Virginia A. Spiegel

Revealing

My big goal for this year is to have some work to enter in Quilt National. To that end I have started a new series. And if you know anything about Quilt National, you know I won’t be sharing even a peek until I’m sure I won’t be entering that specific piece.

Having said that, what I’m working on is a series very different from any of my other work. It is based on a 365 Days of Art project I did in 2006. I made a collage every day in a Fabriano book out of “stuff” cut from magazines or my own photos.

I am revisiting those collages for this new series. I am thinking of the new work as riffs on the existing collages as what I have available is only the fabric and paper I have created in the past through painting, dyeing, screenprinting, etc. So, lots of compromises. I’m thinking not just about the structure of the collage, but the subconscious messages my often hurried choices revealed.

But I am trying to keep the “cut-and-paste” subconscious flow of the paper collages in the textile works. So far, I have settled upon a 8×6 size which is somewhat larger than the original. I have been flipping through the book, marking about 20 pages and then making a textile work based on every page I marked.

First I draw the paper collage into my studio notebook, so I see all the shapes in the collage and then I just start cutting fabric freehand and using Mistyfuse to collage it all together. I have surprised myself by adding cotton batting for the last stitching for a more solid feel to the piece.

I don’t like to talk too much about a series in its infancy because some never go beyond the first five pieces. But I’m still interested at this point.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 11:49 am and is filed under Artwork. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.