Finding a Fabric and Making it Yours
Art quilting is wide open when it comes to techniques. In fact, there are so many options, it can intimidate beginners. Some are focused on making their own fabrics and the techniques can be as varied and learning traditional dyeing, ice or snow dyeing, printing techniques (including computer printing) but in this case, I'm talking about finding commercial fabrics and making them work for you.
The above piece is an example of changing fabrics slightly to make them work for you. The background fabric spoke to me of misty swampy trees. It was a repeat pattern and It almost worked as is. I had to use some blue acrylic paint watered down with textile medium to darken up the left side. I shaded some of the lower blue water in the same way. I used water soluable pencils with fabric medium to shade just about every other element to make it look more painterly.
I don't want to lose the fact that this is fabric and I'm not trying to fool/ amaze anyone into thinking it is anything other than what it is- fabric and thread. In short, I want to retain some of the history quaintness of it being fabric while making it say what I want it to say.
Have no doubt that while I use techniques and materials that might not always be traditional, I am not at all focused on teaching anyone techniques of art quilting. I am, as I always have, been focused on telling the story.
What story (you might ask)? MY STORY.
When you look at my quilts, you are looking at my mind, my view, my reason for creating, my take on any given subject (challenge or not). I may enter a quilt challenge, but it it always filtered through my mind to create the final piece. I use my talent, all the history of my trials and failures to bear on every piece I make.
So this challenge was to make a house. That was it. I chose what kind of house, where it was located, who might live there and what they might be doing.
