Fresh Starts

What is it about a new year that inspires one to begin fresh? There is all the promise of a clean slate and all the optimism of improving over last year’s efforts. Well, in my case that wouldn’t be difficult, especially regarding my website. My excuse has always been that I would rather be making art than talking about making art, but the truth is if you are not talking about your artwork nobody will realize it even exists…

But I truly have been producing as though a fire has been lit inside me! And in the spirit of fresh starts and New Year resolutions I am attempting to share some of this productivity with you in the hopes to inspire your creativity. Now, I am not going to predict how often this will happen but I will try to do better this year than last. The only problem is, where to begin?

I thought, perhaps, I’d go back through the thousands of photo files I have and select artwork I’ve not shown before, beginning with this piece titled “The Treehouse”. I created this work in 2009, in celebration of moving into my brand new studio on the second floor of the old Union Bank building here in Plenty. This was the first quilt I made in my new workspace and I incorporated my own hand-dyed cottons into the piece. It is interesting to look back on this period now, reflecting on the fresh start, new physical space and new mental/emotional vision, and how that manifested itself in crisp spring greens and energetic design. Now, I have to be honest and tell you that there was a second reason for the creation of this quilt. It became the fifth piece to round out a group of art quilts entered into an adjudication that year, which brought my work to the attention of the Organization of Saskatchewan Art Councils. This eventually led to my tour of the “artless fabrications’ body of work which ends this summer.

There is so much that I see when I view this piece – a shift in my style and construction methods, a bolder use of colour and pattern, my first attempts at free motion quilting, and being less intimidated to cut into my hand-dyed fabrics. It is interesting now to look at this little quilt and realize just how much it changed my life. Below is a photograph taken of the five quilts hanging at the adjudication.

 

 

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