Saturday, February 9, 2008


This is a tile made by Motawi Tileworks from a design by Frank Lloyd Wright. I saw it in a shop downtown, and the image has stayed with me ever since -- in part because I'm drawn to circles anyway, in part because I just finished reading a fictional biography of Frank Lloyd Wright called Loving Frank, and in part because I have been thinking of using intersecting circles in my "community" piece.

The idea of community that comes to mind for me is how a community is made up of individuals who look the same but are different. It's the idea of simultaneous similarity and difference that I want to try to illustrate. Maybe circles, maybe a grid, I'm not sure.

Given that mindset, the design in this tile captures the idea of "community" very nicely for me -- lives intersecting, some on the fringe, some being contained by others, some in a tidy row, others clumped without organization, etc.

I won't do it for this project, but it'd be fun to interpret this very image in fabric. Guess I'll add that to the list of "to do someday" ideas...

9 comments:

Nikki said...

The picture isn't coming through on my computer. Is it just me?

Terry Grant said...

Wah! I want to see that tile, but it isn't showing up on my monitor either.

Tomme said...

Add my "Waah" to Terry's. No picture here, either.

Diane Perin said...

Can you see it now?

Nikki said...

I am so glad you fixed the picture. The tile is beautiful!

I love the idea of intersecting circles. Our lives are so like that.

Kristin L said...

Now I get it! The tile is a wonderful example of community. I don't see why you couldn't use it as inspiration for this piece.

Deborah Boschert said...

You are so right. I love the idea of the circles overlapping and repeating.

Tomme said...

AHH, the tile is fabulouso!!! It would have caught my eye, too!

jpsam said...

This is wonderful -- both the tile and your concept. I am looking forward to what you do.

In 1998 I bought a calendar -- the Frank Lloyd Wright Liberty Magazine Covers -- which I saved in my "inspiration file." Each one of the calendar pages seemed to be inspiration for future quilts. The illustrations were nine of twelve abstractions Wright exhibited in Europe in 1931. The original work, done in 1926-1927 as a commission for Liberty magazine, was rejected because it was deemed too avant garde and "radical."
joan