Lynne Heller, quilt art

[vaneramos]

Danny djjo's knitting habit has started to influence me. I'm attracted to fibre, and there's nothing like hanging around with a true addict to wear down one's resolve. But I have a different old project of my own, and have decided to tackle it first.

Five years ago I taught myself to sew because I wanted to learn to make quilts, specifically watercolour or colorwash quilts. Rather than following traditional patterns, the squares are carefully chosen to merge into an overall image, similar to the way dots of different colours merge in an impressionist painting (examples). I pieced together about one quarter of the top, but had to set the project aside. It has hung unfinished on my living room wall ever since.

Danny probably had this in mind when he invited me to last night's meeting of the Downtown Knitting Collective. The guest speaker was Lynne Heller, a textile artist whose work is based on quiltmaking. Check out her current work. She brought a series of miniatures, not much larger than the palm of a hand, and a slide show of her larger quilts. If you know my obsession with colour and texture, you'll see why I was awestruck by her work.

Quilters are frequently bewildered when they find out I set out to sew one by hand. I asked Lynne whether she works by hand; she does. The craftsmanship shows.

Besides fueling my enthusiasm to complete an old project, this work showed me possibilities for more artistic expression. In her quilts I see painterly qualities to which I aspire in my drawings and photography, but highlighted by the texture of fabric and fibre.

Comments

[susandennis]

I do understand your wanting to piece by hand. I am a process knitter. I love the finished product, don't get me wrong, but it's the process that has my pasion. Watching it grow and develop from my hands. People ask me a lot why I don't get one of those knitting machines so I can make more afgans faster. I rarely know how to respond since I know by the question they don't understand.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

That's it. It's the same reason I like working with Prismacolor pencils. I have to work hard to go beyond a crayon look and build up saturated, lustrous colours, but I find that process satisfying. I'm so impatient with many things, it's nice to find something I enjoy obsessing about.

[(Anonymous)]

Van, this is Anois. I just had to tell you that your paintings are brilliant, fresh, moving. Your love affair with color and motion is palpable.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I haven't worked on them much the past couple years because I wanted to concentrate harder on writing. I want to get back to them. I brought my pencils on this mini vacation in Toronto in hope of doing some drawing. Maybe this weekend. This quilter's work certainly refreshed my enthusiasm about doing visual art.

Much love to you.

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

Livejournal seems to be eating comments; here's a different one: One of my job duties is suggesting books for the non-fiction collection, and one of the areas that desperately needs boosting is/are the crafts section since it seems to be left in the Age of Macrame (no offense intended to all the people who make gorgeous macrame!) Are there any hot quilting books or quilters I should be looking for?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about the craft except what I have taught myself. The book I learned this particular style of quilting from, Watercolor Quilts, is available on Amazon. A community of quilters exists, but I haven't had any contact with it. You might find some information by exploring the various pages on Lynne's site.

What about knitting books? You must know a few.

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't forgotten! just slightly distracted with my father's visit. There are about a bazillion knitting books on the market, but which are /best/ depends on what specific type of knitting one is interested in. (Fair Isle? Aran? complicated? Simple? make up your own as you go along? every instruction written out?) However the first four I'd start with are:

For general knitting tips, hints, and what have you, I rather like "Vogue Knitting: the Ultimate Knitting Book" and "The Knitter's handy book of Patterns: Basic Designs in Multiple Sizes & Gauges" by Ann Budd. For knitting history: "No Idle Hands: The social history of American Knitting" by Anne Macdonald and "A History of Hand Knitting" by Richard Rutt