"Annie and John: 7 of Paring Knives (swords) in the Kitchen Tarot."
by Susan Shie Contact me
---------Above: "Annie and John: 7 of Paring Knives
(swords) in the Kitchen Tarot." full view ©Susan Shie 2020."
61"h x 49"w. Inventory #519. Peace Cozy #83. Made
from 5-2-20 through 9-9-20.
There are many detail images below the writing here.
"Annie and John: 7 of Paring Knives (swords) in the Kitchen Tarot."
©Susan Shie 2020. 61"h x 49"w. inventory #519. Peace Cozy #83.
Begun 5-2-20. Finished 9-9-20. Many large detail images follow the artist's statement below.
Statement for "Annie and John: 7 of Paring Knives in the Kitchen Tarot."
©Susan Shie 2020. Made May 2 to Sept 9, 2020. 61"h x 49"w.
Inventory #519, Peace Cozy #83. About Annie Glenn, John Prine, and
the Coronavirus Pandemic.
I am a social activist painter and fiber artist. I airbrush whole cloth works which I then sew. My artwork and writing are all spontaneous freehand work on the cloth. This soft painting is about things going on in our country in the start and first year of the Coronavirus Pandemic.
On 5-2-20: I pulled the Tarot card, the 7
of Swords for this quilt's making. In my Kitchen Tarot deck, that
suit is Paring Knives, a non-violent tool used for making food, to
nourish people. I love that so much, compared to the violence
associated with swords. This card is about a spiritual approach to
our thinking, our communicating with each other. I think it
implies that we need to focus on the good of the group, in dealing with
this pandemic, and on really giving love and help to others, as our
lives have all become so changed by the virus, and our style of living
remains pretty unnaturally altered, until a vaccine is found and given
out, all over the world.
5-11-20: Started sketches. I began this quilt with the intention
of telling the whole history of the evolution of the Coronavirus
Pandemic that we started to hear about in January or February, 2019, but
soon realized that this task was beyond the scope of one art quilt,
especially one of this smaller size I'm working in now. (My ideal
size right now is still small, 60 x 60", but this piece is even smaller,
61 x 49", as I was originally making it as the largest size permitted
for Sandra Sider's "Quarantine Quilts" show, whose deadline I missed by a
long shot!) For a long time, my quilts were much wider, more like
60"h x 90"w. They were panoramas! But I am now in love with
a smaller square format. And THIS piece is therefore "small," in
its more narrow format.
So I decided I needed to narrow my topic somewhat, and in my sketches, I
settled on two major figures: Annie Glenn, wife of Astronaut and Ohio
Senator John Glenn; and John Prine, folk singer and chronicler of
American life through his song lyrics. Both of them died of
Covid-19: first John on April 14, 2020, at age 74. And then Annie
on May 19, 2020, at age 100.
In my sketches, I put The Statue of Liberty between Annie and John, and
gave her a Covid mask, as that has proven to be the very best defense
against attracting the virus.
5-20-20: I cut the fabric for the painting, and "drew" the
composition with black paint, with my airbrush. The spaceship
above John’s head is to show how surreal this pandemic is. All
people, all over the world have been quarantined and their lifestyles
changed greatly by CV. Children go to school more by online
meetings than in person, and when they go to actual school, they all
wear masks and have to social distance. All shopping is done while
wearing masks and distancing. At first there were great food
shortages, etc, as factories suffered workers being infected and not
coming to work. Toilet paper was super hard to find, and disinfectant
wipes and hand sanitizer were crazy hard to find. All prices went
way up on limited supplies. Clorox wipes are still impossible to
buy! So the spaceship represents the altered state of living on
Earth. Restaurants and churches, movie theaters, etc have suffered
greatly. And hospitals have been overwhelmed, unable to get
adequate protective gear for doctors and nurses for way too long, and
now, as we enter the Fall's second wave of the virus, the shortages are
starting up again. We are captives of this alien-like Coronavirus.
My original title is on the quilt was "Love in the time of Corona." But
that parody of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ "Love in the Time of Cholera"
has been used so much, since I started this piece, that I changed the
title to "Annie and John."
I didn't look at the sketches, while I drew the piece with my airbrush
and black fabric paint, so that the figures would stay loose and natural
with my freehand drawing. Then the next day, I created a FB album
for sharing images of making this piece.
