Author: Judy Coates Perez

  • The Loft

    The Loft

    Here are a few pics from before we moved in, of course it now looks like a maze of boxes and unbuilt shelving. This is a view of the kitchen that used to be one of the ovens in the factory. it has curved brick walls on two sides with an arched ceiling The panels…

  • Chicago

    We have finally moved into our loft in the old Nabisco factory in the westloop of Chicago. We have the top floor unit on the other side of the tower. I have been unpacking for the last 5 days and have not even touched anything for the studio. We have so much to do before…

  • IQF Houston

    IQF Houston

    Primordial Sea won 2nd place in the Painted Surface category at the International Quilt Festival! I love going to Houston each year and seeing all my old quilt pals from Austin, as well as all the other friends I have met over the years. And I love meeting new people that I may have an…

  • Smokey skies

    My daughter took these photos tonight at sunset. The fire in Burbank has spread across the hills unfortunately in this direction creating a lot of smoke. All the ash in the sky refracts the light and created a spectacular sunset.

  • Packing?

    We close on our house in 16 days. I am procrastinating. I realize I really should start packing stuff I don’t want movers to pack. So saturday night I pulled out a box and started to pack it with jars of dye. Next thing I knew I was pulling jars back out of the box,…

  • Michele’s quilt

    Michele’s quilt

    This week we had Laura Wasilowski as our guild speaker. What fun she is, I never saw our guild laugh so much with a speaker, people had tears rolling down their faces. She is absolutely delightful. My friend Michele Pusateri and I took the workshop. I enjoy taking a workshop once in a while to…

  • I am going to miss my view

    This is the view from our upper balcony in the canyon where we live in Los Angeles, California. In the two years that we have lived here we have seen deer, lots of hawks, owls, lots of lizards, two bobcats and we hear coyotes yapping and howling at night. There are mountain lions too, but…

  • The good and the bad

    The good and the bad

    The good news is I have an 8 page artist profile in Quilting Arts magazine this month. I am thrilled to be featured in such a fabulous magazine. The bad news is the day before I left for Chicago our house sale fell through. The people who bought it brought their teenage sons (17 and…

  • Off to Chicago

    I have sold my house here in Los Angeles and am off to Chicago for 2 weeks to look for a house with a good studio space. I hope my husband stays with this ad agency for a LONG time, cause I can’t imagine a better place for an art quilter to live these days.…

  • IQA Auction

    This is my piece for the IQA silent auction in Houston this year. It is painted hand dyed silk. 17″ x 17″

  • Quilters Newsletter Magazine

    Quilters Newsletter Magazine

    Wooo hooo! Tree of Life is going to be in the September issue of QNM, in the Readers Quilt Show section. “The human form gets interpretted in patchwork and applique.” Technically this quilt is neither since it is painted, but I won’t argue that point. I guess a naked Martian smoking a cigar wouldn’t qualify…

  • Agave

    Agave

    The air quality in Los Angeles, when I lived there, was less than desirable. But it did make for intensely colorful sunset walks. Surreal shades of crimson and ocher would wash over the trails and agave rosettes dotting the hillsides near my canyon residence. This quilt was inspired by one particular agave plant that seemed…

  • Stem Cells

    Stem cell research is getting amazing results in a number of areas in the medical field. I am frustrated by the belief system of this administration when it comes to stem cell research. At the present time fertilization clinics dispose of unused eggs. Why is it more humane and Holy to throw away embryos than…

  • Primordial Sea

    While living in Texas fossils fascinated my children, and we spent many happy days in the creek beds of Austin searching for evidence that North America was once under the sea. This quilt is what I like to imagine a Primordial Sea, abundant in jewel toned marine life would look like. this quilt is whole…

  • Fauna

    This is my strip for a group quilt that is being made with my art quilt group that formed when I lived in Austin. Now our members are in Austin, Dallas, Glendale (soon to be Chicago), Portland, Maine and Tokyo, Japan. This quilt is a follow up to two previous group quilts on a similar…

  • Bird of Paradise

    Bird of Paradise

    This was my donation to the IQA auction last year. It is painted silk. The sky was painted with textile paints and the bird and tree were painted with Tsukineko inks, with gold metallic paint details. The edge is finished with couched colored and gold cording. I like to use other things besides traditional bindings…

  • There’s a Place Called Mars…

    There’s a Place Called Mars…

    Looking at Mars mission photos, I was struck by the contrast between scenes of a rocky, lifeless planet and the rich, fanciful portrayals of Mars in popular culture. I prefer a fanciful Mars. A place, where flora and fauna from the pages of Ernst Haekel’s book, “Artforms in Nature”, fill a Ray Bradbury inspired world…

  • Lichen

    Lichen

    My son had a fascination with lichen when we lived in Texas. It was everywhere in so many different beautiful forms. Lichen is a class of organisms in which algae and fungi live in a symbiotic relationship as one. They are found throughout the world but are unable to survive where the atmosphere is polluted,…