My “Living Quilt for Newnan – City of Homes” was installed at 6 PM on Thursday, August 31, 2017. The weather turned out perfect with even some sunshine after a morning and evening before of heavy rains. Many people came out to enjoy the installation and dedication ceremony including the mayor of Newnan and Art Rez Board Members and many local children who helped to install the handmade paper quilt squares. We staked down the quilt with bamboo skewers with a cork on top, all being biodegradable materials.

The quilt is made with hand papermaking using stencils and dyed pulp from purchased and local plant materials and has seeds in the paper pulp for Southeastern wildflowers in the same colors as the quilt pattern.  I used bark from cedar, crepe myrtle, magnolia, mulberry, paper bush and wisteria to make paper in Newnan and created a recipe and sample book for Newnan papermaking plants.   The Newnan Living Quilt has a house motif and features a 2-story antebellum home in red, yellow, blue and white colors. The homes are around a square in the middle of each 20-inch quilt square, and each home is composed of 8 layers of handmade paper with natural string in between layers helping to hold it all together.

At the August 31 ceremony, local children laid out the squares and put in the stakes, and then a local minister/poet offered a prayer/blessing for the quilt. I am very grateful to all the volunteers who helped make the handmade paper quilt and construct the “bed. The headboard and footboard are made with local branches collected along the streets of Newnan after people had done some tree trimming. The headboard and footboard also contain wisteria and other vines and lots of hydrangea blossoms that someone had recently clipped off and left to be picked up.

This project was lots of fun for me although lots of work in the 3 weeks of my residency. Thanks to my husband Timothy S. Allen who was with me during the residency in Newnan and helped with all aspects of this project as well as taking great photographs to document it. For more of Tim’s photos see his Blog at http://allentimphotos2.wordpress.com

I was an artist in residence at Newnan Art Rez from August 8 to Sept. 1, 2017. We leave Newnan today, and I hope the quilt will change over time with the seeds sprouting and blooming as a living quilt for Newnan. Check back here to see photos of the quilt as it changes over time. I am hoping that local volunteers will continue to send me photos. Thank you, Newnan, for a wonderful residency experience!

For more information about the artist-in-residency program in Newnan, visit the website at http://newnanartist.org

 

 

 

Everyone is invited to the installation ceremony and dedication of the Newnan Living Quilt tomorrow August 31 at 6 PM in Newnan, Georgia, at the site next to the old Male Academy and corner of Temple and College Streets in downtown Newnan.  The quilt was made with community participation in Open Studio sessions at the Gray Cottage.  The quilt has a house pattern and is created with handmade paper from plants of Newnan and has seeds for wildflowers in the pulp to change over time and become a living blooming work of art.

Check back here to see the photos of the installation and the finished public art project that I have created during my 3 week artist in residency at Newnan Art Rez, Newnan, GA.  It has been a great experience and a wonderful community to work with.   Thanks everyone for such good support and participation!

Photos here are by my husband Timothy S. Allen (allentimphotos2.wordpress.com

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I am an artist in residence from August 8 to Sept. 1, in Newnan, GA, at Newnan Art Rez. The Newnan eco quilt and “flower bed” will be ready for installation and a dedication ceremony at 6 PM on August 31 at the site. The Newnan eco-quilt will be installed on the grounds of the old Male Academy near the corner of Temple and College Streets in downtown Newnan.

The place for the “bed” has been marked off and the city has cleared the ground, and soil to build up a bed shape has been brought in. I will be working at the site starting on Friday and creating a headboard and footboard of local branches and vines. Volunteers are encouraged to bring any tree trimmings or vines that they trim to the site of the installation to use in the headboard and footboard. Open studio times for helping with the weaving of a headboard and footboard and helping to shape the bed will be 10AM to 2 PM at the site. Everyone is welcome to come to the dedication ceremony too at 6 PM on August 31.

These photos show progress on the handmade paper quilt that will be about 6 feet x 8 feet in size. The quilt blocks are a house design since Newnan is known as the “city of homes” Here you can see the quilt block laid out on the floor of my studio at Gray Cottage. For the pat two days I have been making borders for the quilt that will be an off white color of pulp using all the plants I have used in Newnan for hand papermaking. More photos will be posted soon of the “bed” making and the installation at the site. Photos here are by my husband Timothy S. Allen (allentimphotos2.wordpress.com).

