It’s On

My piece is inspired by the feeling of excitement and speed I experienced while listening to Vivaldi.
The music reminded me of the first few minutes of a race… A lot of adrenaline, energy, momentum, a feeling of being chased.  The moments after the starting gun can be a little chaotic (which is why I tend to stay on the outside edge and hug the curb). Everyone is going in the same direction at different speeds. I sometimes feel like I’m being swept along, almost out of my control.  It takes a few minutes to calm down and get my bearings.  But pretty soon I get into a good rhythm and have fun.
For this piece I went a little bit out of my comfort zone and tried a few new approaches.  For the figures, I used bright colors without any modeling or sense of light & shadow. I also purposely stitched outside the edges of the figures with loose sketchy lines, pushing the colors into other figures, trying to create a blurry movement around them. 
The runners in the distance fade out and disappear into simple line drawings.  That gives me a little visual “breathing room” and allows me to see the curve of the road.  The scene is crowded but I didn’t want it to be oppressive and claustrophobic.
I always add a binding to my quilts, usually a thin black line around the edge. But I thought that would ‘trap’ the figures and stop the action. So I experimented with matching the binding to the image using different fabrics. That way the runners can move out of the frame.

Technorati Tags: Challenge1,Themel,Vivaldi

Color Dance

When I listened to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Summer, the word "intertwining" repeatedly came to mind. There was a back and forth play between the instruments and the notes. They seemed to be separate but spiraling around each other and ultimately blending to create harmony. I felt a strong, building, upward motion that was an important part of the intertwining instruments.  I also had a sense of bright light arising from the darkness.

To me, the music represented a dance, the interplay of notes. I could easily envision it as a ballet, and some of the curves in my piece “Color Dance” are intended to echo that grace.I tried to capture both the contrast and the blending of the sounds. The quilt is designed around three quadrants: red, yellow and blue.  Where these areas touch, I transitioned to secondary colors to represent harmony and blending. Spiraling ribbons are the ascending, sparkling notes and black is the deep baritone, strong darkness from which the notes emerge.

Individual pieces were fussy cut from several yards of hand-dyed fabric. They were then fused to a black background. I chose to keep the quilting simple and subtle and let the fabrics do the talking. Each piece is quilted individually in curves to enhance the illusion of upward motion. 

I enjoyed using music as inspiration. Often it is merely background noise, only peripherally affecting the creative process. To use it as the source, the focus, was an interesting endeavor, and one I would easily recommend.

'V voom'

My quilt is titled 'V voom' in response to the Vivaldi music set by Martha in this first challenge. It is not so easy to make the intangible visible, but I chose to give form to my response through colour, line and shape.
The whole cloth background is a dye painted piece, then enhanced with oil stick rubbings [purple sections and green circles]. I first listen to the music with my eyes shut and saw green. When I listened again and drew my response I had a lot of scribbly lines, circles and a tangled mess!
The pace of the music is vibrant, energetic, lively and frenetic with dark passages and restful moments. I enjoyed using a few of the pre-programmed stitches on my Bernina 440  and couching threads.

The machine quilting is an integral part of the story in this quilt. I enjoyed the challenge once I put aside my fears about "will it be good enough?".
Photographed by Bob Dennis.

If at first...

If at first you don't succeed, don't give up!
This has been a valuable lesson, learnt before from experience, in getting work underway for this challenge. My first attempt to capture my thoughts, in a design, after hearing the music Martha set for our challenge, was with the mono printing technique.

This is my sample print on a white background, before reproducing the effect on my dye painted background. Not happy with what I ended up with, I have broken down the original idea into colour, line and shape to capturea little of the essence and am now happily working on my second attempt.

Considerations for the piece include using some of this.

Hard to see, but on this sample I have stitched out some of the pre-programmed machine stitches and am testing couching methods. I find it is always best to have a tester piece rather than launching into the 'good' fabric!