Bloggers Quilt Festival - Random Acts Map

hi! welcome!


i'm amy dame.


if you'd like to know more about me, i'll direct you over to the excessively long about me page, but the basics that that seem to either repel or attract folks are these - i hate capitalization, i swear a lot and babble just as much, i'm a bleeding heart lefty who's super opinionated, but i try to keep the worst of it off the blog, i get distracted kinda easily due to a mixture of mental and physical health stuff combined with my inherent inability to focus on one project or technique, and i often get so excited that i bounce up and down and clap my hands like a 6 year old. (if you like me, you might find it endearing, otherwise, it's probably just annoying)


and most importantly, i love quilting! i'm the vice president of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, and i'm the challenge and swap coordinator for the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild. my guilds are amazing. not only are they full of incredibly TALENTED people, they're also full of incredibly AWESOME people!


this is the third time i've posted for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, the last two are here and here. previously i've posted recent projects, but today i'm posting a quilt that i finished last summer, but am still incredibly proud of. i blogged about it a few times when i finished it, but i never did post any of the construction details, so i thought i'd do it now.


the past few years i've participated in the Queer Arts Festival Curated Art Exhibition, and this was my piece for 2012. 2011's patchwork and machine embroidery piece is HERE, and my 2010 embroidery pieces are linked HERE (2010 pieces are totally NSFW!) (also, there's still a page about me from last year on the QAF website.) the QAF is a three week multi-disciplinary festival held in Vancouver, BC, Canada every summer by the Pride In Art Society, and i've been attending it for years.



every year my projects get more and more complicated, and my 2012 piece was incredibly ridiculous! i don't remember the exact measurements, but it's at least 50" x 60", it has thousands of tiny pieces, and i used an incredible amount of thread and spray adhesive.





my artist's statement is in this blog post, but the short and sweet version is that i wanted to create a piece that encourages people to think about what makes an act specifically queer, and where in the city those acts have taken place. i wanted to draw attention to the concept queer "ghettos", or the lack thereof, and the concept of community spaces. and since my 2011 quilt that encouraged audience participation was such a hit, i wanted to make a quilt that would be interactive.

i posted about this quilt a few times right after the show, but i never did get around to posting about the details, so here they are - (feel free to skim, i know not everyone will care!)


Step 1 - i drafted a pattern of Vancouver which included all streets and parks. i blew it up to the size i needed, and printed out each section. i taped them all together to create a full size pattern (like assembling a pdf pattern), and using a sharpie, i traced over all of the streets that i wanted to transfer to my map to make them more visible.

Step 2 - i connected yardage of wash-away stabilizer to be big enough to cover the full map. i laid the stabilizer over the paper map and retraced all of the sharpie lines onto the stabilizer, then set it aside.

Step 3 - i laid thin white broadcloth over the paper pattern and traced the shape and edges of water and land, and all of the parks in the city.

Step 4 - i sandwiched the white broadcloth with a layer of cotton batting and a second layer of white broadcloth as the backing.

Step 5 - after purchasing a wide variety of grey and green fabrics with a bunch of different textures, i started cutting them into small pieces. a LOT of small pieces! nothing more than an inch or two wide, and most were much smaller than that.

Step 6 - working in small sections, i used 505 spray adhesive and a UHU glue stick to adhere the tiny pieces to the broadcloth backing fabric. i used the variety of greys for the city itself, and the greens for all of the city's parks. this step took a looooong time!

Step 7 - i added a layer of grey tulle over all of the small pieces to hold them in place.

Step 8 - i freemotion quilted the entire map, using grey on the main areas and a mixture of greens on the parks. this was really fun, though also super hot in july! i particularly loved the fmq i did on the parks. these threads were all 50wt, a combo of cotton and polyester.




(the back shows the quilting better)

Step 9 - using 505 spray adhesive, i adhered the blue satin "water" fabric all around the city and free motion quilted it heavily.

Step 10 - i used more spray adhesive to adhere the washaway stabilizer from Step 2 to the map, and using 12wt cotton thread, began stitching along all of the streets on the map. i started out using aurifil 12wt cotton, and really struggled with it. it's a very loose twist, and because a map has so many criss crossing lines, it didn't hold up very well. i also had a ton of issues with tension and the thread breaking, though i think my needle choice caused a lot of that. i started to run out of thread, so i did a frantic search for more in the lower mainland, and no one had any! thanks to a FVMQG member's suggestion, i found Sulky 12wt cotton thread locally and switched, and it ended up working much better anyway.


(a close up, complete with tension issues!)


