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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Little Stuff, and the Smithsonian!

My small labor of love is making art-o-mat blocks which are sold in vending machines around the country. Today, along with a check, I received the listing of where the blocks had been sold. How cool that there was a bunch in the machine in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC! Fortunately, I am devoting much of my art time this week (that is, my stay-cation)to doing art and making more mini quilted pieces for art-o-mat. Last time I got a check and a sales listing, there were a gazillion sold in the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Vegas. So, here is a picture of the different blocks I make. The most popular one seems to be my yellow self portrait. (This is it unquilted. I add some beads and sequins to jazz it up.)

And it is a good day for small things...SAQA just announced a new show, "A Sense of Scale" that will contrast big pieces with small ones. So, I can do a series of pieces as small as 12" x 12". I have felt alternately annoyed, sad, and mad that I can't enter most art quilt shows since I like to work small. Maybe someday when I retire and can devote all day to art I can go big, and get a giant longarm sewing machine, but with my crazy, busy work schedule, small is all I can comfortably do right now.

4 comments:

  1. Hey -- Congrats for being in the Smithsonian! I've "only" made it into the Whitney...but they like my stuff and order it a lot.

    I have had your colorful mysterious lady (lower left corner) in my 2 Detroit area machines...people like them very much.

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  2. I always thought it was kind of random on where the blocks got shipped to. I remember that you posted that you ordered some of my blocks, but I thought it was the yellow self portrait or the red and black energy man.

    congrats on your whitney success!

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  3. I'm from Iowa, but just returned from my first-ever vacation to DC ... and one of the highlights of my trip was finding an Art-o-Mat and adding your Time Warp piece to my collection ... awesome.

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  4. Stef, so great of you to contact me! And I'm glad you like the piece. I didn't know which blocks they got, so that makes your post even nicer. I just took my first trip to DC a few months ago. Very cool city!

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