Gray art

When I learned that Sisters in Cloth had another challenge, Shades of Gray, I thought long and hard about my entry. After coming up with about four ideas, I settled on doing a realistic interpretation of a photo I had taken near the Shaker museum in New Hampshire. My husband and I took a lovely vacation there at few years ago; I came away with a number of beautiful photos.

There has been some discussion about the combining of photography and fiber to create an art quilt. I understand that some think it is not really an art quilt. I beg to differ. For a number of years I worked as a professional photographer. Since I started quilting, I have reinterpreted many of my photos in fiber. I believe that if it was my art before, it is still my art. If it has three layers stitched together, it's a quilt. Hence: art + quilt = art quilt.

I sometimes use computer software to alter my photos, and other times I make them as realistic as possible. Here is the quilt I made from the above photo.

This is a fused quilt. I was fortunate to have found commercial fabric that looked very much like the rocks, although I added pieces of different shades along with the stitching. The yellow and brown dried grass effect was created using yards and yards of heavy quilting threads pulled off the spools, cut, laid down, and covered with a light tan tulle. Then the green grass leaves were fused and stitched in place. For the flowers to look as if they have petals, I used simple hand-embroidery, including French knots.

I'm pretty happy with the result. It's art to me. However, I'm not too good at holding my little digital camera steady on the quilt just right. One of these days, a good digital SLR...