Thursday, November 24, 2016

Books and Pieces


I’m taking a bit of a break on the purple collage… at least a break from it here.  I am continuing to add to it; it will return on this blog in a week.  Thanksgiving is here, and I am using the days off from work to sew and ponder some ideas for the near future.  Here is another collage in the works, a 7X10” little thing, for the 2017 SAQA Trunk Show.
 image and design copyright RPS, 2016.  Please do not repost.

It is loaded with many bits and pieces, but using a limited color palette. 

Another item on my agenda for the next few days is perusing the stack of past Quilt National catalogs that I have loaned from the SEO libraries.  There are eight of the catalogs on my dining room table now, plus the five catalogs that I own.  I am planning on going through them in chronological order, beginning with the earliest.  I want to make some notes on the evolution of the show, and how art quilting itself has changed over the years.  Look for my initial thoughts here on Tuesday. 

On my initial skimming of the earlier QN catalogs, I noticed a number of quilts that were made from many random scraps, resulting in an overwhelming visual overload – there seemed to be a trend to use as many different commercial prints in one quilt as possible.  Unfortunately, I cannot illustrate any of them here.  I’m wondering if the perceived trend came from the rapid growth of the commercial printed fabric industry that was happening at the time.  It appears that quilters were wildly playing with these new “toys” (print fabric lines), without much regard to good design.  Of course, this is just my opinion… I do love the more is more approach to collage, but with some limits (like my little collage above… with three basic colors).


I always could end up feeling differently about these quilts that right now for, are too much, visually.  Maybe next week, maybe in two years, maybe never!  We all have different creative visions, and we don’t have to like everything we see.  However, when you see something you love, celebrate it!

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