June Artist's Inspiration Challenge: The Ndebele women of South Africa.

The NTAQ challenge for June was "Artist's Choice."  We were each asked to pick a work and to make a quilt inspired by it.

I loved the freedom of this challenge!  And it gave me an excuse to leaf through my art books.  Brian and I have collected hundreds of art books (literally), ranging from our college Art History textbooks to the book on the Women of the Bauhaus movement that I bought on Monday.  We can't seem to resist books on art and artists.

For my inspiration, I chose a wall mural by a woman of the Ndebele tribe in South Africa.  I loved the graceful thin black lines and the strong white lines in this mural, although I wasn't so fond of the palette.  I decided to substitute shades of aqua and teal (which I seem obsessed by recently) for the brown.

I've had this book on the Ndebele for many years.  Their graphics are amazing!  They have been painting murals on their mud walled houses since the mid-18th century.

My final piece, unnamed so far:

Unnamed, 30" wide x 22" high

The group chose an amazingly diverse group of pieces for inspiration.  Jaye chose a painting of the Interior of the Buurkerk in Utrecht,  by Pieter Jansz Saenredam, 1645.

Her piece:

Rhonda chose "Wheatfield with Crows," 1890, by Vincent Van Gogh:

This was her piece, not quite finished:

Bethany chose Plexus 34 by Gabriel Dawe, 2016.  Eighty miles of multi colored thread, currently hanging at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth:

Her interpretation:

 Michelle chose a weaving by Anni Albers, 1967:

Her interpretation:

 Kay chose Dornith Doherty, who works with cyanotypes.  Doherty had an exhibition at the Amon Carter last winter:

Her piece, made using cyanotype fabric paint and leaves from her neighborhood:

And here are all of our pieces together.  A very diverse group:

One of the highlights of my month is to see how my NTAQ pals interpret our monthly challenge.  They never disappoint me!

I'm linking this post with Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday, Confessions of a Fiber Addict and Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday.  Go see all the wonderful work there!