Seasonal Palette, Update 2

I’ve been working joyously on my entry for the SAQA juried invitational exhibit, Seasonal Palette, that will debut at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, TX this autumn.  My season of choice when applying was summer, and happily I received it as my assignment.  Since so much of my work is botanically based, and I love making images of fresh plant specimens, I knew I would have plenty of material to work with, both conceptually and literally.

The Organic Garden

Of the works in my resume I submitted to the jurors, they particularly liked The Organic Garden, and requested that my new work for the exhibit be in a similar vein.  It’s a good choice, and one I can willingly riff on.  I’m not looking to duplicate it, but to capture the same kind of botanical exuberance and abundance, while using the saturated colors of high-to-late summer. 

The timing of the acceptance was such that I had a limited window of opportunity to make summery prints, so even before I was sure of the ultimate direction and composition of the work, I ordered some treated cyanotype fabric and got busy.  Depending on the type of plant, and the size of the print desired, I pinned the specimens to a board, or flattened them under glass.

Making cyanotypes is a fascinating blend of science and art--because I am dependent on the angle of the sun and the meteorological conditions on any given day, as well as the freshness of the treated fabric and other variables, the exposure time for a print is reckoned both by counting the minutes and by guesswork based on experience.  The cyanotype gods were with me on this occasion, and I got some wonderfully crisp and vivid prints to work with.

Part of the criteria for this exhibit is the documentation of the creative process.  I don’t like sketching and formal preplanning of my work, but I do love documentation.  I always take pictures of the work as I go, save fabric samples, and often do work-in-progress blog posts, so this is right up my alley.  I will be continuing to share parts of the process here, so stay tuned, and as always, thanks for reading!