Last week I posted about how my thinking of how memory underlies all my own art. In my earliest fibre art which I referred to what I was doing then as ‘creative embroidery‘, and exhibited in my first solo show “Sunburnt Textures”. In thee works I was absorbed with textures of the earth’s surface and representing these in stitch. Then came man-made markings and patterns Ancient Expressions, different environments Colour Memories and the processes of natural forces on all surfaces Timetracks. In my previous post I wrote of the influences that led to my group of Ebb&Flow quilts
In our long married life together, Mike and I have frequently moved from one place to another following the opportunities and demands associated with his profession of exploration geology. I became engaged creating original art quilts shortly after moving to the USA in 1988 for a couple of years, at the same time becoming very aware of the different colours of everything in our new environment – cars, fabrics, house and interior decorator colours, furniture, and particularly the vegetation! As we arrived in the Fall, even the forests (a mix of evergreen and the deciduous Aspens in CO) were showing their autumn leaves, which was new for us; most natural Australian vegetation is non-deciduous and does not change colour with the seasons. I realised that I associate particular places we’ve lived with different groups of colours, and as my work developed I found myself using colours that fellow (American) art quilters were not using; and people began commenting on my different colour sense which I attribute to ingrained memory heightened by being in a foreign environment. From 1990 – 2004 my work includes my Colour Memory Quilts, which developed at the same time as my intrigue with the role of line in my designs; and I named them after places and my experiences in those places that their colours evoked in my memory. Here are some examples:
