I am getting settled in my new Colorado apartment after relocating from Central Oregon to the Greater Denver Metro area.

Finally, here is the final post in my series of posts about my first solo show at the Seattle Municipal Tower’s Ethnic Heritage Art Gallery located at 700 5th Ave in downtown Seattle, Washington. The show is curated by the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture.

For more background on my invitation to my first solo show, please see the previous posts in the series – Solo Show Seattle Municipal Tower, Part I and Solo Show Seattle Municipal Tower, Part II.

Before the Show

I stayed with friends in West Seattle and as parking in downtown Seattle is crazy, even though they offered to loan me one of their cars, I took the bus to the event. I arrived early and had time to wander around the amazing downtown Seattle library (I will share photos from that wander in another post).

After wandering around the library with my tierneycreates Beastie (who loves libraries also – see posts Beastie Colorado Adventure Begins and Beastie Outing: Trip to the Library) it was time to head into the Seattle Municipal Tower for the show opening, but not without first taking some photos of the entry and this downtown Seattle skyscraper:

As you can see in my above selfie, I was pretty darn excited.

Show Opening: The Wardrobe Meets the Wall

The show (The Wardrobe Meets the Wall: Art Quilts Created from Recycled Clothing and Garment Manufacturing Samples) opened with a presentation by board members the the Ethnic Heritage Art Gallery board on background and mission of the gallery, and then an introduction about me and my work.

Next, after providing an overview of my work, I did a presentation on the story behind the show and working with recycled materials. Then did a walk through tour and presentation on all 12 pieces I have in the show, sharing the story behind each piece.

Here are photos from the show which is on display until 07/15/2019. The gallery did a wonderful job of creating large placards for each piece that provided my full artist statement so that visitors could read the full story behind each piece.

A nice crowd attended the opening which included board members of the Ethnic Heritage Art Gallery board, downtown Seattle workers, my work colleagues in the Seattle office of my employer, and longtime friends who live in Seattle. I enjoyed walking the crowd through the 12 pieces and telling the story behind each piece (and no one appeared to fall asleep).

The Gallery also provided an area for flyers and my business cards if anyone was interested. I had generic business card created for the show as these cards are accessible by the public who has access to the gallery.

Additionally here are some photos taken the day before the show opening right after the pieces were hung, by my friend Loren who works at the Seattle Municipal Tower:

The whole experience was exciting but a little exhausting. I’ve been in several art shows in the past and have attended openings but it is a different experience when you are the only artist and it is your show!

When the show closes 07/15/2019, a Seattle based friend is going to collect the pieces from the gallery and deliver them to me when she visits me in the Denver area in late July. I do have two buyers interested in several of the pieces so I might have a couple art quilt sales in the near future.

After the Show

After the show I met up with a large group of Seattle friends at a lovely Dim Sum restaurant in the University Village area – Din Tai Fung.

We sat for hours visiting and having wonderful conversations while dining on delicious Taiwanese cuisine such as these wonderful vegetable dumplings below:

Postscript

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am settling into my new Colorado apartment. It has been an interesting transition from living in a house most of my life to now living in an apartment but so far, so good.

I wrote this blog post from my kitchen table this morning while eating breakfast and sipping on tea.

Mike my miniature schnauzer is getting used to all these people and dogs living in “his house” (he thinks the whole inside the apartment complex is his home but for some reason he and I only live in one section of it – ha!).

Books, Music, Podcasts, Studio

Update: Recycled Door

May 25, 2016July 17, 2016 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

In the March 2016 post BLOG TOUR DAY 4: Unlikely Materials I shared a work in progress called Recycled Door. This art quilt is part of the Central Oregon SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) group exhibit “Doors” that will debut at the 2016 Sisters Outdoor Quilt show.

We were challenged with making an 18″ x 40″ art quilt/wallhanging that represented our interpretation of a door. I found a door image I liked on Australian door and window manufacturer’s website Brisbane Timber . I created my interpretation of one of their doors, using recycled materials: jeans, corduroy shirts, a tweed jumper, and home decor fabric.

I just got this piece back from Betty Anne Guadalupe, my long-arm quilter and collaborative partner in The Wardrobe Meets the Wall Collection. She quilted it to represent the texture/grain of an wooden door.

Now I need put finish the facing for the back (finishing off an art quilt with a smooth edge instead of binding the edge) and it is ready for the July 2016 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show!

As it was made with recycled materials, it will become part of The Wardrobe Meets the Wall Collection.

