It was Halloween when I emptied the plastic baggies filled with scraps onto my studio floor. I felt as if they were taunting me to make sense of them.
So I sorted though them and found six squares using two pieces of fabric each that someone else had sewn together. They were my inspiration, the place I began.
You can see four pieces of them in the center of my Scrap Art Pillow. I wanted them to keep the eye moving, bringing together patterns and colors that related to each other but weren’t the same.
From there I did as I always do, adding one piece of fabric at a time, each one informing the next until I was done.
As with the other five pieces that I made that day, I thought I’d be adding them together to make a quilt. But that didn’t work, so I did something different. I made one of them into my Acorn Quilt, two of them into small wall hangings and made this one into a pillow. I still have two pieces from that day that are waiting for me to figure out what to do with them.
My Scrap Art Pillow is 16″x16″ including the edging. It is $75 + $10 shipping. You can buy it in my Etsy Shop, just click here. Or you can email me at [email protected]. I take checks, PayPal and Venmo.
This looks unlike anything else I have seen you create. Very stunning, looks like it belongs in a modern art museum. You seem to be creating at rapid speed in so many different ways. Can’t wait to see what comes next.
It’s funny LoisJean, Jon said something similar about these pieces. But they don’t seem very different to me. I think I’m just to close to them. Thanks for your thoughts.
This is gorgeous, Maria. It would be a keepsake, and I agree it has a modern art feel. You have managed to use asymmetry to achieve balance, which always somehow opens my art. When it’s done well. Someone needs to buy this!
Thank you Donna, I like the idea of making asymmetry balanced. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
Of course I meant that a balanced asymmetrical pattern opens up my heart! But I suppose the challenge of achieving balance also opens up my own art. I also work with visual asymmetry, and I find that I have to either expand the frame or add to the complexity of the pattern before I get that tingly feeling of having achieved a pleasing composition. You do that often with your quilts. Here you have done it so skillfully on a smaller canvas.
And of course I knew what you meant Donna. :) And It’s interesting how you describe knowing your art is done by a feeling in your body. I never thought of it, but I know what you mean, so much of my creative decisions come from a feeling and not something intellectual. Often I find when I’m being too intellectual it doesn’t work.