pattern and light

RCaro Textile Weave (basket weave) Quilt, 2004, 55" x 55" silk and cotton, machine pieced, hand quilted.

Quilt patterns are the traditional (and contemporary) way that quilts designs have been exchanged and passed from one person to the next. Much has been said about how patterns are tools for knowledge transfer and for biographical and narrative meaning. In addition some patterns have seen a large amount of variation as quiltmakers have found creative license within the bounds of the patterns key characteristics.

The new and improved Quilt Index contains a database of quilt images searchable by pattern. The variations within a single pattern are obvious. The variation or combination of patterns is also evident. The Quilt Index represents a sampling of quilts that have survived and been recorded during one or another state quilt index.

I mention light along with pattern in the title of this entry in order to ask certain questions having to do with collected quilts, traditionally recognizable patterns, uncollected quilts, numbers of quilts, quiltmakers, and how quiltmakers transform light and power in their work.

The concepts that buttress my understanding of quiltmaking are: light and stitch or weave structure, use, size of quilts in relation to the body, and the quiltmakers choice within a system of market driven forces.

Continuing on from the last post regarding light, fabric and power in Polynesia I am relating this notion of power to the use of the quilt and to the vertical presentation of quilts in spaces where light is controlled and quilts are objectified.

Look again at an image of one of my quilts:


There are reasons why I chose to photograph the quilt and present it electronically in this context. None of those choices have anything to do with an acknowledged sense of how light is transformed in the quilt and how that might be represented. The process of image capture and presentation has nothing to do with this level of power conceived of for the quilt.

The image of the quilt "reduces" the quilt to something else- a pattern, a composite wholeness that is created through the image being reduced. I would suggest that this same process takes place on a museum wall, and is further reduced via the space of the museum that holds (controls power and meaning) objects.

Ultimately the "patterns" that are created are hegemonic- reducing choices and obscuring possibilities and opportunities that light and fabric afford the quiltmaker. Lost knowledge is a problem for quilts where the data of maker, time and place and context are "missing." This is in itself a pattern of loss that quilt study aims to modify with variations of data collection that record varying levels of contextual complexity. The preservation of the quilt qualities is in this data. There are of course other quilt databases that aim to preserve the more qualitative context and data for individual quilts and their makers.

The question that this continuum of patterns raises for me is: What "opportunities are afforded" (props to Webb Keane for that question) or not afforded by the products and processes of the contemporary quilt market that is created based on a prioritizing of quilt images where the power of the quilt is controlled and marginalized? The quilt market would have the quiltmaker believe that the opportunities lie within the process of making quilts that extend these patterns. I would ask: Why are there quilts on walls?

the importance of cloth

rcaro quilts showing handquilting

"Pacific Islanders' fervent desire for cloth and clothing was inspired by its material qualities. particularly its 'whiteness' and 'luminosity' which demanded immediate action- cutting, sewing and folding- to harness and control the power contained within its folds."

from Chapter 3 "Contemporary Pattern: Material and Modernity" in Pacific Patterns by Susanne Kuchler and Graeme Were, Thames & Hudson, 2005.

"Many sources testify to the importance attributed to light in Polynesian ritual in particular, which derives from a conception of the world as having a dual composition: an exterior, wild and nocturnal world, which was the source of light and life; and an interior, domestic and diurnal world that depended upon the harnessing of light and life from the invisible and immaterial (such as the world of the gods or ancestors)." pp.85-87

It is perhaps clear in the first quote that "immediate action" suggests that fabric or textiles in their pre-manipulated form are in some ways strangely overpowering in energy and their perceived hegemony. The personal manipulation then of these textiles help to transform them into objects where the maker can "harness and control the power contained within. . ."

Are there correlations between this notion of power and control in textiles and sewn objects in Polynesia and the quilt style that is made in the West? With light as the currency of this power relationship between textiles, quiltmakers and objects- we can perhaps begin to develop an aesthetic that explains how each is related to the other and ultimately to the way the textile and the quiltmaker together influence the creation of the object.

This aspect of light defined as dual power source and reflector can help to define a quiltmaker's understanding of his created object beyond a preconceived audience or market. It is the initial manipulation of the textile that contains the impetus for transformation of the light and power that contained in the fibers. Observation of this self aware quiltmaking process may help to separate out the external influences from the internal, the cultural market force from the personal spiritual.

In my own work I have tended to collect these ideas around the central notion of the stitch. (root form: sutra).

more later...

light and the quilt medium, strip piecing (and Pacific Patterns)

In October I picked up this book at the Colby College Bookstore. Back in March when I was writing the paper on quiltmakers and online groups for the Nebraska IQSC symposium I'd come across the work of Susanne Kuchler and Graeme Were and was intrigued by their approach to looking at textiles from the Pacific.

