It was when I showed Emily my I Belong To Me and I’m Not A Ghost postcards, during one of our Zoom studio visits, that she said she wished I had created the letting for the words.
This idea was a natural one for Emily. She uses and creates words in her collage art all the time. Her words are a part of her images. (click here to see some of Emily’s work)
As soon as she said it, I knew she was right and wondered why I had never thought of it before. I’ve used words in my art for years. Most recently on my Corona Kimono.
I decided to take Emily’s advice and yesterday when, by chance, I met Sara Kelly, who does the graphics for my posters, postcards and magnets, in the post office I knew it was time to actually do it.
So this morning using the same old quilt backing that I used for my Shield of Words fabric painting I stitched the title on my sewing machine.
My first try wasn’t quite right. I didn’t like the “of”, it wasn’t strong enough. But I did like the capital “D” in the word Shield, because it looks like a shield, and wanted to put the same “D” on the “Words”.
So I redid it.
I was hoping to make the lettering expressive. To give them that feeling of someone sitting down and quickly writing the words in pencil then going over them again and again. Which is just what I do with my sewing machine. I also thickened up their bottoms, just a bit, to give them weight and grounding.
Then I send a photo of my Shield of Words fabric painting and the words to Sara. She’ll work her magic and put them together, making them just the right size for posters, postcards and magnets.
