Spotlight: Roberta Lagomarsini, Fiber Artist

Roberta Lagomarsini saw work by Ruth McDowell at a quilt show. When she retired later that year, she decided to make art quilts! Now, she creates her own fabrics and works actively on four series of quilts inspired by living in the Great Basin.

How did you get started making fiber art? Why did you choose that medium? 

Like so many, I have always sewed and embroidered, dabbling a little in quilting a couple of times. In 2004 we went to the East Bay Heritage Quilters show where Ruth McDowell was the featured artist. There were at least 20 of her quilts at the show. I was astonished that you could make art like that with fabric. When I retired later that year I decided to make art quilts although I had to make more traditional quilts for about 5 years to develop my skill level.

Do you do series work? How does that affect your approach? 

I have four general series. Quilts of the Great Basin which are generally landscapes but not always, The Pond series which is about water, the Basket Series which is inspired by the indigenous basket makers in the Great Basin and the Prayer Series which conveys the intenseness of prayer and spirituality. I alternate between these four, experimenting with unique techniques to convey the message I am trying to tell.

How does your environment influence your creativity? Does your work have stories to tell?

I live in a very rural place where you can leave your house unlocked, people, even with differing views, will pull together to help each other and there is beauty everywhere you look. This atmosphere is very freeing and allows for a lot of creativity to spring forth.

Once I started making art quilts, I realized that the best quilts I made were those where I was depicting the spirit of the Great Basin because I could really portray its magic. There is plenty of inspiration as the Great Basin runs from the crest of the Sierra Nevada through Nevada and Utah and parts of Arizona. It contains the highest and lowest places in the continental US, has a variety of ecosystems: forests, deserts, rivers, lakes .

There are fascinating peoples and places as well as a large native American population which actively shares its culture. It is a very spiritual place because of its ancient history and beauty. My stories of this place may be the landscape itself, the mood it creates or a significant story from this place. My goal is to tell the stories of this place through the four series I described above.

For example, we have a former Japanese War Relocation Camp, Manzanar, about an hour from my house, which has been preserved as a National Park. My eight-grade history teacher’s best friend was taken away to one of these places. Based on this lesson, this was one of the first places we went to when we first visited the area. I wanted to portray something that is a little different about a place i.e. not the usually “tourist scene” so that people can learn a little more about the place. I choose to highlight a small part of this period by depicting the art that one of the internees created.  

What different creative media do you use in your work?

I generally use commercial and self-made fabrics.  As I am trying to use up the fabric that I purchased before I started to make only art quilts I try to alter them with dye, paint, or fabric makers.  I have also used Tyvek and clothing. I alternate between piecing and fusing as I think each one works for a specific purpose.

Do you plan your work out ahead of time, or do you just dive in with your materials and start playing?

It varies. I have a laundry list of quilts rattling around in my brain that is always there if I need it. I don’t write it down though, because if I did, it would become a task which stifles creativity. Sometimes I know what I want to make and how I will make it and I just start and it comes to completion very quickly. Other times, I may want to make a quilt about something but don’t have a construction plan. If I am stuck for an idea, I select fabric(s) that I want to use in a quilt, figuring out what goes with it and how it should be put together and perhaps making “rules” (e.g. the fabric must have circles/dots in it).  

A specific plan is not written down, but thumbnails of design, notes on how to put things to together or something to not to forget to include is as detailed as it gets! A list of colors that evoke a feeling are often done as well. These are in a little book about 5 x 5. It’s fun to look back on to see how closely the notes and quilts are or aren’t.  

I work organically, taking time to access the design to make sure it is working. I like to be somewhat abstract, so in the beginning, if I can’t figure out what it is I am making but it doesn’t matter, I just keep going. Although many of my quilts depict this diverse landscape, I don’t work from photographs except for the occasional reference. I find working from memory, inserts a level of abstraction that is part of my design style.

A lot of times, I haven’t figured out how to do the next step, so I take a break and do something else. I often think about things overnight and hope I get inspiration by morning. I do this by looking at the quilt several times after dinner and once again before I go to bed. I just let things marinate on the design wall. Most quilts get a working name once I am on track to final design. This name may or may not end up being the title of the quilt. Working organically and spontaneously until I am finished, I am often surprised to see that the final result is actually something very coherent with my environment which has bubbled up from inside of me.

How do you manage your creative time? Do you schedule start and stop times? Or work only when inspired?

