are you an artist - are your quilts art?

To Leslie & The Furbabies in MO & Pat in Virginia - thanks for the rules listed above. I think you're BOTH right. We are free.

To Sunny - glad to be aboard! Though I usually can't post during the day. Today I'm home with an achy virus, so am posting between naps.

Is it art?? Anybody seen the quilts from Gees Bend???? Next to that, we are all artist.

Hello, you artists! I joined the group just a couple of days ago and have hoping there are art quilters "out there". I vowed a year ago never to buy another pattern. Sometimes I weaken, but I want to spend my time on original works. Won a few quilt shows, but am not doing it as a profession, just in spare time around my full-time job

I make most of my own templates and always have, but have made more than a few traditional quilts in the past as well.

Am I an artist? That phrase runs a full spectrum, and we are who we feel we are in our bones, deep down where we live. While something we create [be it in words, material, yarn, metal, etc] may feel like a wondrous expression of our soul to us, to someone else it may not evoke that reaction. And vice-versa. One of the most artistic pieces I did had my head shaking, wondering where the energy/inspiration came from to accomplish it. But to someone else it is just accepted and is nothing special.

We are who we are, to ourselves. What speaks to each of us may be different. But under it all, we are all the same.

G> Sleet and freezing rain have closed the local schools - yeah! =A0that

An interesting discussion now Musicmaker! I consider myself an art quilt maker. Textile artist or whatever. It is just hard sometimes to get one's work 'out there'. We have to self- promote to some extent and that can be a difficult mental hurdle when we were taught not to show off as kids! But if I didn't make an effort to show folk my work, it would remain forever hidden!

Cheers Bronnie

From what I see, everybody here commits art on a

Bravo Sunny! Well said!

Erin

Rita, I hate to hear that you are in pain. You are in my prayers.

Hi Marge, I know what you mean about making traditional quilts. I do that too, sometimes. But found out I am NOT practiced at matching lots of seams.

A couple of years ago I set out to make an Ohio star quilt. The stars butted up to each other without sashing & created a colorwash effect of Southwestern color stars on a sandy background. I had seen the picture in a Fons & Porter magazine advertisement and fell in love with it. (But not enough to buy the magazine.) LOL

Anyway, I copied the idea & began sewing star blocks like mad. This was to be my FIRST bed size quilt (king) so I needed LOTS of stars. I made stars for days. By the second or third day I was sewing like a drunk sailor, wondering what all the fuss was about. After all, the patches were SO EASY to put together. A 2-day sewing retreat came up and, because my projest was portable, I took my stars to sew on. At retreat, good friend had been watching me for some time. She suggested it would be nice to add sashing between the stars. NO WAY, that would ruin the look! By now I could see my color scheme was really working well. I put the stars up on the design wall & was hand picking what colors to use for the final stars to balance the look. I'd worked a secondary background shadow star into the scheme to give it a little more interest. Very proud of myself, I can tell you. :-)

THEN - IT CAME TIME TO SEW IT ALL TOGETHER. WHO KNEW all the outer points of the stars had to match at the seamline? This had never occured to me. WHO KNEW on an 80" seam I could be THAT far off? Took me days to unsew/resew the star tips until they matched. LOL

My lesson? Patching is TRICKY WORK. If the square goes together easily, then the pain can come at the seamline.

Susan - one quilt wiser

YES

Very interesting post! I love music, took lessons and worked very hard at it, but never got "good" at it. I didn't have natural talent/rhythm. I can't draw or paint. But I spent 30 years working in advertising design, loved it, and I think I was pretty good at it. I think that's why I took to quilting after retirement. It's a medium of creative expression. I have a good sense of balance and design, but unfortunately it was all in newspaper black and white! Learning color, color values, etc. was a whole new ball game. I had a real hang-up at first, I kept trying to "match" everything, like I was going to wear it!

Sherry

Sherry, your post made me smile. I'm new to quilting and having a heck of time with color. I spent Hours picking out a few colors for a sampler, it was exhausting and I keep changing them as I go... Mixing prints and then bold colors - yikes! I've found myself in the quilt store looking at fabrics thinking "but it doesn't match!"

I think of myself more as a craftsperson than artist but I think we're all capable of creating meaningful and beautiful (to oneself at least) pieces...and that might be considered "art" to some. I do think I'd like to design my own patterns at some point and I'm really enjoying learning about color. (I just got the book The Magical Effects of Color that of I saw recommended here - I was up way too late reading it last night - it's fabulous!!)

Steph

Learning

On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 13:29:48 -0800 (PST), Musicmaker wrote:

Oh that.

I have had ten plus years training as a vocalist (mezzosoprano), and initially was a music major in college. Then after yet another failed audition and in the moment of frustration it inspired, coach stuck her fingers in my mouth and found The Scar. I had no idea it was not a normal part of my mouth, I can't see it after all. It is the result of a teething accident as an infant. It runs through both my hard and soft palates and into my sinus cavities, thus I cannot raise my palate sufficiently for certain exercises or the results they are intended to achieve. So coach and school dumped me, and suggested a new career goal. I switched to visual arts, though I started out rather late. I had always tried to sneak the odd visual arts class into my schedule ever since high school, and had had the odd run of private lessons here and there. Since I had no portfolio I could't get into art school and most of my funding was exhausted by that time anyway. So it has been freelance from day one, and of course I have had a run of bar bands. I have been sewing for myself and other people right along as a way to save and get some cash. Getting fancy with it was inevitable given Me as a variable. Quilting I have done for almost as long as I have been sewing, I got fancy with it when somebody suggested I try textile Art and combine what I do. Like all my other quilts before it, it ended up on a bed. It was only in the last ten years or so (about as long as I have been posting here, fancy that! lol) That I realized I would not be instantly struck dead if I made a quilt that was not functional as a warm and cuddly for a king sized bed.

