(Opening Picture) The allium flower is the focus of Ginny Gaskill’s submission, “Allium Out My Window.” Ginny loves to try new techniques. She started by painting Stiffy, adding roughly stenciled scrapbook paper, torn and glued. She then printed a photo on fabric, painted it, glued it, added beads, rhinestones and more fabric. She even found a piece of jewelry that looked like allium and added it, along with more paint to tie it all together.
Debbie McNeill’s piece, Uganda Through My Window” is made of paper fabric. Debbie visited Uganda last year with her church group and was inspired by the amazing sights and sounds. The piece combines painting on canvas, quilting, cutting and reassembling. Debbie included Ugandan paper and fabric she collected on her trip.
Donna Dixon faced personal challenges while designing her piece. When she started, both her mother –in-law and father- in-law were in hospice care. Her husband’s brothers and sisters were visiting and family was foremost in her mind. Donna notes, “The thoughts of my family and how they have shaped me, as seen through the window of my mind, seemed the natural subject for the challenge.”
“Sandia Sunset” is the title of Elizabeth Dawson’s challenge piece. It’s loosely based on the view from her kitchen window. In the foreground, we see Elizabeth’s garden, and in the distance, the Sandia Mountains that border Albuquerque on the east. Elizabeth used the challenge to try new techniques and materials. She began with “Stiffy” heavy stabilizer which she painted with acrylics. Using an embellisher machine, Elizabeth added roving for the clouds, grass and mountains. The piece was quilted with variegated threads and couched yarns were added for flower stems. The flowers are made of painted and recycled papers.
Holly Strasburg also shows the view from her kitchen window. In the fall, she looks out on sunflowers and butterfly bushes. Holly started with a piece constructed of paper cloth and acrylic paint. She cut it apart to make the window panes and then sewed it together, adding stamping, Angelina fibers and seed beads.
Irene Strege’s Autumn Leaves” are literally leaves from her garden! Irene began by fusing fabric to Teltex batting. A tree branch was sanded so it would lay flat and the leaves were coated with Mod Podge. Both were glued to the fabric with more Mod Podge. The piece was hand quilted with variegated thread.
From her window, Jan Lehmann-Shaw has a wonderful view of the horseshoe curve of the Sandia Mountains. While many, including Jan, can enjoy the view while hiking, Jan feels fortunate to be able to enjoy the beauty full time. Jan indicates, somewhat mysteriously, that her piece is also a sampler for a technique she will be using in a new, larger project.
Lana Muraskin’s quilt, Fragments of the View, reflects my concern about the eroding view from my window. As homes fill up the landscape below me, my views of the mountains and mesas of the Rio Grande Valley, are slowly ending. Worse even than the days, homes and businesses mean that evenings are increasingly bright, obscuring the stars in what has been one of the last great areas with dark skies. My piece is fused, cut, reassembled, embellished with paint, couched, and heavily machine quilted.
Linda Eichorst is drawn to the photographs produced by the Hubble telescope. Her piece, 30 Doradus Nebula, celebrates the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. Linda says the Hubble photos are both exciting and sad, exciting because they show endless creation and yet sad because they remind us that because of light pollution most of us can no longer see the stars. Linda used her own hand-dyed fabrics, painting some of the fabrics with acrylic paint and textile medium. Like the NASA standard, the blue stars are the hottest and largest, green is the glow of oxygen, and red reflects fluorescing hydrogen. Through the quilting, Linda shows the brilliant stars unleashing hurricane-force winds and a torrent of ultraviolet light that carve deep cavities in the surrounding material.