5-23-20: I started putting in the colors with my airbrush.
You hold the airbrush close to the surface, when you make lines, and you
bring it back from the surface, to fill in areas with colors.
5-30-20: I started writing on the piece with my airbrush and black
paint. I wrote on Annie and John both, giving their birth and death
info and some of their life stories, writing on their clothes mostly.
The airbrush writing is large, black printing.
Then there was a hiatus, due to a lot of teaching!
7-20-20: I got back to writing, now making smaller writing with my
Posca paint markers, which help me make more clear lettering than I can
get with my airbrush, at smaller sizes of writing.
8-10-20: I copied a whole essay by Franklin Veaux on the reality
of the masses of people left with severe health problems, maybe for the
rest of their lives, if only 1% of the world's population dies of
CV. This essay is done with blue Posca Marker at the top of the
painting.
8-11-20: I made up and wrote my Covid Haiku on John Prine's
guitar, in Resistance Magenta. Here it is, written as I figure out and
write one line, then go on to making up the next line, and then the
third line:
"Imagine before.
When CV wasn't here yet.
Is this a bad dream?"
Also that day, more small writing on the painting.
8-14-20: Wrote on Prine's guitar, about Biden and Harris. Wrote
down the middle of the piece, about the relationship between Covid and
racism.
8-16-20: Wrote on Annie and John's arms and the guitar pickguard, about T
slowing down the Post Office service, to sabotage early voting, and how
that was at the time, the reason that the 2nd Stimulus Bill in Congress
was held up. (It's still held up, as of today, 10-19-20!!!)
9-2-20: Starting to build the quilt sandwich. Made a simple backing panel of all Lunn Fabrics' Artisan Batiks cottons.
9-4-20: Quilting by machine. Adding more Posca Marker
writing in the places I had deliberately left open, so that my writing
would be as current as possible, when the piece gets done.
The last writing I did on the now-quilted body of the painting, is the
white lettering in Annie and John's hair. I got to thinking about
John Prine's songs, looking for a couple of lyrics to write in their
hair. And I thought of "Angel from Montgomery," a beautiful song, whose
meaning is rather obscure. Then suddenly I thought about
Congressman and Civil Rights leader John Lewis, who died on July 17, tho
not from Covid. (He died from cancer.) He grew up on a
sharecropping farm near Montgomery, AL. So in my thinking, HE
became John Prine's "Angel from Montgomery."
And several years ago, French President Emmanual Macron got John Lewis
to spend part of a day on the National Mall with him, and told people,
that they met in the crowds there, that John Lewis is a National
Treasure. And I know that's
true!!! And THEN I remembered that John Lewis was born near a tiny
town
that's near Montgomery, Alabama. Suddenly, I wished I'd put John
Lewis into this quilt, too. He is someone I've made art about
before and in the recent past, especially when he died. How could I
add him to this piece now?
I decided that, for me, John Lewis IS the Angel from Montgomery!!!!
I decided to put lines from the song "Angel from Montgomery" into Annie
and John's hair, and to put John Lewis's letter to the Times into the
border. So that's how I got him into my quilt.
9-9-20: Now aiming for the Quilt National '21 entry
deadline, which is tonight! But I barely made the deadline, by
about 20 minutes before the entry time ended! (But I DID make the
deadline!) The slowdown was because I decided to use Posca Markers to
write a lot of very small printing on the quilt's border, so that I
could put Congressman John Lewis's letter to the NY Times on the border,
instead of using my airbrush and writing something simple and fast in
large lettering on the border!!! (I had forgotten how LONG
that letter is!!!)
Lewis, one of the 50 - 60s Civil Rights leaders, died of cancer on July
17, 2020, at age 73. The last thing he did, before writing that
letter to the Times, was to go visit Black Lives Matter Plaza, which had
just been named that this Summer, after a protest incident there on
June 4, in which T had peaceful protesters tear-gassed, etc, just to
move them, so he could walk across the street to a church to have a
photo op, while waving a Bible to the cameras.
Lewis went to see Black Lives Matter Plaza with DC mayor Muriel Bowser,
who renamed the street and had 35 foot tall yellow capital letters of
the new name of the street painted right on two blocks of the street, near the White
House, on June 5.) Lewis wrote his final letter and sent it to the NY Times
the day before he died, asking then to print it the morning of his
funeral. They did and so did many other news outlets, on July 30, 2020.