Postscript

I am listening to a new non-fiction audiobook, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves by Grosz, Stephen.

It is pretty DEEP. The author is a British psychoanalyst who shares 25 years of his client’s stories (confidentiality maintained of course!) in relation to baffling behavior based on hidden feelings.

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The narrator also is British and I am enjoying the British English pronunciation of words such as “schedule” and “garage”!

One of the most interesting parts of the book so far, besides all the interesting stories, is the author sharing a very profound interpretation of Charles Dickens’ famous story, A Christmas Carol. He delves deep into what actually made Ebenezer Scrooge change his ways!

Studio, tierneycreates

Website Work

March 8, 2016March 8, 2016 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

BREAKING NEWS: I am going to be participating in a Blog Tour as part of C&T Publishing’s promotion of my friends new book, Creative Quilt Challenges (Pat Pease & Wendy Hill, 2016) and you will have an opportunity to win a copy of the book, just by commenting on my blog, more details to come!

Learning Curve on the New Website

I spent part of the weekend working on the new Art Quilts by Guadalupe & Hogan website on the Square Space platform. It is not intuitive like my WordPress blog and requires quite a learning curve. I have resorted to having to watch the instructional videos (which are quite excellent) to guide me along each step of creating the website from the Square Space templates.

I can tell the website is going to be fairly professional looking, as opposed to the homegrown blog look of our The Wardrobe Meets the Wall site. The template I am using is very sleek and allows a lot of cool customization.

In preparation for our upcoming show, The Collaboration (see the Textiles Adventures page or the recent post The Collaboration), Betty Anne Guadalupe and I were asked to write the story of our collaboration (we collaborated on the story of our collaboration, ha).

I am working on integrating this story into our new website but I thought I would share the story now on my tierneycreates blog:

The Collaboration

The work of Betty Anne Guadalupe and Tierney Davis Hogan is about collaboration across generations, backgrounds, and cultures. They each come from different perspectives and bring those perspectives into their collaborative work.

They randomly came together in Central Oregon completely by chance nearly 10 years ago and the universe kept mysteriously bringing Betty Anne and Tierney together until they became friends.

The birth of their first collaboration was for a show that they conceptualized: art quilts from recycled silk couture fabric samples. They then invited other art quilters to join in this challenge of creating art quilts from recycled silks and this became Quilting Meets Couture. This matured into Betty Anne and Tierney’s current collaborative collection, The Wardrobe Meets the Wall, collection of art quilts made from recycled garments and garment manufacturing samples.

Betty Anne and Tierney have been engaging in ongoing collaboration of art quilts projects. They frequently get together for “sew days”. They have exchanged blocks and fabrics from each others’ “stash”. They join together for supportive, collaborative discussions, followed by sharing of fabric, unfinished blocks and a meal.

Tierney and Betty Anne each work independently, but as good friends always do, they share ideas.

Their recent endeavor is to stick with idea of making beauty from random discards. The result of this endeavor is that it has set their creative spirits soaring.

The art quilt below, Flying Triangles, was our very first art quilt collaboration: I designed and pieced the quilt with silk and linen couture garment manufacturing samples (originally due to be trashed by the manufacturer) that Betty Anne had procured; and Betty Anne did the quilting.

Flying Triangles (2012). Designed and Pieced by Tierney Davis Hogan. Quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe. Photography by Jeremy Koons.

Studio

New Piece Added to Collection: Abandoned Structure (2015)

October 19, 2015October 19, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Here is the completed piece, Abandoned Structure, that I discussed is several What’s on the Design Wall, posts.

Studio, What's on the Design Wall

What’s On the Design Wall: A Homecoming

October 12, 2015September 16, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Yesterday the long-arm quilter, Guadalupe Designs, unveiled the quilting done on my piece Abandoned Structure, which is based on an abandoned power plant in Central Oregon that I photographed many years ago.

For more on the development of this piece, the story behind it, and the original photo that inspired it, please see the post What’s On the Design Wall: Working Through a New Art Quilt Piece.

Once I got it home I stuck it up on the Design Wall (a sort of homecoming from where it originally was born). I have not yet trimmed the batting from the edges or put the finish on the edges, but I am enjoying just looking at the piece as it came off the long-arm quilting machine.

I am excited to add it to my collection of art quilts made from recycled clothing and garment manufacturing scraps.

