In process...breaking free

I find that trying to explain what kind of art I do is often complicated, especially to my beloved French friends and colleagues (To be fair, this is probably due to my lack of descriptive vocabulary in French when it comes to the arts, lol). They seek a definition, a box to check off, classifying my work as something recognizable and familiar.

The brow furrows when I admit that no, in fact, I do not draw well and was the source of much frustration to my professors when they saw how I grasped other areas of art perfectly fine, but just didn't seem to twig how to translate 3D to 2D...

Furrowed brow turns to full-on frown of bewilderment, when I try to explain that no, I'm also not a painter, nor a sculptor, nor a couturier, though what I do incorporates all of the above. It's only after explaining (probably in too much detail) about the sewing of layers of hand-dyed fabric, cutting of geometric and organic shapes, machine embroidery, surface embellishment with paint, beadwork, lace, yarn, etc., depending on the piece that their faces tend to light up like Christmas morning and they exclaim with relief "Oh so you do patchwork!!!" And triumphant in finding the box and ticking it, they promptly tune out any of my nay saying to this generalization of what I do... dismissing it with a sniff and “Ahhh, mais bien sur!”

I've always been one to wince and duck out of the way of this label "patchwork". The word brings to mind the costumes of those scary circus clowns in loud, garish colors, or of Halloween costumes friends would wear when going trick-or-treating as a bum. (Side note for my British readers, this last word is not to be taken in its generic reference to certain anatomical nether regions.) It traps fiberart in the realm of “craft” – a hodgepodge collection of bits of cloth sewn together to make a covering) without leaving space for it to be accepted as “fine” art – works which are studied, modeled, reflected upon, and planned; works with a “raison d’être.”

That said, yes indeed, part of what I do, and what many other fiberartists do, can be classified as “patchwork” or “piecework” quilting. My current piece for “The Dream Rocket” project, for example, is absolutely, without a doubt, a piecework quilt square. The inspiration behind the quilt square came from the project itself: a celebration of mankind daring to reach beyond the limits of what was assumed possible – travel to outer space – and from this break with tradition, we've discovered galaxies that we are only beginning to scratch the surface of understanding.

So I decided to start with a very classic quilt square: The Bear’s Paw, which to me looked like mini rockets or fish in the middle. In my piece, those mini rockets / fish break free from the confines of what tradition holds them to and they go off to discover new worlds…

I hope everyone had a special Easter weekend!

Rock(et) your day! (-;

Holly