Annette Bamberger’s Optimism. Photo by Wayne Stratz.
In looking for my Orange Tuesday selection, I came across Stratoz’s photo of a quilt by Annette Bamberger that we saw at the 2009 Pennsylvania Quilt Extravaganza, which truly was an extravaganza of beauty. Quilts spark my creativity with their kinship to mosaic and collage, two of my favorite mediums, and the amazing things that can rise out of fragments, pieces, scraps. Optimism is by the German quilt artist Annette Bamberger, who has a degree in architecture and worked as a designer and drafter, before becoming a quilter. I didn’t used to think of myself as an optimist, but as I’ve healed and grown in my life, I’ve found the seeds of optimism in my life.
NB: As Joules from Lucid Lotus Life noted, the photo by Paul Grecian, Peak Color, would also make an excellent candidate for Orange Tuesdays as well as crazy goodness.
Lime and Violet Log Cabin Mosaic by Margaret Almon of Nutmeg Designs
Deciding to make quilt patterns in glass was one of the most exciting choices I’ve made as a mosaic artist. The Log Cabin block in particular brings out my creativity and allows me to play with color. The challenge of making scrap quilts gives me a good springboard for my own mosaics made of scraps of glass. Stratoz creates a lot of glass bits in his studio, and I love putting them to good use.
Quilters also quite adept at blogging and I’d like to share some of my favorite quilt bloggers. They are a storehouse of creative energy.
There is so much history encoded in different fabrics, and Barbara Brackman provides fascinating detail, and always has photos. I especially enjoyed the Perkiomen Valley Patch, as I live very near the Perkiomen Valley in PA.
Lisa Call says she creates vivid geometric abstract contemporary quilts. I feel a kinship to her experimentation with color and her passion for her art. She has an interesting post about working in a series, and the permutations the theme takes.
John Hopper writes about every imaginable textile from quilts to embroidery to macrame! I’ve learned a lot from his meticulous research and writing. He highlighted a contemporary quilt artist Paula Nadelstern and her cool kaleidescope quilts.
Valerie Kamikubo populates her blog with visual treats, and her observations about art and creativity. The colors in her post of dyeing fabric are very vibrant.
Planet Textile Threads(link currently not working)
At a craft show, a woman came up to me and said “Ohio Star.” At first I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then she said that Ohio Star would be well suited to my mosaics. I finally had the chance to try this pattern out, and it was indeed an enjoyable one!
From my research into the origins of this pattern, Ohio Star became popular in the mid-19th century, and is of the genre of variable stars, which take any number of configurations of squares and triangles. But like many quilt patterns, any more exact history is difficult to find. Marsha McCloskey’s book, Variable Star Quilts and How to Make Them, notes that “Variable Star” is an astronomy term, and means a star that varies greatly in its brightness, depending on its surroundings, and that it is a fitting name for a quilt block that varies in its coloration depending on the colors of the the surrounding blocks.
Check out this cool variable star from Nasa’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, V838 Monocerotis(which means unicorn).
Chinese Coins Quilt Block Mosaic by Margaret Almon, with frame by DAMI.
I have mosaics in a new pattern, Chinese Coins. Coin quilts go by many names, including Roman, Chinese and Stacked coins, and I fell in love with the variation in widths of the strips and the rhythm this creates. Gwen Marston, author of Liberated String Quilts, considers them the “Jackson Pollock” of quilt pattern.
In this pattern, coins are made of strings of fabric, and are a way to use up scraps that are too small for anything else. I was interested to read an article by Kimberly Wulfert describing string quilts as a product of economic depression, a form of utilitarian thrift. The first time I saw a string quilt in a display of Amish quilts, I was fascinated by the dynamism of lights and darks rippling through vertical lines.
Most of these quilts had a hard life because they were used intensely, and they filled a need. Some that have survived are in the quilts of Gee’s Bend. Auburn University’s Women’s Studies department put together a very cool project putting the Gee’s Bend quilts in context of history, geography, and complete with activities for kids and ideas for teachers.
I was looking for a new pattern to do in mosaic, and kept looking at Chinese Coins, and thinking I couldn’t find a way to translate it into glass, but then one day I decided I wanted to find a way. It was fun choosing different types of glass, and like the quilters, I had many strips already cut from other projects, just waiting to be used up.
Ann Hermes makes really cool miniature quilts with antique and vintage fabrics. I have one of her squares for my Christmas tree. A resident of Ambler, transplanted from Illinois, she fell in love with the Pennsylvania quilting tradition. A chemist by day, she makes her pieces at night in what she calls her “quilt laboratory.” She certainly gets beautiful results! Her links page has a useful list of sites about quilt history and fabric. She will be in booth #51 at the North Penn Select Craft Show this Saturday, March 21st, 2009, 9:30-4:30.
Quilts have been a wonderful inspiration for my mosaics, and a show that I just visited was definitely visually satisfying: Bits & Pieces: Quilts from Scraps, February 22, 2009-August 22, 2009 at the Mennonite Heritage Center, 565 Yoder Road, Harleysville, PA.
Mamie Danner and her Quilting Group. (2nd from the right)
I have been honored to cover my bed with quilts made by my husband’s grandmother Mamie Danner, and Wayne’s love of quilts piqued my own interest with this art form. In this photo, Mamie is 2nd from the right. She had a quilting room in the basement of her house, and Wayne remembers visiting her there.
Log Cabin Mosaic Trivet by Margaret Almon
Quilt patterns give me a thrill, and being to translate them into glass is very exciting. My ability to sew blocks is impeded by an antagonistic relationship with my sewing machine(which now belongs to my husband for the quilt he made). At first I collaged Christmas cards in a log cabin pattern, using magazine papers, and was utterly absorbed in the interplay of color, the many tones and textures present in photographic images. Then, when I moved into my studio, and began to make mosaics, I remembered the log cabin cards, and wondered what I could do with mosaic.
Log Cabin in Black and Red by Margaret Almon
I took a 12×12 inch square of 1/2 inch plywood, and began the process of making a red and black log cabin design. Glass has a range of textures, and I alternated shiny, matte, copper flecked, rough, translucent, and iridized. I am drawn to both visual and tactile texture. I know some mosaicists like their work perfectly flat and smooth and go to great lengths to make it so, but that would drive me crazy.
Broken Dishes Quilt Pattern in Mosaic by Margaret Almon
Another block I was intrigued to find is called “Broken Dishes”–an appropriate name for work done in mosaic! It’s a mixture of triangles, in a configuration of lights and darks that adds sparkle as the eye moves over the contrasts. At a holiday show, a woman came up to me and said “Ohio Star.” At first, I wasn’t sure what she meant, and then she said, you must try Ohio Star, and that is next on my list of patterns to try.