On Saturday several people came by the Gray Cottage in Newnan, Georgia, to help make paper for the art project I am doing during my residency at Newnan Art Rez http://newnanartist.org

These photos show Erika Morgan and her two children, Macy age 10 and Ethan age 5, learning to make handmade paper using cedar bark pulp and also helping to make some of the quilt squares for the Newnan Eco-Quilt that will be dedicated and installed at 6PM on Thursday, August 31 on the grounds of the children’s museum in Newnan at the corner of Temple and College Streets. The public is invited to the ceremony where the quilt will be installed in the park.  The photos are taken by my husband Timothy S. Allen (allentimphotos2.wordpress.com)

Next week we will be busy at the site creating a bed form of soil and making a headboard and footboard out of local branches. Come join in if you are in the area.
Keep watching this Blog for more photos of my Newnan GA artist in residency project.                           

Jan Bowyer and Marcy Ward, Newnan Master Gardeners, came over to the Gray Cottage to help with the papermaking during my Newnan Artist in Residency.  The Newnan Master Gardeners group will be helping out also with the making of the flower bed in the park for the installation of the handmade paper quilt with seeds in the pulp to produce wildflowers over time.

I am an artist in residence at Newnan Art Rez (http://newnanartist.org) from August 8 to Sept. 1, 2017, and we are creating a Newnan Eco Quilt with a house theme.  Newnan is known as the “city of homes” because of all the beautiful old homes there.  Newnan is in the state of Georgia about 45 minutes southwest of Atlanta.  We are enjoying the countryside and the people and the many wonderful restaurants too during our stay in Newnan.  These photos are by my husband Timothy S. Allen who came with me to Newnan to document my art project.

 

The Newnan eco-quilt will be installed on August 31 at a special ceremony.  Keep looking at this blog to see the finished art installation that will be on the grounds of the old Male Academy in Newnan at the corner of College and Temple.

More photos will be posted here soon.   Come join us for the papermaking open studios this week at Gray Cottage, 23 Clark Street in Newnan, GA.

 

I am continuing my residency with Newnan Art Rez (www.newnanartist.org),and these photos by my husband Timothy S. Allen tell the story of what is happening. We are continuing to make blocks for the handmade paper “eco-quilt” in a house pattern that will be put on the prepared bed of soil on August 31 in Newnan at a site near the corner of College and Temple next to the Veteran’s Park and the children’s museum (site of the old Male Academy in Newnan).  The handmade paper quilt contains seeds for wildflowers in the same colors as the pattern.  Over time as the all biodegradable handmade paper quilt dissolves into mulch, the seeds will sprout and grow and bloom as wildflowers to make a continually evolving public artwork in Newnan.

We are cooking and making paper pulp from several plants common in Newnan to add to the paper pulp: crepe myrtle bark, Eastern red cedar tree bark and red mulberry tree bark. Yesterday we gathered some magnolia tree bark, and we will start preparing it today.

Volunteers from the Master Gardener’s group in Newnan came to help yesterday and learn the process. Other community volunteers also came by in the afternoon to participate and observe the process of making the Newnan eco-quilt. We plan to make a 60 inch by 80 inch queen size bed quilt and need 12 of the 20 inch squares that are made from 4 sheets of paper that are in 4 layers each. So that means lots of papermaking! We are working outdoors in the carport and front porch area at Gray Cottage, 23 Clark Street in Newnan.
Come by and join in!

I will keep posting photos about the project, and more information about the dedication ceremony and installation of the “flower bed” for Newnan will be posted here soon. Keep watching this Blog to see the outcome of the project.

Photos here are by Timothy S. Allen (http://allentimphotos2.wordpress.com).

After arriving late Tuesday, I have had several days to get settled in and local materials and supplies I need to start making handmade paper from local plants and creating a Newnan Eco-Quilt installation.  We also set up an outdoor working area for the papermaking and cooking of the plant materials, and looked at several possible sites for the outdoor installation that will be a “flower bed” with a handmade paper quilt having seeds for wildflowers in the pulp that will change over time to be a living, blooming quilt after the handmade paper dissolves into mulch.  The Newnan quilt will have a house motif since Newnan is known as “the city of homes”.  The site we have decided on is at the corner of Temple and College Street and next to the Children’s Museum and Veteran’s Park.  It will be a great spot and should have many people passing by to take a look and enjoy the installation.  I also met the staff at the historical museum and many people at the University of West Georgia branch that is just behind the Gray Cottage.  I am hoping to get lots of participation from the university staff and students and from visitors to the museum.