My goal is to try to do a minimum of an hour a day working on my art. I wake up early so usually there is an hour or so in the morning that I use. My husband has taken up oil painting, so in the afternoon when he paints I sew. When I have deadlines, then I have to schedule time throughout the week to get things done and I can have 6 hour days. Because I have gotten much better as estimating how long it will take to get something done (like quilting or putting on a facing) than before which helps figuring out the time I need and when I can schedule it in. I have a weekly sewing group that I go to so there is dedicated couple of hours there as well although art quilts don’t usually travel well so I try to bindings/facings or simple piecing during that time.

I try to get everything I work on done by a specific date once a year which when I started making art quilts was Labor Day which was our county fair deadline. I found myself free motion quilting during 100 plus degrees  days-not much fun. Now October 1^st is the deadline which takes into account most of the deadlines of the juried shows that I enter.

Are you a “finisher”? How many UFOs do you think you have?

Finisher. When I made a commitment to only make art quilts, I went through the closet and gave away all the unfinished projects so I could clear out the “clutter” of the UFOs.  Occasionally I have to abandon a project because it just isn’t working but usually the fabric works perfectly in the next project so all is not lost.  

I had started something last summer where I was struggling putting together my vision and I knew I was being held hostage by my desire to use the fabric which I had printed, but it wasn’t necessarily the best design. I started to work on something else and some of the fabric in this other project was perfect so I ended up cutting it out to use for the new project. In doing so I gained a new perspective about that fabric and it will be better used some place else. This totally changed the first project but that fabric was perfect for the other project. It also freed me from struggling with the design I couldn’t make work. Other times, I am committed to a project and it may take months to figure it out. I don’t like to call those UFO’s as I am actively thinking about them as I work on other things.

How often do you start a new project? Do you work actively on more than one project at a time?  

I make about 6-10 quilts a year but it is not necessarily a liner process.

I may work on more than one project at a time as I am blessed to have two machines set up at all times. Other times, I only work on one quilt at a time when I have that inspiration and that’s the only thing I want to work on. When this happens I will squeeze in lots of tiny bits of time throughout the day if I don’t have a large chunk of time to devote to the project. 

Do you have a dedicated space for creating? If so, what does it look like?

My sewing room has moved 3 times in this house.

First it was in the “big” room to be shared with my husband. That lasted about a month as he started to put things on my cutting table-A big no no! So I moved into the 10 x 12 “extra room” where I made due for several years.

Then I moved into the medium sized room which was the guest room as we weren’t using it that much. This room has a large window, a built-in closet with drawers and shelving and a built in desk and fits 2 machines, a small table, a large cutting table and plenty of bookcases. I put the mirrored sliding doors in backwards and covered them with foam board covered with batting to make a design wall. I wish it were bigger but I make do.

Scraps. Saver? Or be done with them? 

I go back and forth on this. I used to keep scraps but I don’t usually use them so after a while they get tossed or donated. It’s really a function of space to keep them.

Since I started printing fabric, I do keep those scraps as they are so beautiful. I admire people who keep their scraps all color sorted. It’s so beautiful.

Working across many different media, how do you organize all of your creative supplies? 

The cutting table is on top of cubes which provide storage for the non quilting art stuff and some of the fabric altering supplies. My fabric dying and printing materials now live in the garage in an old kitchen cabinet as I use our garage project table to print on as the weather is such that I can’t usually print outside. It makes starting and stopping go so much faster.

As my interests have changed, I have had to make some hard choices about what I am going to use and I have moved some of the “not do’s” along to people who would use them or the local donation place. Painting has started to take a larger place in my artistic life so I have had to continue to purge to make room for those things.

Which part of the design process is your favorite? Which part is a challenge for you? 

I have to say I like all parts, except when I am totally stuck! But probably my two favorite parts are when the pieces go together just right making a good design as if they were meant to be, even though you might not have known how they should go together. My other favorite part is while you are quilting when the quilt “feels” like a quilt-it gets a certain weight and heaviness to it that makes it feel right.  

Do you enter juried shows? Do you approach your work differently for these venues? Do you keep track of your work? Shows that you’ve entered? Tell us what works for you.

Every quilt I make now has the possibility of being entered into a juried show although I rarely make something specific to a show.

