WOW WESTMINSTER

ARTIST STATEMENT FOR THIS SHOW...

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​FLOATING
​18" x 20"
$250 CND


The Biennale sculpture WOW by Jose Resende was the subject of an artists challenge… interpret the massive metal shipping crates in fabric.  While working on the 20” challenge piece, the idea of putting the geometric sculpture into geometric piecing kept floating around!

I drafted a proportional rectangle block and slowly figured out how to assemble them.

It was fun to go back to my early days teaching beginning quilting and making a few geometric quilts.   The balance and precision are mesmerizing/meditative.  The final image, warm colour floating on a cool sky, created the surreal feeling I was looking for.  The delicately balanced sculpture looks like it might take wings.  The flying W’s remind me of the flocks of cormorants, Canada Geese and other birds that seem to use the river as a highway. The circles quilted with orange thread form the words WOW across the surface.

Meander quilting fills the background, popping out the W’s and O’s.

Commercially printed cotton, rayon quilting thread
Machine pieced and quilted.

2017

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Detail...

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AFTER THE RAIN
20" x 22"
$500 CND

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Inspired by a challenge for a group exhibition:  archiTEXTURE: Hard Edges In a Soft Medium, this piece had to follow the guidelines.  We would all base a 20” square quilted textile piece on the monumental Vancouver Biennale sculpture WOW by Jose Resende. All four interpretations would be shown together, illustrating our different styles and perceptions.
After many hours looking at and photographing the delicately balanced shipping containers, I chose a moody, rain-soaked view with reflections on the wet pavement.
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Auditioning fabrics from my collection was fun. The sky fabric is hand-dyed and quilted with curving cloud/wind lines. Trees along the Surrey side of the Fraser River are fused commercial print with reflections hand-painted on the subtly gradated water. Flowing waving quilting patterns are close together in the background and wider in the foreground. The sculpture sits on a large paved lot, depicted perfectly by a commercial print with hand painted reflections.

The WOW sculpture was constructed separately and added with hand applique to the quilted background.  Drawing and even some math skills were required to translate a photograph into a pattern. A variety of striped and solid fabrics were hand-stitched over a fusible synthetic stabilizer in sections.

The completed W was larger than the background, giving me the option to cut it to 20” or have it extend over the left edge of the 20” background. I took the risk!  The challenge was fun and may lead to further fabric interpretations of a public sculpture that continues to fascinate me.

Commercial and hand-dyed cotton, Peltex stabilizer, Setacolor fabric paint, rayon quilting thread. Fused and hand applique, hand painting, machine embroidery and quilting this beautiful piece.

2017