I also gathered some plant materials at the historical museum grounds next door to the Gray Cottage where I am staying in Newnan as the artist in residence at Newnan Art Rez (http://newnanartist.org).  The plants I gathered are bark from Eastern Red Cedar trees, bark from crepe myrtle trees and bark from a huge red mulberry tree with some branches hanging down low enough to need trimming.  The bark from the cedar trees and the crepe myrtle flakes off naturally so there is no need to trim the trees.  I will also be looking for other plant materials to make paper in the Newnan area, and I will meet with some master gardeners on Tuesday.

Here are some photos of the past few days taken by my husband Timothy S. Allen who is with me for this residency in Newnan, GA.

 

I am now working in Newnan, Georgia, as artist in residence at Newnan Art Rez.  I arrived late in the evening on August 8, after a delayed flight and getting from the Atlanta airport to the city of Newnan, about 45 minutes southeast of Atlanta.

We are staying at the Gray Cottage, in downtown Newnan, and it is a great space with a studio room and lots of space.  My husband Tim came with me, and he will be taking lots of photos to document the Newnan art project.   Here is a photo Tim took yesterday of Gray Cottage.

I am now figuring out what I will create and getting started to work.  I plan to make a handmade paper quilt and am thinking to use a house theme, since Newnan is known as the “city of homes”.  The town is filled with many beautiful old Southern homes, and we look forward to the time here reconnecting with my Southern roots.  I have ancestors on both sides of my family who first settled in Newnan after coming to America in the 1700s and 1800s from Ireland and Scotland.  These photos show me working in the studio room on sketches for the “house” quilt idea.

 

I also hung a couple of older handmade paper artworks that I brought with me in the studio space at Newnan Art Rez.  Here you can see a Sitka Paper Quilt created in 2014 at my residency at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology, Otis, Oregon, and a Taiwan Site Map created in 2004 during my first Fulbright Scholar award artist in residency in Taiwan.

Today I plan to meet with some Newnan Art Rez volunteers and look for materials and supplies to start the hand papermaking activities in Newnan.  Hope I can find some interesting plants here to make paper.

Keep watching my Blog for more posts about my residency in Newnan from August 8 to Sept. 1, 2017.  The website for Newnan Art Rez is at http://www.newnanartist.org

 

I will be an artist in residency from August 8 to September 1, 2017 at Newnan Art Rez in Newnan, GA. The website for the residency is at http://www.newnanartists.org

 

In Newnan,  I will be doing an installation art project with handmade paper from local plant materials and create a new series of paper quilts with a contemporary interpretation of traditional Southern quilt patterns.  This photo shows my first paper quilts created at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology in Otis, Oregon, during my residency at  Sitka Center in 2013-14.  The quilts were inspired by seeing the many “hex signs” on the barns in the area around Sitka Center.

I also did a quilt-related installation in 2016 as an artist in residence at Lancaster Museum of Art & History, Lancaster, CA.  This photo shows the “Lancaster Eco Quilt installation.  The handmade paper quilt has seeds for local wildflowers in the handmade paper, and as the paper dissolves into compost the seeds will grow and bloom in the same pattern.

Newnan, a small city southwest of Atlanta, is where my ancestors settled before moving on to Alabama when they first came to the US from Scotland and Ireland.  Here is a photo showing the graves of my great great great grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Cole, on my father’s side in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Newnan, GA. 

I also learned that the ancestors on my mother’s side also settled in the Newnan area, and my great great great grandfather James Hutcheson built the Hutcheson/Redwine Plantation that is still standing and now a sort of museum.   For me this residency will be a chance to reconnect with my roots and to create new work using local materials and inspiration.

Newnan Art Rez is a relatively new residency program that aims to bring contemporary artists there to interact with the local artists and community people. During my residency I will also work with art students at the University of West Georgia. Keep watching here for photos and information about my artist in residency in Newnan, GA during the month of August.

On July 24 and 25, 2017, I will teach a class at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology in Otis, Oregon.  Sitka is located on the beautiful central coast of Oregon, and the studios are terrific. This will be the 3rd summer I have taught at the Sitka Center.  My class this year is July 24 and 25, and it will be two full days of intense papermaking and mixed media art using the Sitka Spruce trees growing there as inspiration and materials. I was so impressed with this wonderful material for papermaking, and it makes a rich dark brown paper.  We will make handmade paper from Sitka Spruce bark and also use the cones, needles and branches along with other materials for 2-D and 3-D mixed media artworks. Come join us for the class.

Here are 2 photos of me working at Sitka Center in 2013-14 when I was an artist in residence there creating handmade paper art from Sitka Spruce tree bark and other local plant materials.  I created an installation of 7 “trees” using Sitka Space bark paper and dried on the bark of Sitka Spruce trees.

To register or get more information see the Sitka Center website at http://www.sitkacenter.org