(the back with the 12wt quilting over the 50wt, with the ocean fmq as well)

Step 11 - i washed the quilt, to remove the wash-away stabilizer. it shrunk a bit, but the use of the poly cotton base fabric and the netting helped some.

Step 12 - i bought hundreds and hundreds of straight pins, stuck them all into foamcore boards and spraypainted them pink. while the paint was wet, i sprinkled them with fuchsia glitter. yes, i did think i was going out of my mind by this point!



Step 13 - i created a list of street names in a word file and printed them onto printable Shrink Plastic. i cut them all out, hole punched both ends, and shrunk them in my oven.

Step 14 - my dad helped me build a frame for the quilt using 2x4s, 1x2s, and a layer of styrofoam insulation for the pins to stick into. the frame had to be in two pieces with a hinge, to fit in my van!

Step 15 - using my staple gun, i stapled the quilt to the frame we built. i treated it like a canvas i was stretching, or a stool i was upholstering, stapling one side, then stretching over to the other, etc.

Step 16 - i cut strips of the blue satin, pressed under the edges, and using strips of stitch witchery or wonder under, used my iron to adhere the strips to the sides of the wood frame to cover the stapled edges.

and FINALLY - my mom and i installed the piece, including sticking hundreds of glittery pins into the map for people to use to mark their spots. i used white straight pins to label the streets of the quilt, and about 10 minutes after i finished, the opening gala for the art show started!



The Full Piece


UBC and endowment lands


Stanley Park


Downtown core


Beach Avenue


Downtown closeup


Seymour St


Granville Bridge


East Vancouver




Quilt Measurements: i don't remember... it's in storage right now, i'll measure it next time i'm over there and add them in. it's definitely bigger than 50"x60", i know that!
Special Techniques used, if any: applique, free motion quilting
Quilted by: me!



whew! that was a long post, with a ton of pictures, so congratulations if you made it all the way to the bottom. i don't blame you if you skimmed!



please note, i know that i'm taking a risk posting a political art piece for the Bloggers Quilt Festival, but i'm hoping we can all be responsible adults. if you disagree or disapprove of me, my life, my loved ones or my use of the word queer, please be respectful and keep it to yourself. thank you! regardless of how you feel about the theme, i hope you enjoyed my quilt itself, and the Bloggers Quilt Festival overall.

now go check out some of the other awesome quilts in the festival! (and don't forget to keep track of your favourites to nominate as you're surfing around!)

Awesome Images of the Random Acts of Queerness Quilted Map

i know, i said that i was only going to post about the map one more time, but i think i lied. i still want to post more about my process, but i also want to share the AMAZING photos that belle ancell photography took of it, and that's really too much for one post!


first, one of my photos. it's not nearly as good as belle's, but i wanted to show you the full deal. on the left of the map, i hung a roll of paper with hanging pens, and invited viewers to share their random acts of queerness. to me, this wasn't a major part of the finished piece, more an interactive aspect of the installation, so i didn't ask belle to photograph it, and i probably haven't mentioned it before. i tucked the roll away with everything else when i brought the piece home, but i'm really looking forward to spending some time poring over it!


i'm also pretty proud of myself for hanging the rods and everything, they worked exactly like i wanted them to, and they were super cheap, overall. thanks ikea!

(if you haven't already, you might want to check out my previous post about this project, with people in the photos to show scale, and my artist's statement to tell you what it's all about)



now that you have the whole idea, check out the incredible photos. belle made my work look so AWESOME!


do you see how much BETTER belle's photos are? compare this one to the one above. omg! i didn't realize mine were that bad...

belle was also super fabulous to work with. i often feel like i need a basic "how to be an artist" class, because there are so many things that i have no idea about. one of those things is having my piece professionally photographed - who, what, where?


UBC/west side

she made it easy, and she didn't make me feel ridiculous not knowing what i wanted. as it turned out, the best day for her to take the photos was a day that i'd already committed to going out to the valley to hang out with Cynthia, Lysa, Carol and Kalin, and Kalin was counting on me to drive her, so i couldn't be there when belle took them. she was awesome about removing the instruction sheet (cause all the pins were used by then anyway) and putting it back after the photos.


Stanley Park. so awesome! "public" sex turned out to be quite a reoccurring theme with this piece, though it was spread out a lot more in other parts of the city.

i've thought about having my work photographed before, and the lovely Sonja took some photos for me when i submitted a few quilts to the IQF, but that's as far as i've gotten with that idea. a dear friend gently persuaded me that i HAD to start archiving my work, this piece in particular.


downtown

belle was already photographing other aspects of the Queer Arts Festival (including opening night), and i knew her work was fabulous because she took awesome shots of my bingo quilt last year, so it worked out perfectly to have her take these photos.


