The quilts of Gees Bend
These were the most influential artworks that I saw while away. I do believe the work of these ARTISTS is already filtering through my work in that I am being even MORE "sloppy" so to speak, with execution. Not a deliberate coursening but rather I feel I have been given permission to become more painterly by virtue of rougher edges, less precise compositions, and less selfconsciousness intellectualizing my ideas. I have been reading the catalogue for this particular exhibition ( The Architecture of the Quilt) and noticing more and more the amazing...almost miraculous...designing that appeared to just come naturally to many mant of the quilters. They had a passion to make every quilt personal and different while all along using very familiar patterns such as "rooftop" or"log cabin". Only their roofs and logs came from direct observation of their own surroundings and were exquisitely sensitive to the material they used....old dungarees, dress bottoms and scrap corduroy! Here's one I started yesterday....not gees bendy in style but I'm happy with the larger stitching and more impromptu fabric collaging.
The entire week was an amazing experience. Just working all the time, then playing over wine, then more hand work in the evenings with Rosemary Claus Gray and Claire Fenton. So many ideas bandied about! I confess I had great plans to work on NEW things...like printing fabrics and an abstract sort of thing I started at home and posted earlier to the blog. I DID work on the abstract a bit, but no printing, no stamping, not dyeing. I was just not interested in doing that! So I started on a new quilt that reflected the friends and get togethers we were having at the time. All in red as I had brought only a small amount of red fabrics...all mixed specialty type material. Velours, Embossed velvet etc.
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