Thursday, August 30, 2012

First you create art quilts, then you learn to sew

Wonderful Heike teaches sewing in the same culture center where I showed my paintings,  she saw them and my quilts, and we got connected and started a conversation. I complained about my self-taught, rather poor ability of hand-quilting, and she said something nice about the art qualities of my quilts. So I enrolled for her sewing course to base my work on improved craft knowlege. She asked me whether this style of working might influence the spontaneous and creative side of it, but I don't think I have to worry, I rather see lacking experience as an obstacle to creative work. So I'm happy to learn from Heike. I chose a few fabrics from my favourite stash and decided to do a diagonal nine-patch with triangle corners in the quilt-as-you-go method. This is the start of a quilt I call Ba-Gua, referring to the 8 basic signs of the I-Ging Chinese oracle book. This one is "Water", connected to danger, black color, fish, kidneys, fear and pride.

6 comments:

Martha Marshall said...

Oh, so wonderful!!

jude said...

a nine patch

deanna7trees said...

i see a lack of experience sometimes producing more creative work. look at what children create...they haven't learned all the rules and regulations of what is considered 'right' and 'wrong'. how wonderful that you two connected.

Judy said...

I think it is serendipitous that you two met, and I'm glad that you taught yourself your version of art quilting first....now you can learn what you feel is important to add to your repertoire.

xo

Yael said...

And your Niner still looks very much contemporary and completely EVA!

Ich bin mir sicher Du wirst nicht Deine herrliche "Unbekuemmerheit" verlieren, mit der Du so grossartige Dinge schafftst. es sollen ja nur Deine Haende lernen - Spirit bleibt unberuehrt! :-)

Eva said...

Thank you all! I don't think that I will lose anything from my creativity -- on the contrary, sometimes knowing good trick removes some obstacles and allows to work faster.