So I very carefully transcribed most of his letter, starting at the top
of the border of my quilt, then going to the left side, then to the bottom, and
finally to the right side. It's a pretty large border, and I was able to
write a lot of his message on it, but not all. I decided that if
you get that far, you can look up this letter online and read it
there! If you read that far, on my quilt border, that means you’re
dedicated enough to research the end of the message!
OK, the VERY last thing I did, was to add the Peace Cozy, a little
square of cloth with a Peace Symbol painted on it. I always do
that last. I have to not think about it, until the piece is
done. It can't go anywhere it would cover up writing, and its
placement has to make sense. I put this one, #83 since starting
this Peace Cozy thing in 2005, on the flame of the Statue of Liberty's
torch. It can shine out to all the world from there, giving us all
peace in this time of political division and fear, and in this Time of
Corona.
Now I wish I had named the quilt "Annie and John and John." But I
didn't. Still, John Lewis is a big part of the quilt, and when he
went to see Black Lives Matter Plaza before he went to the hospital to
die of cancer, he wore a Covid mask, along with Mayor Bowser, for their
photo shoot. He didn't die of Covid, but he cared to try to get
others to protect themselves better against it!
This piece was juried into Quilt National '21.
My album of pix of making of this art quilt is at https://www.facebook.com/pg/susanshieturtlemoon/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10158254717706772
And my album of finished images of this art quilt is at https://www.facebook.com/pg/susanshieturtlemoon/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10158673379896772
As I write this statement, we're 15 days from the US Presidential
election, between Trump and Biden. Life has become so polarized,
and everyone is worried a LOT. Over 27 million of us have already
voted, breaking all early voting records in our history. May we return
to a country run by a President who cares way more about the People than
about himself. May we all come together in Peace, to beat this
pandemic, which is much worse than it would have been, with a stable,
caring leader presiding over us. Namasté, Everyone.
Written on 10-19-20
Susan Shie, Wooster, Ohio.
Finally put onto my website on 11-30-21
If you want to take a Lucky Drawing class with me, you can find the information on my website or my Susan Shie Turtle Moon Studios Facebook page. I teach 30-day sessions with 12 day breaks in between them. Most of my students consider my class to be like taking a yoga class: You just keep going with the group. You can find info about my next online freehand drawing classes on my Turtle Moon Studios front page.
In all the classes I teach, I am only teaching freehand, intuitive drawing and painting on paper now, using a format very much like my online Lucky Drawing classes. I continue to make my art quilts, but no longer teach those processes. You can learn quilting from others. I teach how to open up and express yourself as an adult who draws. I work to convince you that there are no art rules, no right and wrong. When you knew that instinctively as a small child, you happily drew and painted wonderful things on paper. That innocence is healing, is un-stressing, and is about impossible to find in our adult world. We can get it back, while we draw freehand together, with curiosity, eagerness, and joy.
Drawing is one of our natural skills, and we each deserve to reclaim it. Like singing and dancing, like making up poetry without rules or jazz that just improvises, freehand drawing is easy, and it feels good. So, that's what I teach now. And I will convince you to let go of your adult-self's ideas of right and wrong. I've found that there's no place for that stuff in real creativity.
Read all about my Turtle Art Camp - how it works for your weeklong artmaking experience here in Wooster, Ohio, and see the changes I've made to the camp agenda. I have many large photos on the Turtle Art Camp page, to show what goes on at this biosphere-like art experience. The emphasis in this adult students' art camp is on freehand, intuitive drawing and painting in large, hardbound sketchbooks now, because I’ve figured out that with these processes, everyone can relax and focus on expressing herself. I want my art camp to help you become more open to letting your art flow out later, in whatever medium you want it to be in.
I started my Turtle Art Camps in my home in 1994 and they
continue, though they stopped for the Pandemic and have not restarted
yet, in 2021. See my Turtle Art Camp schedule on the main page of Turtle Moon Studios,
along with a link to my current online Lucky Drawing class description
and enrollment info. I had to cancel all 2020 and 2021 camps, but hope I
can get them going again in 2022. ???
Detail pix of "Annie and John: 7 of Paring Knives (swords) in the Kitchen Tarot":
Turtle Moon Studios: Outsider Art
Quilts and Paintings
Susan Shie
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