I just finished these three pieces, all of which were painted with earth minerals, and all of which are either stretched onto or mounted onto canvas, a first for me.
This first one is mounted onto black canvas. It’s such a mysterious piece to me. I mentioned in an earlier blog, I think, that I never meant for this one to be a piece on its own, but rather a background for another piece. But somehow a door appeared and a shadowy figure in that door. The wrinkles in the canvas add to the mysterious texture. It feels like my son is coming out of the cloth and speaking to me. I used a pillowcase facing, lightly quilted it, then used a fabric adhesive tape to attach the quilt to the black canvas.
This next one I called Savannah Sunset because the colors remind me of the sunsets we see almost every evening on our walk to the Savannah river. All the fabric was painted, dyed or printed in some way in Claire Benn’s workshop earlier this year with earth minerals. I had lots of fun experimenting with a new medium, but few of my pieces felt successful as a whole cloth. These were cut up and pieced. One of the recurring pieces of fabric (guess which one!) was actually my mop-up rag. I like how the “writing” moves across the fabric, both interrupting and connecting the various colors. I didn’t quilt this one at all as I didn’t think it needed it. I simply stretched it onto a frame. You have to be careful when doing this, I realized, not to warp the design or pull the seams apart. The fabric here is linen and canvas and a few pieces of cotton. I think had it all been cotton it might not have stretched as well.
This next one I posted earlier before I mounted it on black canvas so I won’t say more about it here, except that I like the little S-like squiggle on the bottom left. I decided on it at the last moment but I might try to add something like that on future pieces. It echoes the S of my name. I finished this one using facing, then glued it onto black canvas I had stretched onto a frame. I used Tear Mender fabric glue.
