A recently completed quilt has been on a photo shoot. We took this big baby (it measures 80″ square) with us to Zebulon last week when we went to see Slow Exposures (the photo exhibit described in my last post). The quilt posed on a bench, in a gazebo, and in front of a brick wall.
I called this one Jewel Boxes. The traditional tumbling block pattern, one of my favorites, has been surrounded by a vine of colorful foliage.
Inspired by a magazine cover with a similar quilt many years ago, I cut many rhombuses with a 60º angle and hand stitched them together to make the tumbling block. Then I assembled the blocks into rows and added a black border.
Here, I’m having a Vivian Maier moment including my reflection in the photo. I’ll share my love of Vivian Maier in an upcoming post.
I planned the applique on the border in a free-form manner. After positioning the border vines, I cut leaves and flowers from assorted fabrics, laid them in place until I liked the color placement, and began stitching.
Dewey Godwin did the longarm quilting. He did a great job!
Dewey used a dark gray thread for the quilting on the border, prompting me to select a little gray dot on black for the binding.
We revisited Slow Exposures this weekend. Slow Exposures is a “juried exhibition celebrating photography of the rural south” (from their website, here). I wrote about it after our first visit to the exhibit in 2018.
As is always the case when we spend the day with these photographs, we feel inspired.
The display of photos entered in the photo contest at Slow Exposures.
Sometimes it’s the techniques used in processing the photos, sometimes it’s the way the photos are displayed, sometimes it’s the subject matter. This year, I was entranced by blue.
ferns printed on wood
Two pairs of artists in the PopUp venues were working with cyanotypes. A cyanotype uses paper (or fabric or wood) that’s been treated with chemicals which are light sensitive. Laying an image on the paper, then exposing it to sunlight produces an image. Having done some of this myself with fabric, I’m intrigued by the new spin on things when other people do it.
Jim captured this image of Ashley and Danea’s cyanotypes under glass. Displayed in a coffee shop, the scene was impressive.
Ashely Jones and Danea Males shared their work in the popup Some Kind of Blue. Their work included cyanotype images on paper and on wood.
Some of the jewelry made by Ashley Jones and Danea Males. I had already bought one of their pendants when I snapped this photo.
In the Out of Town popup, Elizabeth Limbaugh and Tara Stallworth Lee had collaborated to share their interpretations of Alabama images. They had photographic diptychs, collages, and cyanotype prints.
Elizabeth is the one of the pair who works with the cyanotypes and she and I shared our love of the process and techniques we’ve used.
I loved learning about the encaustic process used with photos on our initial visit to Slow Exposures. This year another artist was exploring that process with vintage photos. I was intrigued since I love collecting old photos of known and unknown people to populate my stories in cloth.
So now I’m at home contemplating new ways to make and include cyanotypes and photographs in my textiles.
A few weeks ago, I pulled out some of my old images I had printed and assembled them into a quilt top. Another larger project is under the quilting needle now, but this is in the queue.