Abandoned Structure (2015, in progress). Designed and pieced by Tierney Davis Hogan, Quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe. — Abandoned Structure (2015, in progress). Designed and pieced by Tierney Davis Hogan, Quilted by Guadalupe Designs

Creative Inspiration

Creative Inspiration: Quilting Mentors

April 13, 2015September 15, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Dictionary.com defines a Mentor as a “wise and trusted counselor or teacher”. I think this a perfect definition of a mentor, especially a quilting mentor.

This post continues my series on exploring of my sources of creative inspiration (previous post in this series – Creative Inspiration: Quiet, Stillness, and Daydream). I am lucky to have four key quilting mentors (so far) in my life: Judy D., Roxanne Carter, and Jean Wells Keenan. Each of these mentors have inspired me in different ways.

Quilting Mentor #1: Judy D.

Judy D. is a former coworker and dear friend who convinced me to start quilting in the late 1990s. If it was not for her, I would not be a quilter. Judy, an experienced quilter, convinced me to work on my first quilt. She patiently engaged in quite a bit of hand holding to get me through my first quilt: taking me to quilt shops, showing me the basics, accompanying me to my first quilting class, etc. I call her my “Quilt Momma” as she helped give birth to me as a quilter!

Judy has given me a lifetime gift that has brought much happiness to myself and family and friends who now snuggle under the quilts I have made them.

Quilting Mentor #2: Roxanne Carter

Roxanne Carter of Quilting with Roxanne was my first quilting teacher. She is a brilliant and masterful quilter (a quilting genius) as well as an excellent and patient teacher, renown for her wonderful quilt making patterns which make complex looking quilts easy to construct. I was fortunate enough to take classes in her beautiful home studio as well as attend monthly “Girls Night Out” where she provided ongoing mentoring. Now see her once a year at one of her retreats in Monroe, WA.

Using her easy to follow patterns and learning quilting under her exceptional teaching style, I gained confidence in my technical quilting ability as a new quilter.

Fritz & Snickers (our first rescued miniature schnauzers) wrapped in the first quilt I ever made – one of Roxanne Carter’s Irish Chain style patterns, completed under the patient mentoring of Judy D.

Irish Chain (1999/2000) first quilt I made.

Quilting Mentor #3: Jean Wells Keenan

My newest mentor is someone I have admired for a long time – Jean Wells Keenan, owner of the Stitchin’s Post quilt shop, teacher, author, and a inductee into the Quilters Hall of Fame. I briefly discuss the influence of her two brilliant art quilting books, Intuitive Color and Design: Adventures in Art Quilting and Journey to Inspired Art Quilting, on my creativity in the post Creative Inspiration: Nature.

Jean Wells Keenan brought intuitive creative design in quilting to the Central Oregon quilting community and her work has been an important influence in my move from traditional to art quilting. She is an excellent and inspiring teacher and I have been fortunate to be in several of her workshops as well as attend SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) meetings with her. I live in a wonderful art quilting community and I am inspired many of my fellow local SAQA members and their daring and innovative art quilts.

Random Not So Random – recycled silk art quilt inspired by the line work of Jean Wells Keenan. Part of The Wardrobe Meets the Wall Collection.

Designed and Pieced by Tierney Davis Hogan. Quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe. Photography by Jeremy Koons. — Designed and Pieced by Tierney Davis Hogan. Quilted by Guadalupe Designs. Photography by Jeremy Koons.

I hope someday to be a quilting mentor and inspire others on their creative path like these four wonderful women have inspired my creativity.

tierneycreates

2015 Goals

February 12, 2015March 31, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Over the past month I have been thinking about my 2015 goals related to tierneycreates. I have two main goals: 1) post more on my blog; and 2) get the tierneycreates Etsy shop up to 100+ items. I just have to work around my full-time health care job I have in order to meet these goals!

Recently, and probably too late for the Valentine’s Day holiday, I have been working on sets of little love note pillows to sell on my Etsy shop. They would be perfect for Valentine’s Day but they also work well as a little wedding gift, a little way to say I love you gift, and a nice little treat to show yourself some “self-love” and have around your house. Before I even got the them posted onto the Etsy shop I sold a couple to friends to give as Valentine’s gifts – they are so cute in person it is difficult to capture their cuteness in a photo (and that could be because my photography skills are lacking…).

I have also been working on a new piece for the collaborative collection, The Wardrobe Meets The Wall, tentatively called “Vessel”. If you’d like to see it in progress check out the photo on the In Progress post on The Wardrobe Meets The Wall blog.

Sassy has been trying to keep her her section of the tierneycreates blog updated so be sure to check out her posts at Schnauzer Snips!