Sew Daphne: Textile work -- Growing

When I was first attracted to quilts it was the patterns and colors that pulled me in. This all began for me in 1960. I made my first quilt top that year. These below are quilts older than I.

All of this I find completely beguiling. I have a romance with the whole thing: from the growers of the cotton down to the janitor in the stores where I buy my cloth, & everything in between.

After a while, in the 1980's, I wanted not only to make my own patterns, but to 'break my own pattern rules' too. I began working on a project not with a fixed idea of what I wanted something to look like, but with an idea that I wanted to play with. Sometimes my projects departed entirely away from patterns altogether, & what a liberation.

These next few quilts are all from the last 10 or so years. Some are more pattern-y than others.

So to the "growing" part. My friend Sal suggested that I might start trying incorporating a sense of depth in my imagery. I went mentally/psychologically into reverse.

I wrote her:
"I have been thinking about that 'depth-idea' quite a bit.
What I have been saYING TO MY INNER SELF IS, "YOU KNOW, DApHNE, I REALLY LIKE TWO DIMENSIONAL WORK. [oops, caps]. That was what led me into quilting in the 1st place.
So I don't have a big investment/value in 3-D.

"What a thought that I had never thunk before.
Like never. ever. How amazing a realization is that?"

In truth, I was terrified of the thought. I had no idea how to 'do depth', & I had limitless ideas about what I was already doing. Why change? And furthermore Sal could talk cogently about how you create the illusion of depth & I would go further into my fearfulness. I could hardly take in her words!! Wowzer.

My next chapter in this process. I looked at the two books I had just gotten & see if I could see anything that interested me in the zone that Sal was encouraging me in. Masters of Art Quilts Vol. 1 & 2.

I've combed through quilt books for many different reasons, but this was a new one. Book marks went in. I was shocked again at how little I cared about "pictorial quilts". They have depth, all right, but I am more interested in abstraction than representational work.
I was also shocked at how many fabric artists/quilters have gone into representational work-- portraits, florals, scenery, political protests, & so on. And overall there is huge variety of techniques, styles, & so on & on & on.

Ok, I thought, now I wonder if I look at the photos I have of my earlier work if I have any examples of depth that I might have done 'by mistake'. Well, I had!