Small works, fibreart cards, fabric postcards? I never know what to call these. Someone on the Artful Quilters ring has started a discussion about whether these are worth doing or not. I don't feel strongly one way or another as they were fun to do and I found the exercise of coming up with a design within the 6 x 4 inch format was very interesting. The designs got simplified as I went along (the latest are at the top) and the speed with which I could do them encouraged me as I am normally very slow to produce any finished work. Better to do these than nothing at all I think!
I read a lot of blogs and I'm on a few quilt chat groups including the QuiltArt list. As I'm reading about one controversial topic after another, I'm coming to the opinion that all this to-ing and fro-ing is not actually solving much! The debate about what makes an artist is one that has interested me for as long as I can remember. I joined in some of the debates but after the last one I've come to the conclusion that it really doesn't matter. Everyone is different and there are too few words and even fewer labels that fit us so why bother arguing? (Well, that's how I feel this week anyway!) Does size matter when we make these cards? Don't ask me, I don't know! I just know they were fun!
8 comments:
Have you thought of making a quilt using your drawing exercises, and photographs of water dispensers, crashed cars, chairs, etc? It could be a wondrous whole which astonishes when examined in detail! And a good souvenir of your stay. You could make it in postcard-sized pieces, building it up slowly.
Whether something is art or not should probably only come into question when it is measuring itself against others in an art category. In other words as makers we should learn to assess the category within which we want our work to be judged as good, and then look hard at our work.
In the meantime we should all at the very least have fun doing it all!
I liked them.
I love your postcards and they look so nice together as you have arranged them.
After getting riled up by the small works post yesterday I finally said to myself, "well, who really cares, anyway?" We do what we do--if it's art fine, if not it feels like art and for me that's the thing.
These certainly ARE art! They are beautiful art, too.
I love the fabric postcards. Do you stitch directly onto cardstock or something? Or are they just "mini-quilts," if you will? I particularly like the ones with the leaf patterns (I'm a sucker for natural items like leaves). The multi-colored squares with the leaf embroidery and the tan/brown/green with the leaf are my two favorites.
Danielle
(I have a blogger address just for comments, but never go there :-) )
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/mahlu002/oneday.html
Hi Danielle, I stitch onto the top fabric and batting sometimes with a tearaway stabliser. Then I fuse that onto another harder stabiliser and satin stitch the edge (one of the cards, top left, was edged with a bias tape, fused at the back). It's probably very unorthodox but things like Timtex are not available here. Thanks for your comments!
You've got some beautiful work here. I love both the drawings and the fiber cards. I agree, enjoying the process is a big part of what makes it worthwhile.
Thanks for the visit to my site too!
I love these little postcards. Small is definitely a good thing, especially because they take up less time so you can do more.
I went to few exhibitions of the fabric arts group in Kuwait and was very impressed by the high standard of quilts I saw.
I like to do fabric art but I didn't have a machine in Kuwait, so I concentrated on knitting, free-form crochet and cross stitch etc. Anyway I worked every day so couldn't join a group.
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