Steal A Technique - Off the Wall Friday

Another week, more piecing the curve, which by the way is coming nicely!  But it does give a girl time to think.  This week, my mind landed on a book that I recently have been re-reading - Masters: Art Quilts Volume 2 Curated by Martha Sielman.  Have you ever noticed that with a lot of your art books, every time you read them, you get something new out of them?  Well, that's exactly what happened to me this time.  While I was reading, I found a new thing I could steal. . .A technique.

Most times, when I've picked up this book in the past, I'm overwhelmed by all the pretty pictures and tend to skim the verbiage.  But this time, I noticed how Sielman highlighted a lot of the techniques, these master quilters used.  Who knew there were so many ways to construct an art quilt?!?

Until the Day, Emily Richardson

For instance, Emily Richardson, takes silk organza and paints it with acrylic paints.  Then she takes the newly painted silk and cuts it up into hunks arranging them into a pleasing composition.  The piece is all sewn together by hand using a nice blanket stitch of  matching embrodiery thread.  It struck me that she comes up with thoroughly modern method of construction, only to finish it off with a very traditional sewing method.

Dirkje van der Horst-Beetsma from the Netherlands puts a piece of cotton base in a big embroidery hoop.  She then takes pieces of colored fabric and sews it on the base without using any pins or fusing.  She just builds the piece as she goes.  This kind of technique opens up a lot of possibilities for improvisational composition.

Autumn Sky, Reiko Naganuma

Japanese Reiko Naganuma pieces her blocks in a traditional manner then slashes through them in straight lines moving the block apart.  This then shows the underlaying foundation material.  The slashes are unexpected and lend a nice movement to her work.


I could go on.  As you can see,  most of these masters have developed their own forms of techniques most of which you won't find in your  basic "How to Make A Quilt" book.  Nontraditional?  Yes  Ineffectual?  Absolutely Not.

Which brings me back to where I began.  Why  not steal borrow a technique?  Or at least let a stolen technique lead you to your own explorations.  Now I'm not saying that we need to fill our toolbox up with every Tom, Dick and Technique.  I'm just saying that you never know where a new tool might lead.

So with that in mind, I'm going to be ordering me some silk samples from Thai Silk  - along with some organza.  I mean if you're going to steal, you might as well start with Silk!

So what have you been up to creatively?