“Bouncy, Bouncy Butterflies”

In this contemporary beaded art quilt, “In the Garden of the Butterflies and Beach Balls”, I honored some of my favorite insects. Butterflies, for me, are some of the most delightful creatures on the planet. They always look so happy as they flit from flower to flower sipping on nectar, so I try to plant as many flowers as possible in my real gardens outside that will attract them. They even appear bouncing sometimes as they move up and down while flying forward. In the imaginary garden on this quilt, not only are there many flowers for them to consider for their next meal, there are colorful blue and white striped beach balls for them to play with. Never mind the size  differential. In my fabric gardens, I can create them as I wish, so these beach balls, while larger than the insects, are light enough to get a little game of garden volley ball going, should the butterflies so choose.

As with many of my pieces, there will be certain pivotal fabrics around which the others are chosen. For this art quilt, the fabric with the blue and white striped balls was probably the most important one for this piece. They reminded me of beach balls, and gave a playful feel to the piece. Of course, my beloved glass buttons from Czechoslovakia are heavily utilized, as are some orange and yellow glass cylinders about ½” long. These long glass beads remind me of the “candy corn” that you see at Halloween and make me smile.(see the upper middle row in the detail shot below.) I was also particularly pleased with the orange grosgrain ribbon with the yellow dots that I used for the binding around the outside edge. That ribbon, whose colors are repeated throughout the piece, provide a frame for the fun feeling of the landscape contained inside.

In this detail shot, you can see some of the numerous butterflies that I included. The psychedelic one in the upper middle is an iron-on applique, and has minimal beading (see also the photo on the left). The one in the lower middle is heavily beaded over fabric that had the butterfly image printed on it. In that case, I spent quite a bit of time trying to get the seed beads I chose to match as closely as possible as I liked the colors on the material. The large yellow and orange flower peaking out from the lower right was probably the hardest to duplicate. There are a number of orange seed beads on the market, but it was difficult to find the exact colors that I wanted.

In this detail shot to the left, in the lower right, is an aqua circle with a gold cross in the middle. That motif was cut from a piece of incredible organza that I found in a store that sold materials for saris and Middle Eastern clothing. The fabric was very expensive and elegant, but I bought it just to cut out the circular, gold thread motifs that were scattered across it. I imagine that image will show up more in future quilts. There is a large, yellow and black button in the lower left that I think came from a coat from the 60s. I believe it’s one of those gifts from friends who clean out their grandmother’s button jar and broken jewelry and send them to me. They know that all donated finds will have a wonderful new home in my studio, with lots of others of their kind to chat away with once the lights are turned out and I go to bed.

Butterflies and beach balls may seem an unlikely combination by some, but my pieces tell me what they want to be and they what to have included. I am merely the instrument at the service of my materials to give them life and love. I hope that this piece makes you smile.

Why not leave a comment as to your thoughts on this piece. Registering is just to prevent spam, not to collect any of your information.

You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com

To find out how to buy my artwork, please check “How to Buy my Art Work” in the pages section to the right of this blog.

Leave a Reply