20
Wednesday, September 6, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
ART QUILTS: Display
will be at library
through September
Continued from page 3
Joaquin Valley in California.
Carvahlo and her mother
both enjoyed sewing, but she
didn’t know anyone who was
a quilter. She began quilting
by taking an adult educa-
tion class to learn to make a
wall hanging for her home.
Shortly after moving to
Sisters, Carvahlo took a class
on art quilts from Jean Wells.
“That class spun me in a
totally new direction,” she
recalled.
She refers to her process
as “intuitive quilting.” Her
pieces range in size from
small square-foot pieces to
40-by-40-inch quilts. The
size is determined by the size
of the wall on which the quilt
will hang.
Just last month, Carvahlo
had three quilts accepted into
juried shows – the Studio Art
Quilts Associates (SAQA)
show in Beaverton; the 2017
Northwest Quilting Expo
in Portland; and the inter-
national Quilts=Art=Quilts
2017 exhibit in Auburn, New
York. Carvahlo is excited to
attend the opening in Auburn
in late October. The exhibit
will hang through the end of
the year.
Carvahlo’s art quilts are
full of small details that
require careful study to
appreciate them all. Most of
her fabric is digitally printed
on an inkjet printer, using
designs she creates on her
computer using Photoshop
Elements. The fabric comes
with a backing that allows it
to pass through the printer.
She uses not only fabric, but
also paper on which designs
and photographs are printed.
“I love to control my fab-
ric,” Carvahlo explained.
She manipulates pat-
terns and designs and often
merges photos and/or pat-
terns together. One of her
quilts hanging at the library
was created using leftover
scraps of material that she cut
apart and reassembled into a
quilt.
“I dabble in other art
forms – watercolor, sketch-
ing, mixed media – and my
quilts are a continual mash-
up of all of those,” remarked
Carvahlo.
Torrie Gordon, who has
been quilting for 17 years,
said whenever she saw quilts,
she would think to herself,
“When I’m no longer work-
ing I will take up quilting.”
She considered herself a
“dabbler” when she started
out with traditional quilts,
but is now fully hooked on
art quilts. She admits she
isn’t prolific, as she spends
a great deal of time on each
quilt. What she does create is
usually the result of a class
she has taken or a SAQA
challenge.
Gordon said the hardest
part of the process for her
is coming up with the idea
for a quilt. She enjoys get-
ting inspiration from others
or from photographs. One of
her pieces at the library was
inspired by a class she took
dealing with the four ele-
ments, taught by Rosalie Day.
“I chose water and wrote
Enjoy the
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summer!
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PHOTO BY SUE STAFFORD
Sharon Carvahlo, left, and Torrie Gordon, right, in front of their art quilts on display in the Sisters Library
computer room until September 29 as part of the Friends of the Sisters Library September art exhibit.
down as many words as pos-
sible describing what water
does – gushes, reflects, cas-
cades, gurgles, bubbles –
and each piece in the quilt
was inspired by one of the
words.”
“Quilting is hard work
for me,” Gordon admitted. “I
wrestle with every single tiny
piece. I spend lots of time
looking at what I’ve done to
figure out what’s next. When
it is close to being finished,
then I get jazzed when I
can see the whole picture. I
don’t do things I really like
quickly,” Gordon said of her
process.
She generally has some-
one else do the quilting of her
pieces.
“Quilting is where I ruin
it. If I value it, I get a profes-
sional to do the quilting.”
She has, however, done
some hand quilting and does
do embroidery.
Gordon and her husband
moved to Sisters five years
ago from Salem, where they
had lived since the mid-70s.
After graduating from col-
lege in California, they lived
in Arizona for a time.
The quilts will be in
the computer room until
September 29. In the com-
munity room, Dennis
McGregor’s animal art is
on exhibit for the month.
McGregor is starting a
GoFundMe account to help
publish a children’s book
featuring the animals. On
Friday, September 22, after
the Fourth Friday Art Stroll,
McGregor will be at the
library playing music and
talking about his art and the
book from 7:30 to 9 p.m.