NightMist singing and painting since she was old enough to vocalize, and ask for supplies.

Hi Marge, I know what you mean about making traditional quilts. I do that too, sometimes. But found out I am NOT practiced at matching lots of seams.

: Measuring is very important so seams line up. What I do avoid is working with triangles, especially small ones. They can drive me batty.

A couple of years ago I set out to make an Ohio star quilt. The stars butted up to each other without sashing & created a colorwash effect of Southwestern color stars on a sandy background. I had seen the picture in a Fons & Porter magazine advertisement and fell in love with it. (But not enough to buy the magazine.) LOL

: Being retired I know what you mean. And in my opinion no magazine is worth $7+, especially when they make a bundle on the advertising ads in them. I find everything I want to know or learn online. :-)

Anyway, I copied the idea & began sewing star blocks like mad. This was to be my FIRST bed size quilt (king) so I needed LOTS of stars. I made stars for days. By the second or third day I was sewing like a drunk sailor, wondering what all the fuss was about. After all, the patches were SO EASY to put together. A 2-day sewing retreat came up and, because my projest was portable, I took my stars to sew on. At retreat, good friend had been watching me for some time. She suggested it would be nice to add sashing between the stars. NO WAY, that would ruin the look! By now I could see my color scheme was really working well. I put the stars up on the design wall & was hand picking what colors to use for the final stars to balance the look. I'd worked a secondary background shadow star into the scheme to give it a little more interest. Very proud of myself, I can tell you. :-)

: It does sound like a nice quilt.

THEN - IT CAME TIME TO SEW IT ALL TOGETHER. WHO KNEW all the outer points of the stars had to match at the seamline? This had never occured to me. WHO KNEW on an 80" seam I could be THAT far off? Took me days to unsew/resew the star tips until they matched. LOL

: Oh HORRORS!!! :-O I once had a similar problem with a quilt I didn't want sashing on. Instead of going bananas, I used sashing the same color as the star's background. Not perfect, but it worked because they weren't too far off. It was for a single bed and had to be done by a certain time so .........

My lesson? Patching is TRICKY WORK. If the square goes together easily, then the pain can come at the seamline.

: Yep! We all learn that one. :^)

Susan - one quilt wiser

I think that if you consider your quilts art then they are. There are all kinds of ways to create, some just happen to be practical as well as beautiful.

Allison

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!! Hugs

Thanks Tina!!!!!!!!!!!

Howdy!

My experience w/ musical talent is different than what you cite. I've known many people who sing, play, create music, who have never had "training". They just do it, in tune, on key, well. My husband has had "perfect pitch" (musical) all of his life. When he was a toddler he sang on pitch; his dad would play a few notes on the piano, the kid would start singing, then go on from there. He could sing anything; moved on to play a couple of musical instruments as a child, before lessons or training. Once he began professional training (voice, clarinet, etc.), many instruments were easy to learn, much of it self-taught. [The "perfect pitch" was "diagnosed" when he would sing on key despite the piano being slightly out of tune. His music instructors used him to detect the out-of-key or needs-tuning instruments. ] Some talents are just that, a gift, no training required. Many of us sing, on key, without any basic training. After years of experience, I've developed my talent into a skill. "Play the note: I'll sing it." And it will be on key (in tune). On the other hand, my younger son, without any professional training in the basics of rhythm or pitch, is an excellent drummer & is now teaching himself to play keyboard (he's also, finally, singing, rather well, too). Talent & skill. Which brings me back to quilting. I made quilts without any "training", before I knew "the rules" or how to break them. Because that's what I did, I quilted. ;-) Finally got my hands on some books, talked to other quilters & artists & crafters, learned more, tried new ideas, and mastered having more fun with it. Rules:shmules! "It's art if I say it's art." ;-D

R/Sandy

On 3/4/08 3:29 PM, in article snipped-for-privacy@q33g2000hsh.googlegroups.com, "Musicmaker" wrote:

My experience is based on the fact that, when people know that I have a degree in music, and can play the piano very well, they usually will do (or not do) one of 2 things. They'll never play the piano when I'm around because I supposedly know "the right way", or they'll denigrate their own ability because they never had "official" training. I talk to a ton of quilters who are the same - they put down their own abilities and self expression because it's not acclaimed or official or some other such nonsense, totally overlooking the fact that they are creative, imaginative, diligent and original. Even kit quilts end up being originals since they're done by the hands of an individual. I've also noticed that the rules governing public recitals/talent shows and quilt shows lend themselves to this kind of nonsense. I personally know of several children who weren't allowed to play in a talent show or be in the school band because, though they could play the piano, they couldn't read music. Quilt show categories lend themselves to the same thing - there's usually a separate category for quilt art, and few quilts fit the definition.

Musicmaker, whose portrait quilt was marked down because of uneven stitches. sigh

I have personally thought for years the only ribbon I ever want to win is Viewer's Choice. I want to know that people who look at my quilts enjoy them. That's all. This is not to make light of those of you who do wish to compete in this field. It's just a personal thing with me. I do not like to compete when it comes to creativity. Takes the fun out of it for me, and personally it also takes some of the creativity out of it too. I feel stifled by all the rules. That's just me though, and I totally understand and love all of you who make quilts for show. My goodness, without those quilts to look at I would be missing out on a lot of vision and inspiration. We all need each other.

Karen, Queen of Squishies, quilter who rarely enters a show, piano teacher who refuses to play in competitions or even do a formal recital. Gimme the livin' room half full of close friends and let me at it!