I must also tell you of another go getter of a woman who has a way with color and fabrics, my friend Cathy. We met back in April at the Gee's Bend retreat in Alabama. I was excited about my upcoming workshop with Nancy at Shakerag and told her about it. Cathy was able to obtain a spot in the workshop and we had a fine reunion. She is such a kind and giving person, full of energy and fun. An amazing woman to watch in action. Check out her blog, livelovelaugh-cathy.blogspot.com to see her progress on composition # 2.
Her composition # 1 is equally as beautiful,
as you can see.
And now it is time for me to fess up. I was one of the students that didn't complete composition # 2. In fact, I didn't even get a good start on # 2. We began by making more striped fabrics following certain criteria. Thirty fabrics to be precise. I got a good start with these 3 pieces, since the directions were pretty concise.
Then, as you can see, I ended up all over the place as far as color. Totally incoherent, er-ah, non-cohesive. And if you take the time to count, I didn't even make 30 fabrics. I was pretty burnt out by fabric # 27 at 1:00 am. 
After staying up way past midnight 3 days in a row,
fog had set up permanent residence in my brain.
Commenting to Nancy the next morning, that I didn't yet have all my fabrics completed, she said, "too bad. We've got to move on." And that was just fine with me. What the heck was I going to do with this mess, I wearily asked myself.
First of all, we cut a strip of varying sizes from each of our made fabrics.
And from these strips of fabric we had our choices to work with in restructuring a new composition.
Again, Ms. Cannot Make a Decision, was all over the place.
I have 3 compositions in one.
Ok, let's divide these into separate compositions.
It was a start. I won't be boring by showing all the configurations I tried. Let's just say, that they were really bad. The harder I tried the worse they got.
And to be honest, I think I must have deleted the pictures of my wall as it appeared on Friday afternoon. Or maybe I just didn't even take any pictures by then. I truly do not remember. I packed everything up, loaded my car. Had a delicious last meal at Shakerag and headed home. After recuperating physically and mentally for, oh let's say 25 days, I began again.
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| compo B, yet to be decided I decided to begin anew with some of these parts. |
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| compo A |
I will spare you scrolling through the multiple arrangement pictures.
Here is where I am today.
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| approximately 50 inches x 70 inches at this point and growing I wanted to work with less colors for a change of pace and try something totally unlike anything I had ever done. I don't want to make a clone of the many, many Gee's Bend-ish, Nancy Crow-ish pieces that I constantly see all over the www. Still looking for something different. As my blog descriptions states in the About Me box still searching, diligently. I feel that each person learns at his or her own pace. I can sew very fast, but I do not work fast. I am methodical and plotting. What I see in my mind doesn't always look good on the design wall and I constantly change my designs as I go. Whether it be an improvisational piece or something taken from a photo to a sketch to a pattern. In my mind, when I am sketching or drawing with pencil and paper, I will begin with an idea or a focal point. From there, I expand and do lots of erasing. The same with "drawing" with fabric. I am still more comfortable beginning with a focal point and then "sketching" or sewing more fabrics to add until I am happy with what I am seeing. From there I can work on that vague vision until it becomes reality. Constantly erasing and redrawing. As much as I respect Nancy's methods, I cannot say that it is my preferred method. Plus the fact that abstract composition still escapes me. However, I am now even more determined to learn. I do plan to try and do more smaller pieces in the future using her methods. Granted, I am not likely to make a 5 foot by 6 foot quilt a week by my methods. For now, I will incorporate things that Nancy taught and try and be more open minded. I learned so much in this 5 day workshop, not only about art, but so much about myself. Even though I did not come home with a completed piece, those days and nights will stay with me forever, as a great learning experience. Nancy boosted my ego tremendously. I got my money's worth and then some. Thank you Nancy Crow. |
