Waseca Art Gallery welcomes Kathy Weed, Jay Schmit

A gallery opening and artist reception at the Waseca Art Center, (WAC) on Saturday, Aug. 1, welcomed quilter Kathy Weed and wood turning master Jay Schmit.

 

Belle Plaine woodworker Jay Schmit has only been working professionally with wood for the past seven years. “I was getting close to retirement and I was asked, "What will you do on your first day after you’re retired?” Schmit claims he works with nearly every type of wood he can find–cherry, maple and soft maple, walnut, cottonwood, rosewood and something he referred to as “vegetable ivory,” which is from a palm tree. His pieces are containers, bowls with and without covers, remarkably delicate-looking wine glasses. Some of his items are painted. Schmit observed, “If you don’t know whether a wood piece is painted or not, just think of it like this, if you can see the grain of your wood, then it’s dyed. If you cannot see the grain of the wood, then it’s painted.” He acknowledges that lighter wood is far easier to dye.

 

He describes that during his first four years as a woodturner, he did mostly bowls, “Then I expanded into shapes.” He claimed sometimes he begins working on a piece of wood with no idea what he will make: “I let the wood tell me where to go.” 

 

He names woodworking artists such as Richard Raffan and Stewart Furini as people whose work has inspired him. One piece, which Schmit said was inspired by Indiana Jones, was painted gold on the inside, titled “Medieval Feel.”

 

The other artist for the day was quilting expert Kathy Weed, who grew up in Northfield. Weed is her married name, and she joked, “I married not a flower, but a weed.” As she told about her career, she says her mother taught her to sew, leading to a lifetime of working with textiles. She told how a friend one day suggested, “Let’s try quilting artwork.” Once Weed got a taste of the art, she says she was hooked. She said she gave adhesives a try once, “But it just made everything a mess, so after that I threw all my adhesives away.” She creates her pieces on sewing machines:  “I start with a basic concept, I sometimes write it down or draft a picture,” she pointed at her head and said, “But most times I have it up here.” She said she uses one-hundred percent cotton. “And I do whatever I can to frequent mom and pop quilt shops, boutique style.” She tries to stay away from the corporate quilting scene. She joked that her husband knows that if she’s in a quilt shop for less than a half hour, she hates it. “But if I’m in there for over a half hour, he has time to go get a beer and relax.” The crowd laughed at that.

 

Weed said a bed-sized quilt will take 25 to 30 hours, but her pieces for display, which take up about the same space as a canvas painting, requires roughly 12 hours. “Sometimes I will start a piece, and after an hour I will get tired and take a break. I don’t like doing that because sometimes when you come back, you’ve lost the feel that you had before.” One of her more popular pieces that seemed to be gathering the most eyes was titled “Gooseberry Falls.”

 

Both Kathy Weed and Jay Schmit’s artwork will be on display at the Waseca Art Center until Sept. 4.