Implied Peace

Fabric collage, machine quilted.  Completed December 2018. Size 13" x 13" 

This is my response to a Quilt Lab (Gotham Quilts) experiment about LINE.  As a basic element of visual art, line can be defined as: "the use of various marks, outlines, or implied lines."  A line has "width, direction and length".  Lines can be straight or curved, thick or thin, short or long, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal or implied?.  Of all the definitions,  "implied" was the concept that intrigued me.  So I created this piece in which the lines of the peace symbol are negative space.  All the work is on the edges of those lines, to create the recognizable image. 

I started with a piece of hand dyed fabric by my pal Sam at Hunters Design Studio.  Then selected some bright multi-colored prints that had good contrast with the background piece.  I drew the peace symbol on the fabric, first tracing around a large plate, then carefully measuring and drawing the internal circle and lines. 





Next I planned which colors would go in each section, and started cutting out images from the fabric and placing them more or less where they would go.  




Some of the fabric has wonderunder fused to the back, which made it easier to work with.  Later as I was filling in, I didn't always fuse the back, sometimes I used a spot of regular glue stick (no, it didn't gunk up the needle when machine quilting!) 




To get the really sharp edges, I created these templates using cardboard to match the convex and concave curves, then precisely cut the pieces going on the edges using this line: 

Once everything was where I wanted, I ironed the whole piece, to set the bits that could be fused. I wasn't sure what heat setting the glue-stick would do,  but it didn't cause a problem. 

I considered quilting a piece of tulle over the top of the whole thing, as I had seen recommended by other fabric collage artists, but the tulle I had at home changed the color too much, so I just quilted directly over the fabric pieces, first narrow zig-zagging the edge, then looping over everything with a variegated thread.



 (notice what a difference lighting makes when photographing a quilt!)

       I faced the quilt, because I didn't want any sort of frame a binding would create.  Here is a photo of the back, so you can see the facing and quilting:



I've been meaning to try fabric collage (following the amazing work of Susan Carlson and others) so this was a little toe in the water of collage.  I'll do more to be sure.  This was very fun.

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I'm not sure I explored LINE very much.  This does have a line (curved and straight)  and its implied which fits my original intrigue.  Mostly this piece is in response to someone who misunderstood my intent in an email.  She thought I was implying something I most certainly did not.  I learned that people see/read/understand what they want, so this message of 'peace', which is the way I've been ending all my blog posts for these 2 years and all my quilt related emails, is no longer 'implied' - I'm stating it here for the record. 

Peace. 

For you, for me, for our noisy neighbors upstairs, for the tormented souls sleeping on the subways, for the refugees, for the caravaners, for the politicians trying to make it work, for the marchers in pink knit hats, for those long marginalized in our nation,  for the men and women in uniform, for our fellow citizens who have gotten themselves riled up by fake news, for people I don't know who have their own everyday struggles.  

Peace.