Well, after all of the talk about fingerprints, you'll not be surprised to see this. For the idea of "identity," I fiddled with a lot of different ideas -- identity documents, the aspects of our lives that help define who we are ... but I kept returning to the fingerprint. I liked the simple graphic aspect of doing it large, and I knew I'd have fun doing a reverse applique technique with it.
So, that's what I did. I layered a piece of multicolored, hand-dyed fabic over a piece of white cotton (I figured my hand-dyed fabric incorporated another aspect of my own identity), then I layered those over the batting and backing. I placed a drawing of a fingerprint on top, and sewed through all layers.
I love the cut-away part of reverse applique -- it's fussy work, but it's a good tv-listening chore, AND I love how the picture emerges. I finished this with a pillowcase finish.
I've called it Latent Color. We're all familiar with the phrase "latent fingerprints" (which describes how fingerprints are left behind invisibly everywhere) and I decided that love of color is a big piece of my identity.
Brenda, I was dismayed but loved to find those Barbara Watler quilts. Dismayed because her set of "painters prints" used this very same idea, with a multicolored print, even -- but I really enjoyed her quilts and hadn't seen them before. So thanks for posting them! I was glad I'd finished mine by then, or that would have thrown me into a "what do I do now?" tizzy!
Holy Cow! Were we channeling each other's thoughts? I was also glad I had finished my piece before I saw the other fingerprint quilts and before I knew others in this group had used fingerprints. But, looking at your piece, I still think fingerprints are fascinating and beautiful in their swirling, graphic qualities.
ReplyDeleteWow, totally gorgeous! The colors in your fingerprint are so beautiful. Imagine if our latent fingerprints were this colorful and obvious, there'd be a riot of color everywhere we looked.
ReplyDeleteI'd seen Barbara Watler's quilts before and loved their graphic-ness. I'm glad you made one though because even if the idea isn't new, it is beautiful and expresses the theme so well. Your use of the hand dyed fabric is very appropriate. As I am currently washing sidewalk chalk handprints out of my sofa slipcover I am a little glad that, for the most part, we don't actually leave latent color everywhere we touch. Of course, colorful fingerprints could be seen as a type of aura to be communicated...
ReplyDeleteVery cool Diane, and I'm glad you weren't influenced by what others have done. This is yuor own fingerprint on the world.
ReplyDeleteI had all the same feelings, Diane, but isn't it cool that the three of us did the same thing with such different results. I love all of them. I love that fabric that you used for yours. I spent a lot of may, fussy cutting my finger prints!!
ReplyDeleteAfter a day of dyeing, my fingerprints do look like yours.
Beautiful! The colours are gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteI love the look of reverse applique so much (but I hate to do it myself).
Oh, I do admire your enjoyment of the reverse applique cutting - I would go insane doing that and probably cut away the wrong part as well!!
ReplyDeleteThis is superb. There is such movement, I just want to keep looking at it.