Sunday, November 25, 2007

Fiber as an art form, and how much is too much?

Yesterday morning I started in on the annual "clean up the house for Christmas decorating", albeit slowly (very slowly due to the cold meds, etc.) when I was summoned to the TV by the DH and told to "sit, stay, watch this program!"

He had stumbled into a program on PBS titled The Art of Quilting, and he thought I might be interested in seeing it......well, let me tell you, I was GLUED to that TV screen through it all!

Now I can tell you that I have made a few quilts. To me quilts were functional, useful objects (guess that goes to my grandmother's telling me to be frugal with materials), but I have found ways to make my own sort of "artsy" statement with some of the ones I have done.

Lately, while the pieces I have worked on have been intended as gifts and intended to keep the user warm, there has been a certain amount of experimenting going on. In fact the piece I'm currently working on is another combination of piecing, applique, embroidery, embellishing and my current plan is to quilt a design over it that does not following the design on the front which will be a real departure from anything I've ever done with one. (All this from someone that two years ago was a confirmed PIECER -- no applique -- too difficult, etc., etc.)

Anyway, regarding the show -- I was fascinated by the work of a group of women who call themselves The Chicago School of Fusing -- a technique that I know a little about and have not previously been interested in doing anything with because I can't see it as a good technique for something intented to be a cover to be wrapped up in. However, as a technique for something to be hung on the wall, that transformation of quilt to art form to be VIEWED it holds a lot of fascination.

The project I'm working on now features a dragon on a water/mountain background, but after seeing that show I see the potential for a smaller hanging version with more than one dragon -- all of which would be possible if I used that fusing technique....

hmmmmmm, perhaps an idea for a later time!

Meantime, I'm considering rather my idea a few months ago to split up my areas of art into several different blogs was such a good one.

Sometimes, less is more, and after all, anyone that knows me, knows my work or has even randomly read my ramblings knows that I have this whole issue of focus -- or lack thereof -- multi tasking seems to be my middle name and I'm not sure at this point in my life if its a good idea to fight what has worked (ok, most of the time!) by trying to split it up into little bite sized pieces.....

We'll see

2 comments:

Kay Dennison said...

ohhhhh Bev!! How I admire your creativity!!!! Be sure to post pictures for us!!!!!

Bev said...

Thanks Kay! Yes, I'll be posting pictures as new stuff comes to life!