Sharon Havelka

2024

47"x 21"x 24"

It is constructed from a red bath towel my folks have had since the 60s, Chinese silk placemat, dresses, tablecloth from our 1980s restaurant, "Chopsticks," and other house linens; black out lining.

It is free motion quilted over the preexisting pattern. The quilt is then turned over and each section is cut open, trapunto style stuffed, and hand stitched closed.

A fritillary is a butterfly and the caterpillar is bright red. The butterfly represents both individual and cultural cycles. A person’s individual metamorphosis is apparent in physiological growth and development. The butterfly’s pattern of flying from one far away place to another back and forth over and over is indicative of one’s initial immigration from one country to another but the forever after mental migration of one’s own identity and how one is perceived by others.

I use material and other objects that I have found and or been given to me by family and friends. It just so happens my family’s material is of Chinese origin being vibrant silks with ornate patterns. But there are also the more mundane daily things like towels, bedsheets, and other linens. To be an Asian American artist is not to be restricted to only Chinese motifs and symbolism, but the ability to create an amalgamation of one’s self and place in the world.

2024

26" x 18" x 14"

Made from part of a second hand Chinese silk jacket and upholstery material my sister-in-law gave me, a green towel my folks have had since the 60s, the remnants from previous pieces made, black out lining. The inside is dusted and fixed with curry powder.

It is free motion quilted over the preexisting pattern. The quilt is then turned over and each section is cut open, trapunto style stuffed, and hand stitched closed.

Smell is powerful. 

Smell brings forth identity conjuring memory and familiarity.

2024

46” x 23” x 33”

made from a blue towel my mother’s had from the 60s, white silk from Memphis College of Art given to me by a friend that was dyed with Osage Orange shavings, upholstery material from my sister-in-law, and various other remnants from previous pieces.

It is free motion quilted over the preexisting pattern. The quilt is then turned over and each section is cut open, trapunto style stuffed, and hand stitched closed.

It is held open with a hand lathed piece of wood from a local and naturally felled black walnut tree.

2023

42”x 27”

Made from Chinese pink silk material my mother recently found in the back of her closet the origin of which she cannot recall. The striped border is made with a tablecloth from our 1980s restaurant, "Chopsticks," along with other house linens. Some of the linens were stained with black walnuts from our backyard.

It is free motion quilted over the preexisting pattern. The quilt is then turned over and each section is cut open, trapunto style stuffed, and hand stitched closed.

It is about what is done, coming undone, or not done at all. The Menopause of life.

2023

18” x 19” 24”

This is the sister piece to Oh. It was supposed to be the bottom of Oh, but it became too large and was separated into its own piece. It is constructed from a green bath towel my folks have had since the 60s and upholstery material my sister-in-law gave me; and black out lining.

It is free motion quilted over the preexisting pattern. The quilt is then turned over and each section is cut open, trapunto style stuffed, and hand stitched closed.

It is held open with a hand lathed piece of wood from a local and naturally felled black walnut tree.

2023

24”x 24” x 16”

Made from the inside out sleeve and back panel of a second hand Chinese silk jacket and upholstery material that my sister-in-law gave me; and black out lining. It is free motion quilted over the preexisting pattern. The quilt is then turned over and each section is cut open, trapunto style stuffed, and hand stitched closed.

It is held open with a hand lathed piece of wood from a local and naturally felled black walnut tree.

2023

20” x 20” 10”

Made from the inside out front panel of a second hand Chinese silk jacket and upholstery fabric that my sister-in-law gave me; and black out lining. The striped border is made with a tablecloth from our 1980s restaurant, "Chopsticks," along with other house linens. Some of the linens were stained with black walnuts from our backyard.

It is free motion quilted over the preexisting pattern. The quilt is then turned over and each section is cut open, trapunto style stuffed, and hand stitched closed.

It is held open with a hand lathed piece of wood from a local and naturally felled black walnut tree.

2023

13” x 18” x 13”

Made from the inside out sleeve of a second hand Chinese silk jacket and upholstery fabric that my sister-in-law gave me; and black out lining.

It is free motion quilted over the preexisting pattern. The quilt is then turned over and each section is cut open, trapunto style stuffed, and hand stitched closed.

The piece is held open by a stick of purple heart. The scrap of purple heart, though lathed just now, was a 1994 gift from a college mentor.

2023

62” x 27” x 20"

Made from Chinese pink silk material my mother recently found in the back of her closet the origin of which she cannot recall. The striped border is made with a tablecloth from our 1980s restaurant, "Chopsticks," along with other house linens. Some of the linens were stained with black walnuts from our backyard.

It is free motion quilted over the preexisting pattern. The quilt is then turned over and each section is cut open, trapunto style stuffed, and hand stitched closed.

