Art Quilt: Midnight Zephyr: Small Craft Advisory

Working again with the theme of "wind," as I did for Wind Song, I wanted to incorporate movement into another piece. This time, not by sound, but by visual movement, like streamers in the wind, like walking in a twirly skirt, kites and sails, like flying birds. Coupled with imagination, problem-solving is part of an artist's job, and can be both frustrating when it doesn't work and a joy when it does. Either way, it is a learning experience.

This piece, like many others, took its own path and it taught me. From solar printing (and a color that originally looked too much like nylon stockings) to over-dyeing, crumple dyeing, silk dyeing, layering, working out a stitching pattern for quilting, and adding a slight silver spatter sparkle (say that three times, fast), this art quilt was born. The streamers hang down in a wing shape, a red-orange pennant at the lower left. An experiment, certainly. 

A search for a nautical flag for wind turned up the red pennant for "small craft advisory"  instead. The stitching pattern I created from a wind weather symbol. I had the name before the quilt, Zephyr, but the over-dyeing in raven black transformed the title to Midnight Zephyr, with the addition of Small Craft Advisory.


Midnight Zephyr: Small Craft Advisory
32.5"w x 36.5"h (82.5 cm x 93 cm)
Hand-dyed cotton, silk, silk organza; reverse appliqué; cotton thread; machine and hand quilting

Detail:

When one walks by it, it stirs to life. That was all I asked of it.

Addendum 11.17.22: This art quilt was accepted into SAQA exhibition, Primal Forces: Wind. See the list here. It will make its debut at the National Quilt Museum, Kentucky, in September/October, 2023.

Comments

Velma Bolyard said…
wow, this ppiece is amazing.
deb did it said…
this is so very wonderful and inspiring...I am an eco dyer, living in West Texas where we have been suffering a long draught and dust storms, with very high winds...I just might give this a go...thank you for such a wonderful site
Liz A said…
thanks for the narrative about how this cloth developed ... and for the idea of incorporating some of these elements into peace flags, which I've been hanging on a funky prayer wheel of late
Alisa said…
Thanks everyone for reading and for your comments! Good luck with windy projects.
Blown away by The Zepher! Perhaps my favorite quilt to date!
Rrosi S.