Quilting Arts Magazine August - September 2016

PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING WHEN IT COMES TO ART, AND HOW AN ARTIST SEES THE WORLD AROUND THEM IS A FASCINATING TOPIC. Artists have the unique opportunity of sharing their view and perspective with the world. However, an artist can’t always control what the viewer sees. See more quilts from Dawn Allen and learn about her fascinating story on page 10. I remember standing beneath the dome at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome for the first time and looking up. The ceiling is high and curves elegantly into a cupola. Encircling the dome and extending heavenward is an incredibly ornate scene, including beautiful cherubs with rosy cheeks and golden curls. At least that is what I thought I saw. On closer inspection—and after climbing hundreds of stairs for a better view—I discovered the…

DEAR QUILTING ARTS, I spin, knit, and weave. I don’t quilt, but I watch “Quilting Arts TV” every week and I’m a new subscriber to your magazine. You make me want to quilt! So I tried making an art quilt inspired by a photo of my miniature dachshund Lena wearing her colorful raincoat. I used machine embroidery and added hand-stitched details with yarn. I’m more proud of this first art quilt than anything I’ve ever designed. I hope this will be the first of many more quilts, created because of YOU! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to stretch outside of my comfort zone and try something new. Marcia McCormack Lake Forest, California DEAR QUILTING ARTS, I have been a faithful reader since your first issue and value every one of them since then.…

Susie Monday’ work and life are informed and inspired by the Texas Borderlands where she works and teaches in person and online. She tells tall tales, uncovers dreams, and explores myths with her recycled, hand-printed, and artist-designed fabrics and narrative compositions. susiemonday.com Susan Purney Mark is a surface-design artist living and working in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Her recent work uses fabric that she has created by dyeing, painting, and printing as well as using soy wax resists. She is most often inspired by her travels, and a recent solo show focused on abstracted structures seen on a tour of Italy. She has a Quilting Arts Workshop™ video “Fabric Embellishments with Color, Surface Design and More,” has appeared on “Quilting Arts TV,” and has written several articles for Quilting Arts. When she…

WESTFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS “When I was a child I always wondered whether other people saw colors the same way I did. What if my yellow was their blue? Just two years ago, when I was 39, and after going to many doctors for debilitating headaches, dizziness, and body aches, I was diagnosed with a vision issue, which, it turns out, I have had my entire life. I see double (vertically), but my brain suppressed the double vision. As a result, I always had very little depth perception and a sense that everything I looked at was ‘swimming.’ Because I had seen that way since I was a child and didn’t know otherwise, I thought my sight was normal. I had always scored 20/20 on eye exams, so no one questioned my vision. The…

Two works each by 20 artists equals 40 art quilts to explore and a multitude of potential pairings to consider. Each pair of works relates to one another, and the exhibit overall encompasses a wide range of style and subject matter. Many pieces are variations on a theme. With the same technique and subject matter, the artist explores subtle variations in line, color, or texture to fully understand the material. Some pairs have a narrative element between them: perhaps the time of day has changed or the viewpoint has shifted. These little differences invite the viewer to engage with the work in a kind of “ first–then” or “spot the differences” game. In other pairs, it is the point of view of the artist that ties the two pieces together. They may…

Geometric motifs make great free-motion quilting fillers. These are shapes everyone knows—circles, squares, and triangles. Start with the basic— a circle—and make it snazzy by turning it into a swirl or by placing another pattern, such as a diamond, inside it. The combinations are endless. In most of the geometric motifs I’ve stitched here, I started by defining the outer perimeter and then stitching lines inside it to subdivide the space. For example, in “Angles,” I stitched the triangle shape first, and then added the lines inside the triangle. In “Wonky Hexagons,” I stitched the outer (largest) hexagon first, and then stitched in from a corner to form the next two hexagons inside the largest one. “Spinning Wheel” starts with the circle and the curvy diamond is stitched inside. Some geometric motifs…