The three sticks of black walnut balance one on top of the other and prop up the quilt allowing the viewer to get a glance at what is typically hidden underneath.

2023

25” x 25” x 11”

Like most first and second generation Chinese living in the Delta, my grandparents and parents owned consecutive small grocery stores from the 1940-80’s. This pair of cast iron ice tongs came from a particular store they owned in the 60’s on Mitchell Rd. in Memphis, TN. A block of ice would slide down a chute and the ice tongs were used to pick it up. Ice was sold to people who were working outside in the heat to keep their food cold. The center square is made from the cloth roll towel also used in the grocery stores. It has been oiled and stained with coffee and tea, then hand embroidered.

2022

54” x 54” x 4”

Wild mushrooms were placed on rice paper overnight to spore then glued onto my niece's childhood dress and covered with plastic. These were pieced with green chintzy fabric from Germany and the cover of a book from a Chinese banquet. Molded and rusted linens were free motion quilted with fishing line and stuffed with packing peanuts. The borders are strips of various linens, including a yellow tablecloth from our old restaurant back in the 80’s, “ChopStix.”

2022

63” x 51”

Fromage is about the ebb and flow of art. It is a free flowing quilt that can be repositioned up a wall or around a column. The white silk velvet was dyed with homegrown Indigo and the middle golden panels were dyed with Osage Orange shavings. I love the way you can tousle the mossy velvet with your fingers, reminiscent of the swirls of Penicillium roqueforti in a wheel of cheese.

2022

38” x 38”x 35”

Compilation of my husband’s shirts and our kids' childhood pants. Canvas was found after being lost outside for five years, the frail pieces glued onto red velvet. More canvas was wrapped around metal hinges then left out for months to intentionally rust. Other material was stained with kitchen brillo pads. It was stuffed and stitched and unstuffed and restitched over and over until one large puff was unstuffed revealing this little dugout cave. The quilt is balanced upwards by a mushroom from my friend, Suzy, that is dried in a plastic box stacked upon a wooden table I made in 1995.

2022; 30” x 50”. old newsprint, onion skin paper, old clothes, thread

2021. 39” x 39” x 8”

The “skin” is hand and machine pieced together with our worn out shirts, black velvet pants, upholstery material, and other scraps. The silvery “scales” are from a sari my sister-in-law gave me. The sari pattern is delicately quilted trapunto style. Each diamond piece is then stuffed again from behind for extreme trapunto. The entire thing is quilted for a third time from the other side, or “flesh” side, as I call it. White silk is dyed flesh with avocado pits and skins then sprayed with coffee and paprika. A hand embroidered micro landscape meanders along the stains. It is cinched to give shape and form. The piece hangs from the ceiling with a rod skewered through the top.

Salmon Skin Fried is about celebrating the delicious.

2020

34” x 35” x 4”

Hand and machine quilted; recycled linens, clothes, and vinegar print canvas cutoffs; my grandmother’s old stash of upholstery fabric; found cloth roll of hand dryer towel; linoleum cut, elephant ear, and plastic container from a moon cake acrylic paint prints; and a lot of batting (old pillows stuffing).

2020

36” x 34”

Began with a canvas burn from a poorly-crafted homemade lampshade. A cotton bed sheet and painter’s canvas was left out in the backyard for about a year to rust and mold, then ironed to absolute flatness. Mushrooms were collected for spore prints on tracing paper. The flickering pinwheels are made from my grandmother’s old stash of upholstery fabric, a skirt, a dress, and a tie.

Juror’s Award, Quilt National ‘21, The Dairy Barn Arts Center, Athens, OH. 2021-2023

2020

17” x 14” x 5”

The tofu is made from my grandmother’s curtains and other linens. A pink print is pulled from a family anniversary party gift book setting the backdrop for a hand embroidered microbiological landscape. Thin blue veins show through the translucency. The overall shape is the ratio size of a box of tofu, but slightly sunken like a piece of fried tofu. The “fermented” hairs of mold are a frayed cotton kite string leftover from our kids' childhood.

2020. 42” x 34” x 13”

Handstitched and machine quilted “in the ditch” and “free motion” technique, and shaped

From various materials collected over the years. For the front - second hand store red skirt, bit of blue placemats my friend gave me, my husband’s worn down grey shirt, my grandmother's old stash of peach upholstery fabric and some rose material, and my aunt’s black flowery upholstery material using both front and back. For the back - my grandmother’s blue material she had used to make special dresses.

Vessels is about being a container, to nest and nurture, motherhood.

2019. 34” x 42” x 8”

Hand and machine quilted and embroidered; pillow case, cloth remnants, vinegar print from the red silk cover of a family anniversary party gift book, plastic.

Knowing where you are and where you want to go, then mapping out how to get from here to there using the landmarks of process and pattern, shape and color.

2019.

