Leisa Rich

Leisa Rich

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Posts by Leisa Rich

The Ongoing Collaboration of Ginny and Leisa and their love affair with fabric, texture and Leisa’s fixation with car washes!

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Ginny and I met up at Starbucks today to do the exchange of car wash quilt #2. I turned the work over to her with some trepidation; I find it is always so intimidating when you are sharing both creative process and technique with someone…what if she judged me (my vision/skill) and found me lacking? I had spent most of last weekend happily stitching away, building up the surface with a variety of stitches and was truly hoping she would be pleased with my interpretation. I had worked feverishly, using the free motion machine embroidery that would enhance and embellish the pieced fabric, choosing carefully with Ginny in mind. However, as I worked away, I mulled over that I was feeling a little….bored! After much thought, it finally came to me that the problem was that there were NO 3D elements!

I am definitely an artist who needs a LOT of texture, dimension, and most certainly the tactile to be a part of my works. Throwing caution to the wind, I pulled from my varied collection of nubbly, velvety, netty fabrics until I found the right textures to enhance the piece. This was no easy task deciding to do so; Ginny makes really technically perfect quilts that fit neatly into the precise definition of a quilt and the base of this one was so lovely, her use of color and the choices of fabrics so spot on, and the skill with which she cuts and places the fabrics so perfectly daunting, I really was frozen with fear at “messing it up”. However, I knew that she could “take it” as I am finding her to be a woman with the ability to roll with the punches and be open to see what happens! Whew! She was happy with the end result, and now it has gone back to her to use her mad quilt skills on.

HOWEVER! I still have quilt #1 in my hot, little hands and have dastardly plans for what we thought was a sampler-type piece. In Leisa, she must trust!

We also talked about getting together a proposal for an exhibition…this is shaping up to be something truly inspiring and gorgeous and we must expose it to the public!

Here are a few photos of my work on the piece….though as many of you know, it is near impossible to capture the extremely intricate nature of cloth, stitching, and texture in this form. You’ll all just have to come and see the works in the show!

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Ruminations on Collaboration

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It’s been so wonderful embarking on this creative adventure with Ginny! Collaborations stretch individuals in a variety of different ways. I also feel like I am making a new friend…and one can never have too many of those. Especially artists. We face a lot of rejection and need others to frequently bolster our self-esteem and pat us on the back!

Specifically for me, it will be a great lesson in getting better at sharing. Ginny has such great ideas and mad technical skill; I have much to learn from her dedication, sense of direction and focus. I am a strong-willed artist used to working mostly on my own, with a great passion and excitement about what I do, so giving up control for someone else’s idea, and staying focussed on ONE idea, can be a challenge for me. Ginny has expressed the scariness of tackling the larger format and abstract nature of my car wash photos we are using as a departure for the concept, so that will be the hurdle she will overcome through this process. We will both surely grow from this experience!

As we pass these pieces back and forth and engage in creative conversations about them, we will both have to think in new ways. I hope you, the readers, will gain something from our experience!

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