Re-Evaluating

You've probably heard it said in sports,
"His head wasn't in the game". That was no doubt the case when I made these two quilts, and the others in between these. I was tired, road weary and had lost focus. I kept looking at the work of others and trying to glean what it was that they had done and try and get some of that mojo into my work. This was a deadly quest.
I was able to do the work but the results let me down, they didn't feel right. So I put the quilts away, and eventually got my head back into my own game.

But yesterday I was looking through my quilt closet for something new to hang in the studio, since I have been looking at the same two quilts for over a year, and found these two from 2005.
The first, Cruciform Series 1: Red  59" x 59", is made from silk and cotton scraps and uses some of my lightest neutrals. In a way it was sort of a breakthrough, as it featured larger piecing, combined with sections of stripped pieces. The quilting is nice, but difficult to photograph, especially the red and really light sections.




Seven years later, all the cognitive dissonance in my head from those days has dissapated and I am able to look at this piece with fresh eyes.
I see it has quite a strong composition and is well constructed, using quality materials and neat as a pin quilting. I am saying all these things as though it were someone else's quilt. And I guess it still feels that way. So I've hung it in my studio and will see if I can fall in love with  warm up to it now.




I can't remember the name of this quilt. It was never shown in an exhibit, and doesn't even have a rod pocket on the back. It is about 66x44" and is fused and machine quilted.
I remember it was really difficult to get all those shapes to line up and fit together. It took longer than my break between teaching trips and by the time I returned to work on it, my enthusiasm waned. Still I continued to jigger in the bits until it all fit, quilted it and then put it away. I may have shown it once at my art quilt group, but apparently got little encouragement. Now that I see it on my wall, the colors are so deep and murky, even the brights have a touch of black mixed in. It seems the perfect quilt for the fall season. I can recall making sketches for this design based on the stone walls at Machu Picchu, the way they fit together perfectly without mortar.






So now I look at this piece, and can forget whatever it was that disappointed me at the time and I really like it. I guess I'll put a rod pocket on the back and hang it up.

 Big Red...looks good here.