Highlight of the Pandemic Era!

You know, it’s been fairly grueling to manage my overly full plate of things to do, especially added to all other aspects that fluctuate and tend to spiral at times out of control. I just told my cousin, Gary, to go jump in a lake (well, an ocean) if he wants to dramatically change his consciousness.

Well, I’m metaphorically doing that myself.  I’ve always done my best under pressure, with a deadline but it’s definitely more of a struggle these days and while I’ve been trying to avoid deadlines in recent months, it’s happening once again and more dramatically than ever before!

I have to share with you the best thing (person) that’s come out of this pandemic era – Nicholas Wilton who is an amazingly gifted teacher!

If you’re an artist at any level, check this out!

Not revolutionary, but after the first workshop I went to my studio to come up with some “sketches” for a simple book page layout I’m doing and immediately began to put into practice what I learned. The first page, I did before the class. (There’s an open space where I will put a small, loosely speaking, facsimile of an art quilt. The background is a section of one of my art quilts, washed out so as not to be a distraction, and with color changes. Then I did a couple more until I was satisfied with it. These are all on paper but the final product will be printed on fabric and machine stitched.

Then I thought that the small piece squares didn’t really express much of an ART quilt, which is the emphasis of my page so I moved on to this sketch where I changed the quilt facsimile to express more of an art quilt than a block quilt, thus rearranging the rest of the printed images as well to fit the composition better.

It’s still evolving but I’m almost there! I know this is very elemental but in my own mind, it’s very LARGE!

I know I can suddenly bring what I’m learning more into my textile art than I’ve ever consciously done before now. My expanded awareness of the details of design, value and color will enable me to make art with more fundamental cohesion and interest, bringing me to the next level to move forward in my creative process! I’m chafing at the bit to get serious!

What do you think? Can you see the changes? I’d love some feedback on this!

Briefly looking back at what I’ve produced over the years, I’ve only come up with one piece that actually already came close to using the elements that I’ve now been made conscious of. In fact, last night…well, in the wee hours unable to sleep, I took a look at a SAQA magazine that had just arrived… when I realized it was just published in the most recent issue of Art Quilt Quarterly, Issue No. 22!  You can find my piece, Mingling With the Sacred in it.  

And while I’m at it, don’t forget that another piece, In the Heart of a Friend is still on sale until February 28^th at https://www.saqa.com/resources/saqa-trunk-show

Thank you all for being with, escorting me on this experiment we call blogging life!