My Stop on the World Blog Hop

Juana 

I met Juana through my participation in the 52 Photos blog.  I love doing that blog.  It is fun and makes me think in a different way.  I really love Juana's photography work.  Last week in our Looking Down prompt, she caught an incredible shot of a squirrel sitting in a tree.  Wow! Do you know how hard it is to get a photo like that? 

Juana tagged me in the World Blog Hop for  Artists. It is a funny thing.  She tagged me for my art quilts.  But there are a lot of people who don't think "art" and "quilt" belong in the same sentence.  I understand their hesitancy in looking at an old craft in a new way.  I didn't understand it at first either, that is why I kept changing TRADITIONAL quilts rather than just doing art quilts. 

If you check out her blog (Click Here) you will see that she is an accomplished artist.  She concentrates on figures and portraits, which is like the anti-me in the ability lane.  I so admire really good artists. 

And in turn, I am tagging Carol of Quilted Fabric Art to follow me.  She just had an article published in Art Quilt Studio Magazine!  But I will let her tell you about her landscapes in fabric.



What am I working on?

Oh my, what am I working on now?  I have a quilt on the long arm that I got 1/3 the way done and decided I didn't like the quilting!  So now I am picking out a million tiny stitches before I can start quilting a new pattern.  

I have a stack of UFOs (UnFinished Objects) in the corner of my very messy quilt room.  I love each and every one of  them!  They will eventually get done, I have big plans for them...one day.  I am too busy creating new things right now.

Mostly I work large, like lap quilt or full sized quilts, but I also have a side

that works in small fiber art.  That would be in the 12 to 36 inch range.

My oil derrick is part of a piece I am making for the Quilt the Swamp Show.   I am loving this linear way of working.

And I just discovered Valerie Goodwin's Art Quilt Maps!  Maps, who knew I would love maps of fabric?

Sooooo.......see why I have so many UFOs????????


How does my creating process work?

Last night as I was thinking of quilts falling asleep, I remembered looking at the moon while we walked the dogs.  It  was a beautiful half moon, with some back lit clouds hanging around it.  I couldn't get the image out of my mind and by bedtime I had designed a quilt in the mind's empty spaces.

The moon, the dark sky, the clouds.  Striking yellow moon against the dark greys of the night sky and clouds.  Sometimes I find it works better plotting out a quilt in Electric Quilt and sometimes I get out the old graph paper. This one got plotted in EQ and I can't wait to put it together!

Earlier this year I did a tribute to missing Flight 370 that went down somewhere, and I wanted to use paper airplanes.  So I made paper airplanes and tested some fabric drawings.  I made probably 8 or 10 of the failure practice blocks till I got it right!


How does my work differ from others of its genre?  

I just do what strikes me!  And break all the rules!  I run my machine too fast, I cut without a ruler and I rearrange the pieces without consulting the art critics!



There are a lot of quilters out there who do beautiful work.  And I have a lot of those traditional quilts as well.  Sometimes I would do weird odd things to the traditional quilts without knowing why, I guess I just wanted to be different!

About 3 years ago, I found art quilts!  I was immediately at home in their arms!  So I began to collect weird things in addition to just fabric.

These amazing bits of rusty metal were found in the streets, in old buildings, along the Mississippi Riverfront.  With the addition of some vinegar and sun rays it turned into this beauty.


To which I added some tea to turn it grey!

Why do I create what I do?

 I work for myself and occasionally sell a piece or two.  Sometimes I will go through my UFO box and see a traditional quilt that is screaming to be let out of its rigid confines.  And I get in there and cut it up and set it free!

You would not really believe this was a mild mannered stripy quilt, would you?  But it is sooo much better now!

I just have to live outside the box.  I can't draw like some people, or paint like others, but I can sketch out a way to sew fabrics back together and even slap on some paint and deconstruct a print or two to make something no one else has ever seen before.   And the best part is that I rarely ever know where I am going to end up! 

I am so glad you stopped by to hear about what I love to do.  Please stop in and see Carol at Quilted Fabric Art in the next few days and see what she has to tell you.