Inspired by a Painting Challenge

Fiber Visions is the new name of Sue's art quilt group that meets monthly, for the last year via Zoom.  The inability to meet in person has not stopped the group from completing a new challenge. Last December, member Terry issued a challenge to create a quilt inspired by a painting.  The selected painting is called Skiffs by Gustave Caillebotte which is at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. It was painted in 1877 and exhibited at the 4th impressionist exhibition in 1879.

The only guideline was a height of 24 inches.  Other than that, quilts could be any width, landscape or portrait, or irregular in shape.  Photos of the finished quilts were to be submitted by April 20 and the results were revealed to the group in a slide show at the May 5 meeting.  Nine quilters participated, with one person submitting 3 quilts.  Inspiration could be taken from any aspect on the painting - colors, shapes, mood, textures.  Following are the interpretations of the Fiber Visions artists.

Linda Cooper - Serenity

Linda drew inspiration from the skiff shape when designing her flower and the oars provided inspiration for the yellow leaves

Willa Downes - Crew Practice on the Occoquan

Willa's daughter rowed in high school and college and coached a college team for a couple of years. As soon as she saw the painting she knew she had to put her rowing in the quilt. 

Lisa Greisen - Fleeing the Dark

Lisa was initially drawn to the turquoise and orange flecks in the water and wanted to create a watery effect and the movement of the water. But the more she looked at this painting through the gloomy days of winter, she felt that the trees in the background were overshadowing and ominous and that the skiffs were fleeing from that darkness. Hence, the name sprung from that.

Janet Palfey - Movement

Janet was inspired by the stripe-y reflections in the water and the shapes of the paddle blades. She tried to use a similar color pallet of striped, commercial cotton fabrics to show movement, placing the stripes horizontally to indicate calmer sections. She quilted the lower 2/3 at a 20 degree angle - the same as the paddle in the foreground of Caillebotte’s painting.

Terry Peckarsky - Take Me to the River

The colors in Caillebotte's Skiffs inspired Terry to play with the analogous color scheme using Katie Pasquini Masopust's Artful Log Cabin technique for an abstract response to the painting.

Terry Peckarsky - Local Motion

Terry was fascinated by the texture of the water in Caillebotte's Skiffs, so attempted to recreate the artist's brushstrokes in small rectangles of fabric. Her photo of a single rower on the C&O canal seemed to be right at home.

Terry Peckarsky - Let's Row

Upturned canoes at the lake near Terry's home seem poised to get in the water. She altered the photo before printing on fabric and quilted it tightly. She printed the words of a French folk song about "mon petit joli bateau," or "my pretty little boat," as a reference to the French painter's Yerres River. The wavy flanges and the three-dimensional pinwheels suggest the movement of the water and the paddles of the oars on the highly textured water.

Susan Price - Ripples

The cool blue-greens in Skiffs by Gustave Caillebotte were Sue's inspiration for this challenge. If you look at pieces displayed on her design wall, you’ll see that this is a color she uses a lot! For this challenge, she decided to try to make an abstract version of the painting. Her goal was to convey a feeling of tranquility reflecting the gentle ripples in the water.

Bonnie Rhoby - Skiffs Texturized

Stepping out of her usual realistic work Bonnie wanted to capture the texture of the painting and still relay to the viewer the overall essence of the subject. She used various styles of yarn that were either hand stitched or machine stitched. Of course there had to be some needle turn appliqué.

Barbara Sherwood - Lazy River

Barb was inspired by the gently flowing waters in the photo. She used the following materials: Cotton fabric and thread, wool felt batting.

Barbara Wise - Floating

Elements of the piece that inspired Barbara are the colors blue, green, grey, and yellow. Keeping within her signature style but using geometric shapes, she tells an abstract story of falling leaves on water. Background squares are painted, rectangular tree is a monoprint, and square leaves are fabric dyed with turmeric.

Here's a look at all the pieces together.  As with our last challenge, it is a cohesive group, tied together by color, shape and movement.  We did a great job, didn't we?  It's always fun and interesting to see everyone's interpretation and how our individual styles interact with each other. 

 

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