Monday, March 31, 2008

Free spirit Cutter

As I have mentioned, I'm working on making a bee blanket/quilt. I've decided to embrace myself. My mother calls me a free spirit cutter. Which basically means I couldn't cut a straight line if my life depended on it. I rely very heavily on my paper cutter. This creates a challenge if you want to quilt. Some may think I'm doomed as a quilter, but I decided to listen to my mother. She told me, once you get to the really fancy quilt none of them have straight lines, its about art not straight lines. She told me of this quilter, who extremely famous, and how she had a book of some of her art that I needed to see. At a past visit at my mother's house, she showed me a book about Rosie Lee Tompkins.
Here is some of her work.
After seeing her book I thought oh yeah I could do that (By the way, I don't think I could really do a quilt like that...), because it was the first time I have ever seen quilts that don't look like old stuffy lady things. I closed the book, flew back home. I really haven't thought of her since, except when I started the bee quilt and decided not to care if I cut it straight. So sure Kim said she approved but when she sees the finished product she might not.
Sure I could do the free spirit cutting, but the question is how does she get such emotion in her pieces. I mean she is much more of an artist than a quilter. Something I read about her compared her to Mark Rothko, an abstract painter, an artist who's work I also love. I'm sure Rosie Lee Tompkins work is the same way. So the question is how to I get from my point as a free spirit cutter to an artist. I'll probably never know, or develop/ try to develop that talent. My mother also tells fond stories of my young life as a cutter. Apparently I loved to cut and paste it was by far my favorite medium.

4 comments:

  1. I like the old stuffy lady quilts, but I don't have any desire to make one myself. If I'm going to spend the time to make a quilt I want to be able to make it up myself instead of following a pattern. When I said this to the old stuffy ladies in my wards quilting group, (who actually have a lot of talent and make very pretty quilts,) they looked at me like I was horrid.

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  2. I have nothing against stuffy old lady quilts, I just will never be able to do them. But I wish i could make them. Well some I think are down right ugly, like the one I linked to, but others I think are really cool, but I still could never make one.

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  3. I just can't quilt period. I don't even have stuffy ladies to teach me to quilt and I have never followed the directions to make one. So I think no matter how stuffy it is quilts are cool and the people that make them are even cooler.

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  4. I love free spirit quilts. When I quilt that is what I like to do best. Sure, there really is only one quilt out there that I have finished, but that quilt is a free spirit quilt and my friend Erin has it. I wish I had a picture.

    Go with your gut. Have fun.

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