June 2011

The Art on the Common http://www.chd.org/index.php/bbbs-events-view/events/amherst-crafts-on-the-common-fair-6.html is happening July 9th and I've just kicked into production mode. Shrinking my ideas down to 12 x 14 is a challenge after spending my spring thinking big. The photo to the left shows my latest whole clothes portrait of my inlaws on the Cordoba Pass in CO. Yes, PopPop really does like plaid.

But now, like I said, it's time to move on to smaller things like my cupcake people and making dozens of cards which you can see here: http://bedscapedesigns.com/gallery/quilted_paper_cards/

Back to work!

Homelessness

"Always read directions first." I must say this once a day to my children, but I rarely listen to my own advice. So when I saw the call for entries for a quilt exhibition "No Place To Call Home" I immediately thought of an art quilt composition and started working on it. After binding it I looked at the specifics. It turns out there is a size limit. Of course I should have known to look at the details first, but no harm done. I'm making another. In fact, I have a whole series in my head of all different sized wall hangings and surely one of them will be the right size for the show. The one shown above utilizes old clothes and cloth given to me by people who know I like fabric, some of which had been sitting in attics for decades. The back is an old army blanket. I hope I can use only recycled cloth in the making of these quilts because it seems unethical to go out and buy new fabric for a project like this.

I just finished a week of sewing table runners and baby quilts.

After a few weeks of quilting art quilts it is nice to do work which doesn't require a lot of thought.

I wish I could say sewing bindings was meditative and calming.

More on art vs craft.

I'm reading Choosing Craft the artist's viewpoint, edited by Halper and Douglas. I find much of the artists' writing selections to be filled with semantics. However, I recently read through these quotes which were thought provoking and to-the-point.

"Crafts have to be made, crafts have to be objects, and crafts usually must have some connection to traditional materials, techniques, and histories. Being necessarily limited, craft is thus not fully commensurable with art. It is philosophically different. Like it or not, craft and art are somewhat different things... Crafters respond first and foremost to the material in their hands...I propose that a crafter will not subordinate his or her medium, whatever the medium, to intellectually interesting ideas." - Bruce Metcalf (metalsmith and critic)

I have been reading a lot about art quilters who do their work on fiber and spend inordinate amounts of reworking the cloth. They paint it, embellish it, stain it, rip it, and fuse it. Is this what makes me a crafter and them artists? I enjoy paring a landscape down to only the essential shapes and colors. I have no desire to manipulate the cloth other than with stitches and I always have three layers stiched and bound together which is the basic definition of what a quilt is.

Wild Turkeys in Amherst College Fields is one of many pieces I hope to sell this spring.

How is it possible to capture someone's life in a quilt? It isn't, but in the process of trying, it forces both the artist and the loved one to consider the colors and textures of the clothes the person wore and the objects and landscapes the person loved. What do the colors signify?

The answer is of course better known by those who loved the person, but as an artist I can say that in the process of sewing these wall hangings I appreciated this person's sense of individual style, her vivaciousness and her boldness. They lent themselves to the birds and flowers I was asked to represent.

This was not an easy commission. I knew one of the daughters of this woman and I cared very much what she was going to think about my representations of her mother. It also was a challenge because the material was of several varieties including silk, polar fleece, t-shirts and velvet. But after some hemming and hawing I decided that the only way to finish them was to start. I am happy to say that the family was very happy with my work.