“Opulence – Still Life with Flowers”

Handd appliqued, hand quilted contemporary art quilt, "Opulence- "Still Life with Flowers"Nancy Smeltzer, MFA

I usually don’t start with a sketch for my art quilts, as I just start cutting out fabric shapes and pinning them onto the main fabric that makes the quilt top. However, back in 1983, I decided it might be fun to do a collaborative project with other artists in the Washington, DC area. I set up a still life arrangement in my basement, and invited people out to take part in an exhibition that I had planned I was going to call “Common Vision”. The participants were invited to record the still life in whatever was their favorite way of capturing a scene. Some photographed it, some sketched it (which is what I did), and someone did a watercolor. We had a great, good time, a lovely lunch and then everyone went home to create a piece of art using their favorite medium.

Sketch of the still life used to create the art quiltI think that you can see what a liberal interpretation I did of the original scene. Until I fished this sketch out of my files, I couldn’t really remember what the setting had looked like, except that I had used peach colored fabric for the background. I can see now that there was some pottery, some wooden spools of yarn, a woven basket, and of course, some sort of flowers as seen in the left of the sketch. They were probably artificial, as I do remember now having set up the scene a few days in advance.

Detail of hand appliqued, contemporary art quilt "Opulence- Still Life with Flowers"This finished art quilt, measuring 50” W x 47.5“ T or 127 cm W x 120.5 cm T, was done during the period when I was doing geometric, hand applique with extensive hand quilting. It’s a rather large piece for me, and the quilting was done on a big quilting frame with 6′ (2m) long poles. That piece of equipment took up quite a large portion of the family room, so my ex “encouraged” me to make smaller and smaller pieces over the years. As you look at this detail photo, I imagine that you will be hard pressed to find that vase of flowers in the image that you see now, so you’ll have to take my word, and what you see in the sketch above, that there were indeed flowers in the scene.

Detail of hand applique,hand quilted contemporary art quilt, "Opulence - Still Life with Flowers"Here you can see how much fun I had at hand quilting the background. However, all of that handwork comes with a price. I don’t know how long it takes for DNA to degrade when exposed to the air, but ALL of my pieces have at least one blood stain on the back where I’ve pricked my finger. Perhaps some day, an art curator will use that stain as evidence that the piece is a “real Smeltzer” should the signature patch on the back become detached. However, I imagine that it will be pretty evident that it’s one of mine, as few people are as “obsessive” as I am to cover the surface, whether it’s with quilt stitches in this piece, or with buttons and beads in one of my current pieces.

I believe that I was the only one in that afternoon’s gathering who came up with a finished project. My original idea had been to pitch the photos of the pieces to an art magazine, but it’s hard to have a “Collective Vision” when mine was the only one in the collection. Still, I learned a lot about organizing a group effort, or shall I say, how not to do one. Sometimes, working with artists can be like herding cats.

Any advice for others who would like to have a group exhibition? I did later organize a few, which I’ll write about at a future date, but would love to hear about others’ experiences.

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You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com (be patient as it loads; it’s worth it), my healing work at www.hearthealing.net and can find me on Google + , Facebook (for Transition Portals) Facebook (for Fiber Fantasies),  and Twitter.

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