In early November Linda Leimbach came from Towson University, where she is writing her PhD dissertation, to interview me. Her dissertation, in the area of Occupational Therapy, looks at male quilters and how they work. Her visit gave me the opportunity to think more about how I view quilts. Specifically I spoke about two ways that I understand textiles and quilts. One is the relationship of the body to the quilt, and the second is the way light interacts with textiles and stitched fabric.

Both of these topics are discussed in detail in Kuchler and Were's "Pacific Patterns." Their work in the Pacific islands supports my thinking but takes off from a different starting point. My thinking is originally grounded in a more western approach that even suggests a Jungian perspective and aspects of the human shadow.

Kuchler and Were suggest also that the physicality of textiles (their relation to the hand and the body) are related and also parallel to the spiritual significance of light for the "maker" that is 'reflected' in the material. More on "Pacific Patterns" later.

What comes below is an example of light in my quiltmaking. Starting with an installation view of "Seven Strip Quilts for a Cafe." A site-specific piece, it takes selvages from a divers range of fabrics and places them in a improvisational sequence. Foundation strip piecing is the technique used.



This project led to subsequent products- the quilts from the original installation are now either in separate collections or the have been recycled into new work as can be seen below.



The original project called for seven quilts to be made in a very short period of time. The goal for my work in the studio was to utilize the selvage strips and to meet the deadline. What resulted was an extended exploration into a material, a process and technique and am understanding of light and fabric.

In the detail below I use a segment of selvage with text that labels the fabric and the content. "Superfine Australian Wool" denotes origin, fiber type, and most importantly, quality. What it also does it to serve as a semiotic reference for how the fabric relates to light and to the cultural appreciation of that illuminated effect.




The merging of the effects of light along with the effects of a layered quilt that relates to the body in both size and in protection (and the reflection of heat from the body) is not insignificant.

It is on the other hand seemingly random that I've chose to use this strip piecing technique to make a secondary material that I can then transform in pot holders. (see a related post below where I call the pot holders 'hot mitts').




light emitting pot holder anyone?

novelty fabric mash-up workout

It's perfect as an exercise in piecing. Something to get the muscles working again after some time-off. And necessary before attempting anything more difficult that will require me to be in the zone: deus ex sewing machina!



This is the quilt-top as it is now- still needs a thin frame and a thin pieced 'mash-up' panel to either side of this central panel- it'll be a triptych of sorts. For now it is complete and can be revisited later.

The concept was inspired by a quilt that another Quilt Guy made for my son.
Here is Paul's 'eye (I?) spy' quilt:



Paul's quilt is a sort of "charm" quilt. A one-patch charm quilt. Each block is a single unit and no two are the same. I was amazed by all the different image based prints. It was only after seeing this that I started to identify the collections of 'boy-themed' fabrics available. I bought some at the City Quilter (NYC) over the summer and then when Paul visited here in September I bought more on our outing to the Yardgoods store. (That's a story for another day.)

I've used print fabric in the past on a number of occasions- mixing it into quilts and chupot. But I'd never attempted a purely image based quilt- and even this stretches that definition and uses patterned, non-pictorial, fabrics in the mash-up.

Two things about the exercise that I noted- one was that the images certainly dominate the surface of the fabric- the fabric itself is almost nonexistent - not even a sub-pattern- just a base for the image- and a bias for the cutting- I suppose. But visually- nothing.

I also noticed how long it took me to become comfortable with the balance of cutting, piecing, and sewing with this fabric. In this way it was a great exercise or warm-up. There were certainly some aspects of "fussy cutting" going on - other cuts were more improvisational. The intuitive approach that is activated through an exercise like this is pretty much the finding of the zone that I am looking for. Working with the fabric's limitations and finding the best possible rhythm and flow.

Here is a detail of the top half of the quilt.



The whole quilt top is sort of Anna Williams meets Alexander Henry in that it is primarily strip piecing with novelty pictorial prints. I sort of broke out of the linear strips toward the top when I needed to piece the line of blue cars that descend from the top right corner.

The palette that I worked with in terms of divers numbers of assorted novelty fabrics was, including the different colorways of the same pattern, rather small. Still I found some nice harmonies and especially like the way the fish and helicopter fabric work together in this next detail. They have the same basic ground color and the contrasting yet complimentary patterning of the fish and flying machine colors works for me. I'm contemplating getting more yardage of both and seeing where that ends up.



One interesting thing about these pictorial novelty prints is their ability to mash-up narrative. As I pieced everything together there were definitely some themes that I was reading. That said, the symbolic narrative of the piece is pretty straight forward ; ) It's for the kid so I can't read into too much. Oh well maybe I can. Here goes: it's a road narrative of course- dedications to Kerouac and all. It is the great highway that runs out west, car culture, and trains and planes. It's about the love of muscle cars, vegas, palm springs, la Brea, fossil fuels, mexico, and the ancestors. Or something like that. I just hope the kid thinks I used enough trucks.

Well gotta stay in the zone, on to the next project, deus ex sewing machina!