Monday, March 21, 2016

A few lessons learned from AQS Lancaster

"Whole lotta shakin' goin' on by Dreme Eckley
I only wish I could show this picture in even more detail. What an amazing quilt, bed-sized with lots of different blocks in rows. The part that interested me of course was the hexagons. They traveled around the border... not that unusual to see appliqued hexies but...
Each one of them had a surprise. Beads, buttons, embroidery.

LOVE!

I took many quilt pictures but mainly want to discuss some lessons learned while looking at quilts...
Red Chairs by Mary Ann Van Soest
This caught my eye as I want to do an adirondak chair piece. I have done paintings and drawings but want to do them in fabric. Lovely and peaceful, a large wall quilt. The lesson for me was in the cropping.
While I like the whole quilt, I love the image cropped.

Makes me wonder if I should draw out the composition on my quilts before making them more often than I do. Then try cropped versions to see if I like them better. To me, my opinion only, cropping these chairs is more interesting than seeing so much sky. The cropped scene is intimate, and the cut off chair tells a story.
Look at this one...
Life by Yoshiko Katagiri
Magnificent!!! Possibly my favorite. A large quilt, very dynamic. Note the detail shot...
thousands of hand appliqued circles creating the one spiral. What focus, and a way to use so many fabrics and colors. The circles were stuffed.
A lesson in "vision". The maker had Discipline and vision. while appliqueing quarter inch  up to about 1" circles round and round, and round in a spiral.
Teri Tope's Some Intensions (AKA Ten)
The horse is created with thread. Black thread on white fabric. It was large wall sized, say about 50"
No fancy fabrics no fancy threads, just one line next to another creating a textured portrait. Doesn't take expensive fabric or tools to make, just talent and vision and perseverance.

This one seemed so full of fabrics and depth
The King by Sherry Turkenoff
from a distance it appears the mane is composed of many pieces of fabric however on closer look





One well chosen fabric did the work.



I really really liked the following quilt, The Gift and the givers by Betty Kalizak.

The lesson was in inspiration. She was inspired by a book illustration. You never know what will inspire you to create so keep your eyes open!


 Finally, this one
Cats Game by Donna DeFusco

The detail of a tail, hanging under the quilt, reminded me that humor is as important as any other characteristic. Have fun, do not lose your send of fun while pursuing your art.

18 comments:

Maria said...

I love the adirondack chairs. I would have never thought of cropping but it looks amazing and totally changes the perspective of the quilt.

PaintedThread said...

Very cool quilts. Thanks for sharing. I really like that circle one - crazy!

PaulaB quilts said...

Each choice we make affects the whole work. Sometimes we add too much or leave out too much. With the chairs, I tryed blocking off the top half of the sky, which focused on the chairs. However, the full sky does convey more of the limitless horizon and aloneness of the place.

Mary in Boulder said...

Nice detailed photos! Thanks.

sonja said...

thank u for the quilt show tour through your eyes explaining your point of view. the detail (crops) did focus in on details unavailable to anyone not attending the actual show.
The horse, the spiral and the chairs All are in my curious appreciation zone of interests!!

Glen QuiltSwissy said...

Thanks for taking us on an educational journey. Love to hear your thoughts on things. I agree about the cropping thing. That is the one thing I got from my elizabeth barton class.

How did I miss yesterday's post? So you got thousand's of dollars of stuff for mere pennies?

Lynne Stucke said...

Nice perspective. Thank you for sharing! (Thoroughly agree about the chairs, btw)

Tails Around the Ranch said...

W.O.W. Just w.o.w.

Val's Quilting Studio said...

That spiral quilt would be a great inspiration for everyon participating in the 365 circles.

The Colorful Fabriholic said...

I like seeing and reading about your point of view and why you like some of the quilts you saw. Also your ideas on composition and filling the space and how it changes the story the quilt tells.

Jennifer said...

WOW! My favorites are the adirondack chairs, the circles forming the spiral, the lion, the Magi...okay all of them. Great show.

allthingzsewn said...

My favorites would be the "King", not necessarily first and the "Gift and the Givers". Thank for the look see.

Marsha Cooper said...

You give me an idea on how to dress up a completed quilt piece (like you buy already done) that someone gave me with hexagons and yo-yo's to make it personal.

LA Paylor said...

well now, that's creative Marsha!! Cool idea
LeeAnna

Glenda said...

Morning LeeAnna what a wonderful show and tell you just shared with us, I so enjoy seeing quilts or art through your eyes and mind, it makes me rethink what I'm looking at. For me it is like reading a lectures book to help me see some ones art as may be they see it not as I first see it. Thanks for a great start to the day. Cheers Glenda

Susan said...

Cropping is probably an underutilized tool. Good idea to suggest it, and I will revisit it when working on an art piece.

Monica Hayden said...

Very nice quilts! I love hexies and have a few hexie UFO's that I need to work on. Best regards.

Leanne Parsons said...

The spiral and horse quilts are amazing! Thanks for sharing the lessons you found in each of the quilts. There were lots of things to think about.