Monday, January 14, 2008

janfjorton

My horrible cold is nearly gone! WooHoo! Thanks to all of you who emailed me and left comments wishing me well. I found a Neti Pot this morning at Whole Foods, and will begin using it tonite. I think that I owe my speedy recovery to Mucinex-D. Last night was the first night in about a week that I slept almost all the way through the night, only waking a couple of times coughing.

New Love:

Most summers we spend a gloriously peaceful week or two vacationing on the shores of pristine Squam Lake in New Hampshire. When we returned last summer, after a one year hiatus, I truly appreciated the tranquility of the area and the ever-present clean, clear water. It is a joy to lay leisurely on your tummy on a swim dock and peer down at the lake's bottom, with water so clear that you can see the details of every little pebble on the lake floor. So, I decided to honor that privilege in the form of a quilt. Little did I know then, that by the time I got around to making said quilt, we in the Southland would be in the midst of an historic drought! That factor changed my focus, but only slightly. I decided that water purity was no longer quite as important as water PERIOD!

Here is the background for "Preserve and Protect":

I had done some exercises out of Jane Dunnewold's "Complex Cloth" last summer and screenprinted this piece:
The work reminded me so much of our time on Squam that I knew even then that they would be the focus fabrics for "Preserve and Protect".


This afternoon I started playing around with what I had. Here is my first run:

The two blocks at the bottom are inkjet transfers of the photos I took of the pebbles on Squam's floor. My intent here was to go back in and machine quilt mirror images of those fabric blocks directly below each one.

I wasn't sure about that whole idea, so then I rearranged like this:


Naaaaaaaaaaaaah, how about this:

Nope, that doesn't really float my boat, so how about this:


What I'm saying here is not only are we almost out of water, but we are cutting down our trees too. Both are precious and we need to Preserve and Protect. So, that is how Preserve and Protect is looking right now. I'd love to hear your comments...Please???

PEACE

8 comments:

Kristin L said...

Have you considered contrast between what we have and what we WON'T have if we don't preserve and protect? Your tree fabric is gorgeous and somewhat watery in itself -- perhaps you need less of the blue in the background and more of a barren area to make your point?

PS: I've never heard of, or seen a neti pot before but I can say that the nasal douche is a lot better than it sounds. :-)

Eva Hagbjärn said...

I agree with Kristin. Less blue, so I got catch on the last picture. Not only because there seems to be less blue, but also because of the sparsely area between the trees at the bottom of the quilt.
That reminds you of how much trees we are cutting down all over the world just to please our egos with things we really don’t need.
Preserve and Protect is a very good chose of name for the quilt.

Kram Eva

Carol said...

Judy, What you are working with is beautiful. I know nothing about quilting - is that what it will be? I love the trees and the pebbles but here in Australia the water, if it existed, would be brown, not that gorgeous blue. Pleased to hear you are feeling better and please keep showing us Preserve and Protect as it comes along.

Joyce said...

The idea is perfect and the blue looks exactly like water. If the trees on the bottom are reflections you could cover them with netting to give a shadowy effect. I almost hate to see so much blue covered because it's perfect water. Maybe I'm just being contrary here. Lol.

Anonymous said...

I like the rocks on the lake bottom for one quilt, and the tree effect for another. Would that be possible? For me they don't mix and match so well, but they're nice separately.
xxoo
Carol

Gerrie said...

How about changing the orientation to landscape (since that is what you are really doing). I think the elements would work better. Then, you might split the background and have some blue and some more barren looking (lack of water) color.

The trees that you screenprinted are wonderful.

Anonymous said...

Your screen prints and transfers are terrific, and I like the blue for the water. The idea that sprang to my mind is a series of quilts. The first one would be the largest and they would get progressively smaller - like our resources.

TB said...

Very nice Judy. BTW, I must have that same blasted cold. Fierce and swift, it slammed me down. When the drug store said it was out of Sudafed, I thought I'd die, but I tried the MucinexD as you did, and it is bringing me through. I'm not quite through yet, but I'm starting to feel normal coming.