the quilt’s progress
I wrote earlier about Linda offering to make a wedding gift of a quilt for John and me. I got word last week that all the squares were completed, and Sunday I stopped by to consult on their arrangement.
Our quilt nearing completion
Here’s how the quilt looked in its near-final version as it was all laid out on her living room floor. Come on everyone, tell Linda how gorgeous her quilt looks!
Linda likes to live with these arrangement decisions before stitching things together, and we had fun moving a few blocks around, fine-tuning the arrangement. On the table in front of the quilt you can see the rough mockup I did of the quilt after scanning the fabrics and playing a morning with Photoshop. It ended up being a great way to pre-imagine how things would look. The blocks are in different places, but the overall quilt looks a lot like the early sketch.
The design is based on a quilt by Liz Axford that was exhibited in the Quilt Visions quilt show in 2002. Entitled “Bamboo Boogie-Woogie,” that quilt was an abstracted take on bamboo stems.
Bamboo at the Neurosciences Institute
Closeup of Bamboo at the Neurosciences Institute
The bamboo connection goes even further. The architects of the Neurosciences Institute designed an exhibition at the National Building Museum devoted to concrete as a building material. Part of the space included these forests of steel reinforcing rods, rebar, that are used to strengthen concrete. At least to my eyes the installation bears more than a passing resemblance to the bamboo planting at the Neurosciences Institute. Or am I just delusional? (This photo by Frank Oudeman [ source ] )
Another of Linda’s Quilts
But back to quilts…
Linda’s house, like the home of many quilters, is a one-person quilt show, with lots of great examples of her work. I’m a pretty visual person and I can always look at more cool things. It so happened that the Quilt Visions quilt biennial was happening up the coast at the Oceanside Museum of Art. That was an obvious extension to the afternoon if I ever heard of one.
Some museum exhibitions allow photography in the galleries, others don’t. Unfortunately this was one of those no photography ones. You’ll have to take my word that the show had a few drop-dead spectacular art quilts, as well as several that spoke quietly and revealed their secrets slowly as you looked ever closer at them.
It’s the sort of show that will either inspire you to take up quilting or to intimidate you into giving up all hope of ever making anything beautiful out of fabric and thread. Even though I have a Y chromosome and quilting isn’t typically a guy thing, I think I ended up being inspired. Now, someone please give me a few months of free time so that I can start up yet another obsession…
The pont in front of Oceanside Public Library
Part of the complex is the Oceanside Public Library, and here’s the pond in front of it. Sorry, no more bamboo, but what a terrific way to plant palm trees, each on its own little geometric island…
November 20 2008 02:49 am | Categories: art • gardening • landscape design | Tags: bamboo • Billie Tsien • Burton Associates • concrete • National Building Museum • Quilt Visions • quilts • Tod Williams
Rick Rosenshein on 21 Nov 2008 at 3:58 pm #
Great blog, beautiful photos and articles. Very informative. Thank you for sharing and keep up the great work. Rick