34” x 28” x 10”

This piece is about what leaves and what is left behind. It is actually two quilts, the outer quilt lifting off to leave its ghost image behind. It is pieced together with small triangles of various clothes, linens, and upholstery material from family and friends.

2019. 28“ x 12” x 7”

Hand and machine quilted; recycled clothes and remnants.

How the slightest of movement can have the greatest effect on the expectations of the supposed.

Arts Accelerator Exhibit, Arts Memphis, Memphis, TN. 2020

2019. 33” x 30” x 5”

Hand and machine quilted, shaped and oiled; recycled remnants; walnut, turmeric, coffee, and tea stained clothes

Capable or having the power of flight.

Art Quilt Elements 2020, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA. 2021

2019

20" x 18" x 6"

If you were in the middle of a forest and no one could hear you…

An overstuffed quilted landscape shrouded in a silver soundproof fog grows from the horizon and spills out of the container. A drawer can be dug out like a hunk of shoveled dirt that buried the unknown. Constructed from my husband’s wooden cigar box, soundproof material, clothes, frayed thread, hole punch chads from magazines, and candle wax.

2019. 21" x 22" x 7"

Hand and machine stitched; recycled fabric, coated with sugar, egg yolks, calcium carbonate, and polymer, then toasted with the iron.

What if a quilt became so overstuffed it outgrew itself and crawled out leaving just this exoskeleton behind hanging on the wall?

And what is left is what Remains.

2019. 24" x 24" x 5"

Hand and machine quilted; recycled pillowcase, clothes, remnants, and my grandmother’s upholstery fabric.

slight skew of pattern, slight paradox of reality .

2018. 31" x 37" x 13"

Hand and machine quilted; recycled clothes sewn together and bled out with oil.

Sanguine means to be optimistic or hopeful, especially in a difficult or gloomy situation.

This quilt focuses on material that bleed into one another after oiling. I used Chinese and Indian silks sewn next to cotton. Both the process and title are associated with the word exsanguination, meaning to "bleed out".

2018. 30" x 28", 30 degree lean

Hand and machine quilted; recycled clothes and remnants, varnished and oiled.

If a quilt were petrified - I used earthy colors that when oiled warmed like petrified wood from the Petrified Forest.

Quilt + Resist, Women Made Gallery, Chicago, Il. 2018

Art of the South, Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN. 2019

2018. 22" x 20" x 4"

quilted recycled clothes and remnants; shaped, spray glossed, and oiled.

The pattern and form mimic the tortoise shell. The surface is hardened and glossed with spray varnish and oil. The title is a play on grammar. Though a shell in design, the concept is about her being active and initiating, overcoming... She, She will, She'll.

2017. 11" x 4" diameter

scotch whiskey cardboard container, cigar box cedar sheets, old clothes, watch face, sugar.

This is about what you let people see or don't see, people you let in or keep out, locking yourself up or letting yourself go. It is about the vices that keep you contained or that which becomes sublime.

2017. 11" x 4" dia

scotch whiskey container, cigar box cedar sheets, plastic packaging from box of handkerchiefs, old clothes.

It's about people, stuff, and time...or lack of. Calculating actual value by subtraction - what was once there, giving or not being given, missing or not missing you, the negative space. It's also about the container - that which holds it all together.

2017. 12" x 13" x 3"

single malt scotch whiskey box, recycled fabric and thread and last of the red velvet pants, coffee stain, museum board, onion skin paper, watch face, Amsterdam cabbie card, marble, sugar.

Distalation - the extraction of the essential meaning or most important aspects of something...from afar.

2017. 8" x 8" x 4"

Hand and machine quilted, hand embroidered; coffee stained recycled canvas printed with crocheted doily, thread, stuffed into a mooncake tin box.

Salt Yolk is a homonym of sorts, same sculpture with 2 different meanings. Preserved salted duck yolk is prized and is used in Chinese mooncakes to symbolize the moon...if you are lucky there will be 2 in your mooncake. Salt yolk agar is a growth medium for Petri dish of presumptive bacteria. Wanted to bring two unrelated things into one form, but feeding off the other in a symbiotic relationship.

2016

11" x 6" x 5"

Hand and machine stitched and quilted, hand embroidered; recycled red velvet and stuffing, thread, watch face, wax, soot, glue, gold acrylic paint.

The shoulder joint is formed where the humerus fits into the scapula.

A hard shoulder is the emergency stopping lane of a road or motorway.

To carry or accept that you are responsible for something bad or difficult...to shoulder.

Quilt as landscape in mid-step. The shape, form, material, terrain, erosion, of concept and meaning.

2016

17" x 12" x 6"

Hand and machine stitched and quilted, hand embroidered; red velvet pants, thread, wax, glue, acrylic paint

From the rolling hills and just up over the horizon of shape and form...to the underbelly of Comfort.