Float Away in Dreams
This week I’ve enjoyed walking back through a quilt I made several years ago. Sometimes it helps to re-visit. I like to see again what I was thinking about at the time.
Have my ideas evolved or changed? Am I going about exploring them in any new ways? Was I trying things out then that I like but that maybe I’ve set aside?
This is Float Away in Dreams.
At the heart of the quilt is the little house.
I am very drawn to simplified, childlike images of houses. They begin to stir imaginings and memories. And I want to look through the windows and wonder about the people inside.
(I remember seeing pictures in a childhood book of the cut-away view of a city apartment building. There was Mrs. Gonzales on the third floor in her living room. Downstairs was Grumpy Mr. North sitting in his kitchen. I looked into all the little rooms to see the actions of their lives.)
I created this house in a way that is representational, but not realistic.
Its walls are made of water-filled images. The roof is filled with prints from grassy, organic forms. The windows are cockeyed.
The environment around the house is also all mixed up. There are trees and water and non-specific shapes and shadows. It is, to me, the way reality is in dreams. There are real things. They are not associated in real or predictable ways.
It’s mostly blue, with splashes. My hope is that the mustard yellow in the lower left provides a way into the picture. The eye then goes up the tree to the yellow rectangle and bright red birds. The path continues in motion up and to the right. The suggestions of movement in the water bring you back down around into the picture
I remember that I loved creating this work. It was very involving in a hands-on tactile way, building the layers into the pieces before I sewed it together and then again doing more surface painting on the completed work.
It’s big enough to be interesting
I see things I could have done differently. But, those lessons are now for what work I may create next.
(This quilt is on my website HERE if you’d like to see or learn more.)
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LIKE TO SHOP? HEADS UP. When I write this blog each week, I am grateful to be connecting with readers who find the art-making process interesting. And I appreciate the chance to introduce what I do. But I want to be respectful of your reading and not do much that’s actually selling my work.
BUT… I do sell my work and I love to do so. I am having an introduction of all-new collaged pieces in mid-February. (Affordable matted works – each $149) I will introduce them with a “heads-up” email and then have them available for FIRST LOOKS all at once on my website at a specified time. (I did this twice in 2020 and created some fun, fast-and-furious events.) If you are interested in being a part of that, the way to receive the information is to sign up for my NEWSLETTER below. (I only send these out about once a month.) If you already subscribe to the monthly newsletter – THANK YOU. You don’t need to do anything. Information about the new works will be coming.
Thank you for reading.
I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
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