Lapstrake, Ticking, and Rachel Carey George/Gee's Bend quilt

                                 



Lapstrake
- Gap jeans c.2000, early 20th c velvet, 1970s velour pants, silk, wool, cheesecloth, burlap

                                                                                                                                                                 














Ticking
- early 20th c mattress ticking, wood toothpicks, cotton string, tea-dyed burlap

                                         








Ticking removed from cotton boll stuffed mattress.

Gee's Bend/ Rachel Carey George quilt

The use of old clothing and household items in my work is directly inspired by the Gee's Bend quilt makers, a group of African American women living in close-knit geographically isolated communities of Alabama.  Their work, originally made of whatever salvageable materials were available, represents an important cultural and visual contribution to the history of 20th c African American art.  In need of warmth, and with no time to fuss over intricate patterns and piecework, the Gee's Bend artists created a non-traditional aesthetic vision which incorporates the idiosyncrasies and past lives of recycled goods.  In this quilt by Rachel Carey George (1909-2011)--made of wool trousers, jeans, and mattress ticking--the faded ghost prints of pockets become compositional elements in the overall design.

Collage Pillow 1, plus "Ieri, Oggi, Domani"

rotations:

Film and fabrics:

This week I watched Vittorio de Sica's film "Ieri, Oggi, Domani"  , a trilogy of short films within a film starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. I was struck by the colors, patterns, and textures in the clothing, architecture, props-- everything so beautifully thought out.  

It's a comprehensive approach that brought to mind the diverse group of fabrics in my collection, which span a wide range of time periods, various family members' personal tastes, functions etc.-- interesting to think of each group of fabrics as a scene, a place, an event.  Some of the fabrics in the collection, such as the green and gray windowpane plaid shirt-- a rag which I recovered from my dad's work shed--  are from around the same time period as the movie, mid-sixties.  

Love the Lipton boxes and other products, the pop of turquoise in the doorway.

Note the occurrence of blue in this series of market scenes.

.. and the geometric patterned dress that strolls through.

LOVE this one-- the linear structure and use of shadow to reinforce it, the texture of the wall at the back, the pop of orange amid grays and beiges.

I was reminded of this painting by Nicolas de Stael .  The monochrome image above emphasizes the lines and spatial composition.  Below is the original painting with all of its glorious colors.

back to the film....

Is that a pile of giant lemons?

You can't miss the yellow in these frames.

So small that red license plate, but what an impact.

and a pop of red again in this one.

Crazy colored cabinets!  Note the blood-red pot with the turquoise bowl back left.

Rock pillow and beyond

Rock pillow  made with recycled fabrics--
green woven cotton 1960's curtain, light blue  1960's cotton canvas shower curtain.  Other fabrics include tea-dyed burlap, Italian linen, and silk.
The yellow burlap and orange silk  edge strips  are trimmed from the Istanbul textile

trimming the pillow front:

and playing with the edgestrips
-- the leftovers from one project generate ideas for the next:

rotations

post-note 

Usually Tillycat joins my photo-shoots, but today she took refuge from the cold wind in a plant container.

From the kitchen to Istanbul--scraps of fabrics, scraps of ideas PLUS Daniel Gordon and Mickalene Thomas

This is a textile I made from my pile of small scraps --silk, old curtains, wool, velvet, corduroy, old bedspread-- all sewed onto a piece of tea-dyed burlap,

 ...which I then cut into pieces and arranged on yellow burlap-- I like the slashy effect.
The process is self generative: arranging/ attaching/ cutting,  then rearranging/ attaching/ cutting.  It could go on and on, yielding infinite itererations.  Nothing is predetermined, I have no idea of the outcome when I begin.

Here are the same pieces on black wool, looking something like an intersection in a city plan. I could sew them on in this configuration, then cut that textile into pieces which would make yet another new textile. It'a an endless path.




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... looking around this week at artists' work that focuses on color, shape and patterns, like the still lifes of  Daniel Gordon

and the landscapes of  Mickalene Thomas  

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a photo my niece took in Istanbul this summer....

from which I put together this preliminary"sketch" using cutouts from the screen in her picture. The blue patterned cotton is from India,

one of a set of swatches brought to a friend by her husband who was travelling there in the 1980's.

This project is a new experience for me in that it's "about" something-- a collection of friends' and family relationships and experiences; a husband thinking of his wife when he's away from home, a young person traveling alone for the first time. It's about how we capture memories of our experiences with images and objects.  It's inclusive.

And in contrast to the burlap strips, it's an intentional process, at least partially predetermined from the outset.  I wanted to make something personal for my niece as a college graduation gift, something that includes a piece of her life,  so I suggested using one of her photos to make a textile. Graphically I like what I'm seeing in the mock-up, but am not that excited about cutting pieces from a template.
I wonder about the literalness of this particular interpretation and how comfortable I am with that.

It is however, a gift, and since my niece really likes the mock-up, and I like the photo and that it captures her vision,  I'll continue to work with it and see what happens.  I'm very curious to see what comes out.

A last note about this process-- judging by how much I've just written, there seem to be a lot of words attached to it.  I'm getting tired of words, just wanting to focus more on making things rather than meaning, to pursue the not-quite  ineffable ,  because that's too grand a word.



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made with random scraps: 1950-60's pink cotton chrysanthemum fabric from my grandmother Catherine,  brown basket-weave 1950's upholstery fabric, various 1980's woven gray cottons (my sister's pants scraps). The leopard is a 1990's upholstery scrap from a friend's office/library.  Other fabrics include upholstery samples, wool and silk.