Where does the Boundary between Traditional Quilting and Art Quilting reside? Is it in the first layer beyond the heartwood, a step upon the foundation of layered work, the second ripple in the stream? The elements of Traditional Quilting and Art Quilting are the same: Color, Form, Composition, Stitching, Layers, Cloth, Inspiration. Mother Nature treats all her creations as art, paying careful attention to each detail, layering one element upon another in an ever evolving work, growing and shedding rules with each season. She is my Mentor, Teacher, and Guide. When we shed the leaves of rules and let ourselves see beyond the surface, are we so different, Mother Nature and I? Where does the Boundary between Traditional Quilting and Art Quilting reside?
- Materials: Hand-dyed cotton, commercial cotton, cotton-polyester thread, wool yarn.
- Series: Tree and Rock, #6
- Size: 35 inches x 55 inches (89 cm x 140 cm)
- Completed: 2019
- Current location: New Zone Gallery, $802 contact gallery to purchase
- History:
- Boundaries Exhibit, Oregon Region SAQA
- New Zone Gallery, Featured Artist, Eugene, OR December 2033
My Thoughts on the Work
This piece was originally designed to be part of my Tree and Rock Series for Boundaries, an Oregon Region SAQA exhibit in 2020. I wanted to explore the space where Traditional Quilting and Art Quilting meet. I was also at the very beginning of my hand-dyeing explorations. I’d tried some ice dyeing and had just learned low immersion dyeing from the basic course by Candy Glendening of Candied Fabrics. My challenge in this piece was to get the orange and sea-blue I wanted using only primary, basic colored dyes. That meant mixing the colors myself. Happily, I was successful fairly quickly, something I cannot claim for all my dyeing projects since!
I was aiming to touch on each of the elements of Five Elements Theory of Chinese Medicine. In the tree, there is Wood. The leaves demonstrate Air. The Rock is Earth. The Water is Water. And the Brilliant rays of sun shining from behind the tree is Fire. I love how the pieced fabric, a set of scraps left over from a Traditional quilt I made for a friend’s first born child, seats so naturally into both Wood and Rock. Those are the two most stable and foundational elements in general. They give us much of the material world we enjoy. Art quilting is rooted in Traditional patchwork, and Traditional patchwork is an Art all of its own.