Beach Avenue. you can tell where the Pride Parade route goes, can't you?


more of a closeup of downtown


Seymour and Davie St


the Granville Bridge


i was actually picturing the pins pushed in the whole way, but i'm glad folks didn't, it looks so cool with them all sticking out!


east van, oh how i miss you.


didn't she do an amazing job? i'm so happy to have such wonderful images of such a labour intensive project!


(belle also does incredibly lovely portraits - if that's something you're interested in, i'd highly recommend you check out the gallery on her website!)

Are You Someone Who? Queer East Van Bingo Quilt

the flowers from opening night are pretty much dead, so i should probably get around to blogging about my bingo quilt. i posted last week about folks helping me finish it and stuff, and i had intended to blog about the quilt really soon after that, but every time i sit down at the computer i get sucked into reading more and more previous posts of thebloggess.com. (i'm at page 105 now and i can't stop! the way she writes is exactly how my head works, it's like she's in my brain!)

i explained in the previous post that this quilt was a piece for the Queer Arts Festival Curated Visual Arts Exhibition. this year's theme was Games People Play, which was an awesome theme, and some really amazing pieces were created based on it.

i'm going to copy and paste my artist's statement here, which is a lot longer than i thought it was, so feel free to skim it if you'd like.

or, if you're one of the people who vehemently hate my lack of capitalization on this blog, you might want to read it over and over again, cause in a rare fit of appropriateness, i actually capitalized letters in it.

artist bio
Amy Dame combines art and craft to create pieces that illustrate their experiences as a queer and genderqueer person with disabilities, the beliefs and political views that guide their life, and the experiences of people around them. Primarily fibre based, Amy’s work regularly incorporates hand and machine embroidery, machine piecing, quilting and appliqué. Amy is inspired by words and imagery not generally expressed in traditional fibre work, and believes that the act of illustrating our stories in time consuming mediums such as embroidery or quilting reflects and respects the true value of the experiences of our community.

artist's statement
Are You Someone Who? East Van Bingo combines the time honoured tradition of signature quilts with the ubiquitous Bingo icebreaker to create a modern form of an art quilt.

Signature or album quilts were historically made as gifts when respected leaders, such as teachers or ministers, moved on to a new posting. Blocks of the quilt were signed by church or community members, and reflected the time the recipient spent in their community. This quilt illustrates a specific time period of East Van community, with an emphasis on the experiences of the artist’s generation.

The other aspect of the piece is a variation of the Bingo game that we have all played at meeting after meeting. Usually tailored towards the theme of the gathering, statements printed in the squares reflect experiences of the participants, and attendees are asked to find people who fit each statement and then have them sign their name on the block as a way to break the ice and encourage familiarity.

In this case, audience members are invited to sign their name to any and all squares that they identify with. They are free to sign as many or as few blocks as they wish, and to use whichever names they are most comfortable signing with.

It will be interesting to see which blocks attract the most signatures, and which blocks the audience members are most comfortable identifying with. Though the majority of the blocks invoke familiarity, nostalgia and laughter, some of them may be viewed as embarrassing or shameful. It is important to include these aspects of our community, even some that may be considered negative, to ensure that our history is portrayed honestly and respectfully.





the specifics - all the fabric on the front is Kona cotton in white and black. the bingo letters are reverse appliqued using wonderunder, and all of the writing on the blocks was digitized and then machine embroidered. the embroidery was done with standard sewing polyester thread, because i didn't want the sheen of embroidery thread. the centre square, which took me forever to design and digitize, is based on this vancouver public art piece, which is actually based on an old gang symbol that has been in use in east van dating back to the 1940s/50s. the quilt is backed in black and white polka dot cotton voile, with a bit of black and white striped voile along one side. it currently isn't quilted - after the show is over, i'm going to undo the basting stitches and sandwich it properly so that it can be quilted. i was originally going to quilt it before the show, but i needed it to be a flat, smooth surface for people to write on, so i changed my mind.





the quilt has 24 blocks with statements written on them, and a smaller companion piece that reads
"Are You Someone Who..."
"grab a pen and . sign as many
or as few of the squares that
describe you. use your real
name, a fake name, your
drag name or your alter ego’s
name, just sign."
the companion piece doesn't hang the way i wanted it to.. which is irritating. but i'll fix it later.




