Art Quilts at Play, Davila and Waterston

All the books at Joanne's were 30% off yesterday which made this too expensive, i.e., 29.95, book only $20 which I'm willing to pay for something full of ideas, how-tos, and inspiration. A whole part of me wants to do a lot of art quilts, another part of me is totally fascinated by more traditional quilts. I often compromise with my own take on traditional. The whole art quilt movement has totally fascinated me from the its inception because I have been reading and following quilting in the US since the 1970s.

I deeply admire a whole bunch of talented and innovative women whose names are almost legendary by now. I am a little appalled by the proliferation of "stuff" for art quilters. A little appalled because things like paint sticks look like great, great fun, so are all the dyes and paints and new methods of altering cloth. But they are expensive and are touted in magazines in a very hucksterish manner. And yet I think anyone with a creative urge ought to have available interesting and inspiring tools.

The extreme embellishment that is so popular right now seems to me a symptom of the consumerism that has left the American economy in a terrible mess. I feel there is a psychic connection in the over-the-top-ness of consumerism whether it's bankers with obscene bonuses or middle class families building McMansions they can't afford, or the quilter who believes encrusting a quilt with all kinds of embellishment is a personal expression.

This book offers a lot of examples that are relatively simple, things that give me a feeling for how to use techniques I have not used to produce a small quilt that says something, perhaps one that could be a visual expression of a poem I would add to it. My ideas are tumbling about. We'll see what might come up.