SUDOKU Art Quilts from 2008 Art & Soul Class

I want to show some of the SUDOKU quilts, students made in last year's "No-sew SUDOKU Art Quilt" class. In the excitement of teaching my first Art & Soul class, I forgot all about taking any pictures of the participant's art or of how I'd set up my classroom with the fabric square choices in a colorful color wheel arrangement. Duh... I'll take pictures this year. Three students were nice enough to send me pictures of their art...

Karen Barr's SUDOKU Art Quilt.
Karen represents some of the SUDOKU puzzle numbers with button and fiber embellishments.

Bridget Benton's SUDOKU Art Quilt and close up.
Bridget used her embellishments to create an overall design.

Marcy McKenzie's "By The Sea" themed SUDOKU Art Quilt. This is a close up of the #1 through #9 squares of the SUDOKU puzzle pattern. I'm guessing the starfish is #5...

Overall view of Marcy's "By the Sea" SUDOKU Art Quilt.

I consider my first Art & Soul "No-Sew SUDOKU Art Quilt" class a great success. My ten students seemed happy and each student created a lovely and unique piece of art. Everyone completed the 81 squares of the quilt base (Hooray!) with students in different stages of the embellishment process. It was so much FUN to see all the colorful quilts. I look forward to teaching my 2009 Portland Art & Soul classes. The classes are now listed on the Art & Soul website.

Other ART Stuff to talk about... "Coraline"
I want to enthusiastically recommend the 3-D version of the animated movie "Coraline". It is one of the most artfully skilled movies I've ever seen. It's been a long time since I've been to a movie that took my breath away (and left me a little motion sick Ha!). The story, color, animation, and 3-D that jumped out of the screen are beyond words... ART at its best. One of my favorite parts was the deconstructing of the doll at the very beginning before the story even starts. I also related to the locations... Coraline moved from Michigan (my state of birth) and her father was wearing a Michigan State University sweatshirt (located in the city area where I lived) and she moved to Oregon (where I am now). Curious who has connections to Michigan in the making of the movie. Coraline lived in Pontiac Michigan and nobody just pulls that city name out of a hat.

Valentine Flight...
My husband is a pilot and co-owner in a small 1952 Cessna 170 airplane. To celebrate Valentines Day we took a sunset flight over the Columbia River Gorge and Cascade Mountain foothills (beats dinner and flowers anytime!). The art part is the spectacular scenery. A picture is worth a thousand words... but I didn't think it would be so pretty and didn't take the camera, so you're stuck with the thousand words more or hopefully less. It was like entering another world. We departed snowless/mostly green Portland into a mountainous landscape covered in fir trees with just enough snow that they looked like they were covered in frost. The hillsides shown in the setting sun (orange and pink sky to the west) with a backdrop of bright white snow covered Mt Hood to the east and pockets of clouds below us in the ridgeline valleys. One valley /canyon looked like a lake of clouds and the clouds were rolling over the ridgeline in such a way that it looked like a huge wide waterfall flowing into the cloud lake... Fantastic! I'm always so thankful and feel so lucky to be able to see the world from a perspective most people will never get to see...