery thread colors, and packed it up and stuck it in my carry on.

I worked on it a bit on vacation, and spent a lot more time thinking about it. We began our trip on the summer solstice, which was also our wedding anniversary. A few days prior we had been to the Susquehanna River in Columbia to take pictures in the clear soft light of late afternoon.  The mood of the piece was trending towards an early summer colorway, so  I decided to embrace the theme.

I used a simple running stitch to add line and flow to the river portion.  I’m calling it simple, because it’s just a running stitch, in and out of the fabric in a line. But as I worked on it I realized that it was reflective of years and years spent hand stitching and hand quilting. I’ve gone through countless spools of thread and hanks of embroidery floss.  I’ve literally worn out many needles over time.  My stitch at this point is definitely an expression of “the hand of the maker”, where I strive not only for technical excellence but also for a unique signature.

I used a variety of other simple stitches to add to the “fields” and “woods” surrounding it. I enjoyed the slow pace and improvisational spirit of stitching process very much. I then layered it and added some quilting. I am now contemplating adding beadwork.

As is it measures about 24” square. I am planning to use it as a center panel for a larger quilt, like some of my other recent river pieces. (See Ice Jam and In Dreams I Learned to Swim.) I’m still thinking about what that will look like.

I have a lot of works in progress right now.On the one hand I think I should focus and finish a few of them before proceeding. On the other hand, I am grateful that the inspiration and ideas are flowing freely, and feel like I need to go with that flow.