Fibermania

Stacks Q&A

The first Stack quilt

Dear Melody,

I have been reading your blog and have really enjoyed it. I love your work - the dyed fabrics and great designs make me have chills all over (in a good way!). I have been looking at the things you have posted in your "stacks" series and I was just wondering what you had in mind when you create them. I mean, do you having anything in mind at all?

Sometime you read these blurbs that artists put on their work and they'll say something like " the line symbolizes the ocean and the dot signifies the earth mother and the small square is God" or something equally deep andI think, well, it's pretty but I'm not getting it.

I guess what I am trying to ask is, when you make a stack and it is abstract and not obviously a flower or whatever, are you just putting fabric together until it pleases you or are you thinking deep thoughts? I personally don't ever think deep thoughts and I feel bad about it - sometimes I just make things I like and am happy about that, but thenI think maybe I'm not a "Real" artist because I don't have a vision. What about you? (whatever you're doing, keep it up - it's all yummy)

Dear Not a Real Artist,

What is this vision thing you reference? Never heard of it...

Stack #13 August 15,2006
17"x17" Fused Cotton and Silk. Machine Quilted

This Stack business is all about just stacking up fabrics until they form a nice pile. Then I have a cleaned-off table and can do something really artistic. In the meantime while I am waiting for that art to magically appear, I busy myself with fusing the pile of fabric into a quilt. I call it a Stack so as not to confuse the viewer into thinking that it is designed or anything.

I don't have a plan, other than to lay one piece on top of another. If that is a vision, you couldda fooled me.

Artists who have that grand vision and have to tell you what it is because it is not obvious in the art are full of whooey and need a blog desperately. Don't be taken in by them. If you have to explain the vision, it ain't there in the art.

Stack #12 August 11,2006
Hand dyed cottons, fused, hand and machine quilted. 24.5x25"

Catalog description: Here we have another pile of fabric by Melody Johnson, same as the previous piles, only in different colors. She manages to combine these fabrics in such a way as to make them look random. Genius! And with such deft skill that they actually look two dimensional. If it weren't for the texture of the quilting one would think they were photos of fabric.

(I am yawning already).

This initial series piece is obviously paying homage to the Amish tradition, one in which Ms. Johnson must have deep regard, as she has translated it into her version of the classic Stack. (urp)

Each color chosen with symbolic meaning: the green of the deep forests left behind in the old world, the blood of the slain oxen, the deep blue of the night in which the sect retreats from worldly behaviors. And the tantalizing turquoise which hints at the wild yearnings of the heart.

Stacked Series #1 Completed May 23, 2006
Hand dyed Cottons, fused and machine quilted.
30" at the top by 34" long.

O Please!