The Charm of Invisibility

May 26, 2011

Artists like to rhapsodize over their materials, their tools, their process, their muse. Fertile ground one and all. You've heard people say their dog ate their homework? Well, my dog Emily turned me into a quilt artist. Oh yes, she did. And even though Emily is no longer with me, her presence is keenly felt in my artwork. This one is called Walking the Dog.

Walking the Dog contains several million confetti sized pieces of hand dyed cloth sewn in layers to form a picture. The technique could be described as fabric impressionism or oil painting with cloth. Nowhere in it does a whiff of glue (or paint, for that matter) appear. My goal is mastery of the complex, even the elusive. I have no interest in doing something that is easy. 

The intricacies of thread painting

  On the surface of the quilt you can see intricate white thread painting.  I freehand draw the flowers, vines, ferns and other botanicals with my mechanical sewing machine. That sounds easier than it is. When you draw with a pencil, you move the pencil across the paper. But when you draw with a sewing machine, you move the quilt underneath the moving needle of the sewing machine. The length of the stitches is determined by how fast or slow I move the quilt under the needle.  This is most definitely rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time. It's like writing upsidedown and backward while singing the Hokey Pokey. 

The satisfaction of conquest

I am a purist.  I hunger for challenge. 

What's the point of adopting a perfect dog? Why not adopt a bad dog and teach it how to trust?