New work, thinking of Howard Hogkin

Just finished this pillow made of assorted fabric, old and new, including a blue canvas 1960's shower curtain and digital print silk leftover from my scarf .  -(click to enlarge)

The burlap strip-construction reminds me of the hay bales in the pastures around here; looking at this photo I realize how much beige and black are part of my visual world.

... also thinking of Howard Hodgkin 's

"frame" paintings in which the painting is both inside of the frame and is the frame at the same time.

rotations:

Unlike a painting hung on the wall, you can turn a pillow and look at in different directions...

...and along can come a cat to sharpen her claws (but she didn't frighten the photographer away).

The black center is cut from strips sewn onto an old sheet.  While I was making it,  I was thinking that it's kind of like I'm making my own pigments, but with fabric instead of paint.

I liked it so much that I made a couple of more blocks with different fabrics, thinking of construction-- stone walls, bricks, or the wood siding I see around here every day

This one is made with green woven cotton 1960's curtains-- exposed seams and all-- that hung in our den when I was growing up.  

This is a current photo, courtesy of Google maps, of the house in New Iberia, Lousiana where we lived when I was little.  It looks exactly as I remember it from the mid-1960's.  What strikes me is how green it is, tropical bayou climate and all... 

Other new works....

This pillow was made as a birthday gift for a friend of mine-- tea-dyed burlap, my old 1920-30's tea-dyed cotton bedspread that I replaced last summer , and a classic (possibly Larsen??) textile in the center. It was mailed last week from here in central Texas to my friend in Florida, but somehow ended up making a detour to Anchorage, as in Alaska??, courtesy of USPS.  Hope the baked goods I sent with it survived the adventure.

This one is made of edge-strips-- some trimmed off the bird's nest pillow
Leftovers of leftovers-- a self-generative process.

When I added the block of yellow, I was thinking of grounds of color, specifically the classic Getz/Gilberto album covers with the artwork of Olga Albizu

....a big hit with  Tillycat