This means I make fewer quilts but I try to make them as perfect as possible. The sleeve is made to SAQA specifications and when the quilt is finished I take photos that would work for entries – I call this the quilt’s beauty shots. Each quilt gets a file folder in my computer which contains the photos, any research that has been done about the subject matter, materials and techniques used and I also try to write a short statement about the quilt for an entry.

I used to use a file folder for show entries but as I had more success, that just wasn’t working and I decided to follow Margaret Abramshe ‘s advice and have an organized notebook. It has several tabs.

• Available Quilts I have a list of quilts I have made starting with the most recent detailing the date and size which I use initially to determine is a quilt can be entered into a show.
• Contact #’s/Passwords for the various shows, people, shipping sites and anything else pertinent to an app or website I might use for an entry
• Photography how to take quilt photos, resizing, etc.
• Calls for Entry I print out the call, rules, dates
• Pending Entries after I enter I move the Call for Entry papers here with the names of the quilts that I have entered as well as a copy of the entry
• Accepted Entries if accepted, the pending entry papers move here along with the instructions etc. that I am given
• Shipping Prep generalized shipping instructions from shows are here along with the shipping receipts in a sleeve protecter that get pulled at the end of the year for tax purpose
• Sales price lists and invoices in case any quilts sell! and finally
• Rules I keep a copy of the rules for all the major shows incase I need to look at them before the next set comes out and it gives me an estimate of entry dates.

This notebook has made keeping track of all of this much easier, thank you Margaret.

As I am of the pre computer generation, I like to write so I also have a large blank book where every quilt (since 2018) gets its own page. I hand write the name, made date, dimensions, materials and techniques, any research done and sample quilt statements (which may be printed out from the computer and pasted onto the page). I also document any shows accepted in and awards given.

There are no photos in this book which I probably should go back and do but all of my quilts are in a power point document so there is a lot of redundancy with respect to documentation, but it makes entering a show much easier and quicker. I also keep a running tab of shows and quilts I have entered on post-its that are taped to my bookcase to remind me that I am successful quilter.

What do you do to keep yourself motivated and interested in your work? 

If I need inspiration I take a break and get out in nature, or I take photographs while we travel. I also have an idea book which I can refer to for inspiration. This book has notes, photos of quilts, things, landscapes and art that I find intriguing as well as other bits and pieces. Otherwise, I just start playing with fabric until something comes to me. But if truth be told, I really have so many ideas it would take several lifetimes to complete the quilts.

Do you critique your own work? What is your process? 

I do by evaluating technique and design. The fair gives me some critiques. I ask my quilting group and husband to assess things and make comments. When we have people over who are interested in this kind of thing, I have them critique and offer insights and suggestions. I particularly like to have non-quilters do this as I want my work to appeal to the greater audience.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received? 

Stay true to yourself. Make what speaks to you and don’t worry about what other people are doing.

Where can people see your work?

You can see my work on my website: robertalagomarsini.com 

I just had a solo show in Bishop which was fun. Otherwise, hopefully you can see my work in juried shows throughout the country.

Can you tell us about the inspiration and process of one of your works? How does a new work come about? 

Some new works are preplanned before I make them but others evolve intuitively as I work on them using fabrics in my collection that I find interesting. One such example is Blue Basket.

I then added commercial fabrics that also talked to the original set of fabrics.

I put fusible on their backs and then decided to cut them into rectangles of similar sizes to see if I could make something out of them. I tried several compositions, taking photos as I went.

At the point that I chose the final layout, the pieces were laid out on Teflon baking sheets so I could fuse them together.  I took a couple of days to decide if it needed anything more.

I then cut long thin strips and wove those among the larger pieces which added some movement and continuity. I went back and made sure that the larger pieces were laid under and over each other.

When I was satisfied, I ironed the pieces together to create I piece. After it cooled overnight I was able to lift the entire piece off the Teflon and lay on various fabrics to select the background.

I found a Japanese fabric which was about sushi which was pretty perfect but I didn’t have enough. I took a piece to the sellers at their Road 2 Ca booth but alas, this fabric was out of print as I had bought it several years before.

When I got home, I decided to paint my own background fabric using commercial “handwriting” fabric and paints in similar colors of the sushi fabric.

At this point I had determined this was a winnowing basket so I could tailor the painting to fit the theme. I fused the basket to the background fabric and quilted the piece. To fit the theme a basket weave quilting pattern was used on the background portions of the quilt.  

Interview posted September 2024

Browse through more inspiring art quilts on Create Whimsy.