A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Anne-Lù Hovis works with Martha Keane to combine traditional quilting with glass pieces. Hovis also creates three-dimensional work like this river with leaves. Both works are on display beginning next week at the Knot Gallery, part of the Pine Knot News office in Cloquet's West End.
The Knot Gallery is taking a different tack for its next display, hosting a fabric art exhibit for May and June. Join fabric artists and Pine Knot News staff for a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, April 28, in the office at 122 Avenue C in Cloquet's West End. The works of seven artists are up for viewing and most of them will be attending the opening, including Moose Lake's Tah'tini Ho'okan, who will be demonstrating techniques on her loom. This week and next we share insights from conversations we've had with the artist contributors.
Anne-Lù Hovis is exhibiting two unique art quilts, including one created in collaboration with her sister-in-law Martha Keane, a fused glass artist. Hovis was caught leading a quilting cheer at a Duluth textile parade in January, also referred to as a "quilt walk" and a "virtual quilt show." A fellow quilter in the Duluth-based Lake Superior Modern Quilt Guild, Melanie Anderson, had seen an Instagram video of some English quilters taking a walk around their quaint village and proposed that the Duluth quilters do the same.
Hovis said the Modern Quilt Guild is pushing the boundaries of traditional quilting. But she and her sister-in-law are pushing the boundaries even more, by blending Keane's fused glass work with fabric art by Hovis.
With Hovis in northern Minnesota and Keane on the West Coast, working together long distance was a challenge, requiring a lot of online meetings and phone calls.
Martha made quite a few pieces of glass and shipped them to Anne-Lù, while Anne-Lù was sending sketches and fabric color swatches to Martha. Challenges included getting things to scale and working with the mix of fabric and glass. For fabric, they chose colors like yellow, gray and brown, pairing them with the colors of glass.
Working on a 1954 Singer featherweight machine, Anne-Lù used a variety of quilting techniques including foundational paper piecing, needle turn and reverse appliqué, machine and hand quilting to create an original piece that combines fabric and glass in an innovative way. Martha and Anne-Lù thoughtfully combine the fabric and glass elements to complement each design aspect of the art piece.
After much work and learning, they produced two pieces, one that will be in the Pine Knot show and a second that is included in a traveling "trunk show" being shown internationally through Studio Art Quilt Associates. Anne-Lù also has a quilt on exhibit in Concourse F at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Cromwell's Dawn Lippo is contributing six quilts of varying sizes and techniques to the Pine Knot exhibit, including a wall hanging, miniature quilt, a crocheted table topper, a paper pieced table topper in browns and yellows, and one simply named "Sails."
Lippo grew up in a small town in Montana.
"I loved making clothes," she said. "My mother taught me. She made a lot of our clothes and started us sewing too. She was my 4-H teacher."
Dawn began teaching school, first in Fairview, Montana, and then in Mentor, Minnesota and other small towns. At Cromwell-Wright school, she had her first experience as a home economics teacher, where she served for many years. She is active in, and a leader of, the Cromwell-Wright Area quilters.
Read about the other artists in next week's Pine Knot News.
Columnist Ann Markusen is an economist and professor emerita at University of Minnesota. One of the five owners of the Pine Knot News, she lives in Red Clover Township north of Cromwell with her husband, Rod Walli.
