Pruning Sheers or Weed Wacker?
In February 2009, Google and other major search engines adopted new techniques to make web searching a better, cleaner and more consistent experience. Their goal is to clear out some of the clutter dawdling in the outer rings of cyberspace.
Their digital efficiency efforts got me thinking that maybe I should take an inventory of my quilt galleries and clean out the art pieces I’ve pushed to the “back pages”.
If I were preparing for a one person art show, I sure wouldn’t be displaying old work or pieces which simply aren’t up to my current standard. I know that if a critic saw these pieces, more would be said about them than my current work. I noticed recently a quilt art critic fairly but sadly commenting on a quilt art show where a notable quilt artist had included new but almost identical work from a series begun 10 years ago. Time to move on.
So why am I keeping these old friends with me still. Well, there’s my emotional attachment to one art quilt from a phase when I was having fun experimenting with with double dye runs,
3 examples of double dye runs
Galaxy. I placed the quilt in a show about 4 years ago and when an art collector saw it and said “wow”, I took it to mean that she also thought it was well done. We put many hours and brain cells into creating new works and sometimes we embed latent associations to what was happening in our lives “back then”. And while these sentiments may be predictable in the artist, the curator of an art show would not hesitate to say, “Not that one”.
What about the art quilt that was almost really good but actually isn’t good enough. Any quilter will tell you that not until the last stitch is put in, the sleeve is sewn onto the back, and we step back and see our work hanging in an appropriate setting can we know if we have been successful translating our thoughts and vision into static pieces of fabric. It’s not like oil painting where a do over doesn’t take long. A disappointing quilt result is a let down, sometimes depressing.
potato dextrin resist
A few years ago I was having fun learning about dyeing cotton and using potato dextrin resist. Not only is this kind of resist unpredictable, sometimes it doesn’t even work as planned, not at all. My View at Twilight is an example of many hours of work, including a lot of hand quilting with a finished result that has no fizz, it’s flat.
Do I like these two quilts any more in 2009 than when I came to the conclusion they weren’t good art? No. Then why do I have them in my galleries? Hmm, they haven’t sold?
Time to purge the art quilt collection, make it stronger.
Revisit my websites, check for clutter.
Recycle arts and craft stuff I’ll never use.
Time to get out the pruning shears, maybe the weed wacker.
Check twice, delete once, no undo.
