Kerri chose a very interesting painting as our May Inspiration Challenge piece. "Milton Seated", 1963, by Sally Michel Avery. Sally Avery was the wife of Milton Avery, an American painter celebrated for his portraits, still lives, and landscapes. Sally painted in a similar style and was known for her lyrical depictions of everyday life, painted in swathes of rich colors alternating with pale colors. "Milton Seated" is a perfect example of her work.
I was unfamiliar with her work, but I have to say that I love this painting! And I need to explore the work of Sally Michel Avery. The palette, the figures.....Fabulous!
Since NTAQ had been working on a series of classes on using collages to design art quilts, I decided to start with a collage. I kept the beautiful palette and decided to use rectangles of the colors to create a sense of the painting. A very minimalist approach. Here is my collage:
My first attempt at recreating the collage in fabric fell flat. It was just plain wrong. Boring. Meh. In fact, I disliked it so much I wadded it up and hid it under my cutting table. The place where bad quilts go to die......
So, this week, I tried it again. I pulled a Kaufman Kona solid eggplant fabric for the background. I do like the way the colors pop of the dark, rich, flat red-violet eggplant fabric:
So far so good. I finished the piecing and decided it was better. Still not wonderful, but better. And I'm betting I will like it a bit better when I quilt it, which should happen today.
It is currently 27"w x 37"h. And here it is on the design wall next to my collage:
All in all, it was a good lesson. Minimalism can be very hard to pull off. It can easily be boring. You have to have some way to grab the viewer's attention. A good, bright palette against a dark, flat background helps. Good shapes dynamically arranged help. I'm not there yet, but I'll keep working on it.....
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