Jane Sassaman Lecture

Seasons Cycle; Spring Tree  30”x58”
Seasons Cycle; Spring Tree 30”x58”

I signed up for the SFQG emails. These emails notify me of upcoming speakers to the local guild. My mom and I went to one towards the end of the year last year to see Mike McNamara. For $5, I can hear really great lectures and see wonderful slides. A recent email notified me that Jane Sassaman would be coming to lecture. My mom is gone and I almost didn’t go, but I committed to myself to go and went.

I am not much into the whole guild thing right at the moment. I do belong to two different guilds, which suit my needs very well: workshops and like minded people. It might be interesting to be a member of the SF Guild again, but I don’t want to volunteer for stuff. I just want to sit in my workroom and make stuff. Selfish, I know.

Still I couldn’t resist the lure of Jane Sassaman. I have admired her quilts for awhile and love her name. She has designed a rug (I don’t know if it is still in her shop) that I would love for my dining room. Boy am I glad I went! The lecture was wonderful! I usually feel so inspired when I hear someone like Jane Sassaman speak.

When I arrived at the meeting the greeter asked me if I wanted a hostess or chaperone. I didn’t so I said so and I was rather proud of myself for saying so. I was tired and didn’t feel like talking to people. They have a lot going on and the hall was crowded. The only seats apparently available were int he front row. I thought they might be saved for the officers, but I went and sat in one and nobody kicked me out.

Simple Shapes Complex Fabric
Simple Shapes Complex Fabric

Ms. Sassaman called her lecture A Fabric Romance. She talked a lot about the fabric she has designed, about which she is very enthusiastic. She said that she has spent a lot of time working with the fabric she designed. Ms. Sassaman said that she has filled her whole hose with the fabric. She showed pictures of duvets, pillowcases, throw pillows, upholstery, seat covers and even a tree skirt for the holidays. I was enamoured with all the fabric that she used and it made me think that these types of simple home decor accessories would be a wonderful, and relatively easy, way to cheer up my house. It would also be a wonderful way to use up precious fabric in large amounts so as not to worry about cutting it.

I love it when I go to a lecture and learn something. Jane’s fabric is pretty busy or complicated. She said she designed it that way to make the work of quilting easier for people like us. The one tip she repeated over and over in various ways was:

Simple Patches, Complex Fabric.

With larger designs, fussy cut and cut larger patches. What I think she meant by that is displayed in the quilt to the left = “complex fabric with big motifs makes simple piecing look sophisticated.” There is no applique’ in that piece. She has fussy cut the fabric motifs and carefully placed them to make the piece look complex. She showed several examples in her slide show and had a few examples in person as well.

I have to say that after listening to her talk, I am looking at fabrics, especially the large prints that we love and are so popular right now, a little differently.

Blue Butterfly
Blue Butterfly
Blue Butterfly-detail
Blue Butterfly-detail

Some things I noticed were that her stitching is a real design element. The stitches are large and fill in some outlines where there would otherwise be blank space.

I rarely think of thread that way and would like to try and learn to do that, because, at least, in the butterfly, it is very effective. I did do a bit of this type of stitching to accent the angles and folds in the Pie block in the Tarts Come to Tea.

I am not sure if it is the design and if that type of stitching would translate well to other shapes, but it is definitely worth thinking about and trying to incorporate more of into my pieces.

In general I think thread still has a lot more to add to my pieces that I am currently doing. TFQ and I have said that threadwork has become much more noticeable in recent years. Jane’s work is another example.

She learns, “like other visual people” (her words), by looking at other artists’ work. She is heavily influenced by William Morris, the English designer. From him she learned “if you have an empty space, put a dot in it.” Right up my alley! I never much liked Morris’ work, but think I may have gained a new appreciation for him after listening to Ms. Sassaman speak about how he influenced her. She opened my eyes to some of his other work besides that one sees at Liberty of London.

She also enjoys the work of Christopher Dresser. He was a contemporary of William Morris and was trained as a botanist. His work is quirky in that he gives extreme discipline to natural objects. She showed a beetle box/jar which illustrates this concept. The beetles, which would probably rarely stand still, are stopped and in order in this piece.

Rennie Mackintosh is another designer to whom Jane looks for inspiration. She particularly showed the stylized roses. I used to make small leaded glass panels and one I made used a pattern which included these roses. I don’t know if I have a photo of it, but if I do, I will post it sometime.

Viennese Succession is a movement that she loves. I may not have completely understood what she said, but I think she said she likes this era, because of the decorative arts elements. Manufacturers put restrictions on the artists designing hte decorative arts (e.g. design for this box, which will be 4×4″ square) and then the artists put further restrictions on themselves within the first set of constraints. Dagobert Pesch was an Austrian artist from this era. She enjoys the scary elements that he puts in his work (e.g. the spiky leaves here and the pointy bits on this tiara). I am sure someone who knows more about him could talk more intelligently about his work.

Josef Frank was another Austrian artist who moved to Sweden, whose work Ms. Sassaman enjoys. He loved to put everything he possibly could on a piece.

Forgotten Garden 60" x 90"  ©2004
Forgotten Garden 60" x 90" ©2004
Life Totem 23" X 71"
Life Totem 23" X 71"

Jane has an interesting sense of the macabre. She likes the spiky, spooky elements. She said that she always puts something scary in her work. They are not scary, but they are not sweetness and light either. Spikes and thorns can be seen regularly in her work. She walked us through her design process via slide and showed some of the designs she had considered that didn’t make it into the final collections.

It takes her about 4 months to complete a collection of fabric. Included in the process is lots of “noodling” around at which time she tries to make the pieces work together. She starts with line drawings in black and white. She figures out how they will repeat and how the different designs (on each bolt) will work together. She makes her colorways “talk” to each other so they be used together. Her collections involve about 10 prints in 3 colorways – 30 total for each collection. She calls her fabric designs “William Morris on antidepressants.” That got a big laugh.

She starts with 3 contrasting shapes when she gets to work on a quilt and then adds in a collage style. She will often have layered shapes, which are made up of three layers using shapes that mimic each other.

She is heavily influenced by the decorative arts and uses lots of decorative elements in her work. Her quilt, Willow, was influenced by English embroideries of the 1600s. You have to look at her quilts side to side, as is the case with many historic embroideries, to see the “conversation” going on. The side motifs are similar on each side, but not the same. I think I learned something about looking while at that lecture.

Busy Shop
Busy Shop

She brought quite a few things to sell. Before the lecture, the shop was busy. After the lecture, it was completely mobbed with people grabbing things right and left. She has a couple of lines that I think are very good marketing ideas. One is called Simple Silhouettes, which are patterns for ~1 foot square quilts using piecing and applique’. They look to have very few pieces. She also has created a line of sewn accessories she calls Home Dec pint sized patterns. These are specifically designed for newer quiltmakers, young parents and people who are just starting out and don’t have a lot of time. All of these patterns and her fabrics can be purchased from her shop.

Deluxe Seasonal Patterns - Winter
Deluxe Seasonal Patterns - Winter

A few other photos:

Pink Butterfly with Grass
Pink Butterfly with Grass
Pink Butterfly with Grass - full
Pink Butterfly with Grass - full