Thursday, July 26, 2007

Jane Sassaman's Class

Or, as I like to think of it....how to be the teacher's favorite. She told me "it's so nice to see a kindred spirit." Haha, Kim and Jessica. Apparently at Quiltfest past, Kim and Jessica have competitively kissed up for the title of Famous National Teacher's Favorite. I couldn't resist the opportunity to be a kiss-up. She did tell us all she would like us to be her neighbor.

Mom, Cuz Kim, and Cuz in-law Jessica and I all signed up for this class the very minute it went online all the way back in March. Jane Sassaman is just an outstanding art quilter and artist.

Please allow me to introduce Jane Sassaman. Awesome artist, fabric lover, mom, comedienne, and my kindred spirit (she said so herself. Haha, kimmie and jess!) Anyway, she was the most incredible teacher, instructing in the best way: guiding our voices through her tried and true creative techniques. That way, no one's work looked like hers, it looked like ours. But her work is fantastic. I mean, seriously. Go look at her gallery.


So here is what we learned to do in class: first, lots of sketching from real plants or photos of real plants. Then onto abstractions into circles, squares, and triangles. Inspired by artists of the 19th century--you know, Klimt and the like. Hey, Mom-Jean Howard--Did you take notes? Post some of the names of the artists in the comments, if you would. Thanks, you're a doll.




Then we abstracted even more by honing in on specific shapes and simplifying them. There's where I started having trouble. I was so in love with my swirling flowers from the previous sketches, I couldn't simplify. I'm so conceited!

Then on to the fabric fondling, as Jane calls it. Here we all are in our little auditorium surrounded by tissue paper and fabric. We all chose different flowers. My mom, in true form, got lots of her flower pieces done. I on the other hand, obsessed about fabric and color choices and got next to nothing done. Typical.







And to be honest, I'm still not sure about the fabric. I went to Tennessee Quilts (the best quilt store in the land) and bought 3 different kinds. Oh well. I'll figure it out sometime. I really like this disco dot. Kimmie says maybe not. Everything else looked very Miami or sherbetty.



If you ever get a chance to take a quilting class, you should. There is a huge quilting show here at Opryland in August which is great for shopping and also has good teachers. You can learn oh so much just by listening to the teacher. The perfectionism alone is astounding, but also they know tons of little tricks that really make things go nicely.

Can't wait for next year's quiltfest, girls!!

I'm signing off for the night. Happy Birthday to my Very Favorite One!!

Posted by Beth Howard @ 10:27 PM