the 24 blocks are:
B
- went to rock for choice at the cultch
- remembers when Tegan and Sara were Sara and Tegan, cute little baby dykes with acoustic guitars (it still trips me out when non-vancouverites/non-albertans know who tegan and sara are. weird!)
- has been part of a collective or consensus based group
- is poly or is consciously monogamous
- owns a pair of skinny jeans

I
- voted for Libby Davies
- moved to Montreal or Toronto for a “change of pace”
- has hosted a potluck
- has thought seriously about your gender identity
- owns a full set of leathers

N
- is vegan or vegetarian
- has an account on superdyke, plentyoffish or okcupid
- east van cross!
- has filled a stamp card at womyns’ ware (local sex store - link NSFW!)
- knows the best friend of the ex girlfriend of the casual partner of the last person you slept with

G
- knows how to repair your own bicycle
- has met a lover, one night stand, john, friend with benefits or future partner via craigslist
- has lived in a communal house with its own name
- has made their own sex toys
- wears a hanky and actually knows what you’re flagging (basic hanky code, an updated version than i love)

O
- has lived in more than 5 apartments or houses in east van
- protested during the Olympics
- has gone weeks without leaving East Van
- has been to a dance party in a completely inaccessible space like the Anza, the Legion or the Secret Location and thought nothing of it
- has been to Michfest or Camp Trans (michfest is an annual event called michigan womyn's music festival that only allows cisgendered women to attend, and camp trans is an annual event that protests MWMF's transphobia and creates a welcoming community near the MWMF site)

it was really really hard to narrow down to 24! a few of my others were: feels as comfy at the Wise Hall as you do in your own home, has dated/slept with/played with/etc a librarian, has performed drag, and has marched in the dyke march, but honestly, i could've made 3 quilts and still have more statements to use.





the quilt was a big hit on opening night, and the opening night Art Party was a big hit on it's own. this year Pride in Art organized two art shows for the Queer Art Show, the curated show that I was in, and the non-themed community art show, so the Art Party was HUGE! i've been going on opening night for many years now, and there's never been that many people. someone said something about 300 people, and i'd totally believe it. it was really overwhelming! i went back on a later night to actually check out the other pieces, because there was no way that i could actually concentrate with that many people around me. my family came, including my totally sleep deprived dad who'd just arrived home that morning, my mom and her best friend, my sister, and my also sleep deprived little brother, who'd also arrived home that morning, his girlfriend, and some of my dearest chosen family members, including my friend J, who i've posted about before, and my best friend K and his partner. both my parents and my little sister got me flowers, and my mom wrote me a super sweet note from her and my dad, and i was so so happy that i was finally able to introduce J to my family. it was a really good night.

omg, people rock.

i don't, i kind of suck because i meant to post this a week ago, but i have to tell you, THE PEOPLE IN MY QUILT GUILD FUCKING ROCK. seriously.


remember last year when i finally got the nerve up to submit some pieces to the Queer Arts Festival? two of my pieces were accepted, the Beth Ditto porn diptych, and the mixed media embroidery piece, Queer Health. (the Beth Ditto porn diptych is TOTALLY NSFW, but that's kinda obvious given the name, and the Queer Health piece is SFW, unless your work has an issues with speculums)


this year the show was curated, so instead of submitting pieces, i was ASKED to do a piece, which was so hella exciting! except for the fact that since i didn't have to submit by a deadline, i didn't have to get it done by an earlier deadline either. and despite my promise last year that i'd learned my lesson about procrastinating, i totally hadn't.


i had a pretty good start on this year's piece, but then i went on a roadtrip, and because my family is completely absurb, managed to get exactly nothing done while i was out there. (unless you count thrifting. i did lots and LOTS of thrifting. but that didn't help me get my piece done)

i had it all planned out, i was going to come home, have plenty of time to work on it, etc. but that totally didn't happen. by the time i got home, days later than planned, it was 3 days before the piece had to be done. and then i had a bunch of personal drama stuff that came up and totally interfered with my plans to get things accomplished as well.

i basically got home wednesday night, slept, and then got up thursday morning and started sewing. by thursday night, i had the main portion pieced, and i took it to our July VMQG meeting for show and tell. i had originally been kind of nervous about taking it to the guild, because i'm already the freaky one who says innapropriate things all the time, but i was so overtired, i totally forgot to be nervous.


(picture credit to the fabulous Holly - i have no idea how she always catches me making the weirdest faces!)

and the guild was awesome. SO MANY people said such amazing things, were so complimentary and positive, it was wonderful.


so then i went back home and kept working, but the aforementioned personal drama came up, and the next thing i knew it was Sunday, the day the piece had to completed and dropped off, and i'd slept in four later than planned. (i have 3 alarm clocks, 2 of which beep for 2 hours before turning off. i slept through ALL of them!)


we had a sew-in scheduled, so my plan had been to take the piece with me right when the sew-in started at 10, finish it up, and drop it off around 12 or 1. instead, i didn't get to the sew-in until 2, and i had to drop the piece off by 4, so i was scrambling! luckily, MY QUILT GUILD ROCKS, and i had 3 people (Terry, Sue and Paul) helping me, and Louise nagging me to hurry (in a totally loving, understanding way).

i made it to the drop off by 4:10, thank goodness, and after discussing hanging, etc, dropped it off. there is no possible way that i would have made it without the help, and once again, i have to say, MY GUILD ROCKS.




and then i went home and slept.


(i'll post about the piece itself asap, i'm sorry heidi!)

Queer Arts Festival!! Visual Arts Exhibition!!

ohmygoodness, i'm so late posting this. i meant to post it before the show even started, and here we are, less than a week until it ends, and i'm finally getting around to it. this is one of the exciting things i mentioned last post - i entered several pieces in an art show back in february, and two of them were accepted! yayy!!

Pride in Art is a local group that has been around for over 10 years. it started out as a visual arts show, presented around the same time as Vancouver Pride each year (which is way later than most cities). 4 or 5 years ago it started to grow into the Queer Arts Festival, allowing spaces for performance arts, music, etc as well as the visual arts. i've been attending the visual arts show for multiple years now, as a dear friend of mine used to be involved and often had pieces in the show, and usually try to make it out to at least one of the other events each year. i originally got involved on a board level earlier this year, but unfortunately realized fairly quickly that it was more of a commitment than my health could handle, and had to step down.

despite that, i was still determined to actually submit something this year. i submitted the Beth Ditto porn pieces, my Dream Lover(s) pillow, and a third piece mixed media needlework piece that i really should post here, titled Queer Health. (now posted)

this year's theme was Queertopia; the Best Place on Earth?, so i tried to tailor my submissions around that in various ways. The Beth Ditto diptych was accepted, and so was the Queer Health sculpture piece. i actually submitted the health piece as an in progress submission, and of course, since i'm me, i was still putting the finishing touches on it the day i had to drop it off.... i swear i learned my lesson about procrastinating this time!

before the show started, the local LGBT newspaper Xtra did a feature on the show, and chose to use the Beth Ditto diptych (retitled My Kind of Porn for the show) as part of the article. this isn't particularly surprising for anyone who's familiar with Xtra and Pink Triangle Press, since the piece is about sex, and everyone knows Xtra's a teensy bit obsessed... ;) but it was still exciting!!


(if you'd like to actually read the article, you can click on it and go to flickr, where it's uploaded the original size, or you can read the article posted on Xtra's site)



in addition to that, the Queer Arts Festival had a large spread in the same issue of the paper, and it included the artist's names!

(again, you can click on it to see it larger - one of the pictures shows a portion of the amazing needle felted pieces by Karina Kalvaitis )



so! that was all exciting!

the show opened on July 27th, and July 28th was the official opening night party. it was, as usual, great fun, full of people that i hadn't seen in ages, and people who i'd just seen. i jokingly say that the QAF visual arts opening is like a queer family reunion every year, though the attendees are generally hotter than at your typical family reunion! this year was a bit subdued, due to the loss of a very special community member last december, but it was still a really important evening.

i posed next to the diptych and couldn't resist making a posing face....


the next one was a little bit more "normal"!

i was teased a bunch about my skirt (which i finished that afternoon) matching the pieces, but i really hadn't thought about that at all! i just really like red and black, which isn't that surprising, really.

my family, who couldn't be there, sent me flowers,


and my sister, who knows me so well, picked out a card with flocked and foiled leopard print!


i talked to a lot of different people, though definitely not everyone that i wished to talk to, and had some really random conversations, but that's pretty par for the course with me anyway! a couple of my closest friends came out to support me, and that was super amazing, especially since everyone in my family was back east at the time.

it was really awesome, and i'm really proud of myself for getting my ass in gear and actually applying. i think next year's theme is Games People Play, and i actually have a larger scale needlework piece that i've been planning in my head for ages that would perfectly fit the theme - perfect motivation! i just haven't decided if i should do it by hand or by machine, considering i already have multiple long term handwork projects on the go..... hmmm....