Minimalist Quilt, #1, Judy Ross

Maybe there'll be more than one.  I was thinking about minimalist art, and tried to visualize a minimalist quilt.  How minimal could it be?  Had to have either piecing OR applique but not both, had to have three layers, only one color: could you do less than that and still think of it as a quilt?  (i know whole cloth quilts can have no piecing or applique, and only one color, but i've never exactly thought of them as quilts; rather, blankets with quilting.)  This is made from a light-weight wool gabardine with a twill weave so depending upon whether the squares are placed on their vertical or horizontal, they have a slightly different hue, but once quilting gets in there, it's less noticeable.

Ca. 40"x50", 2014
Judy Ross, Pt. Roberts, WA
ross-park.net

this is Trisha's collection of "Etudes" --daily pieces I did for 34 days in December & January with 3 guidelines ( Idea came from Jane Dunnewold's blog)
* I had to start from a piece of handdyed from the stash of natural dyes fabric I have been making
* I had to do some hand sewing &
* I couldn't add to it the next day - when I was tired it had to stop where ever that was

I learnt several things by doing this process & really didn't want to stop at the end it was rather addictive but have now started doing a daily drawing of some natural plant or vegetation -

Point Roberts Visit

Sharon, Jill, Penny, and Sybil drove down to visit Judy in Point Roberts on January 28, 2014.  Here are some pictures Ed took at show and tell.

Penny made this bust of an English major.

This is the inside of Penny's bust.

Sybil has plans for this map of Paris.

Sybil dyed some cheesecloth.

Sybil is working on this quilt.

Sharon showed some of her encaustic tiles

mounted on Ikea mirror frames.

Judy is experimenting with minimalist quilts.

January Meeting

Great meeting today and made more interesting because of the work that was shared.

Martha edited a piece as we watched and gave lots of advice. It was great to watch.
The archway area was covered with 2 layers of navy netting and she had now torn away both layers in some area and only 1 layer in other places, all within the arch..

the process

The result

"The Sky Above, the Earth Below, and Us in the Middle"

2013, Judy Ross, 43"x62", hand-quilted.

Thanks to Sharon's good discharge work for those three middle sections (2 circles with black backgrounds) and other small pieces scattered about...

Night Watcher, 2013, 45x64"

 There's a hundred different fabrics here and kinds of: silk, satin, rayon, linen, silk velvet, velveteen, poly, cotton, linen, anything i could find that was blue.  lots of it hand-dyed or painted, shibori from China, Indian prints from Maiwa.  Whatever I had and could beg, borrow, or steal from other quilters.  There are little pictures, like things you might catch a glimpse of at night, scattered throughout.

We sold $5/tickets on it...about 200 of them, and used all the proceeds for the New Pt. Roberts Library project.  And now it lives at someone else's house instead of mine, but that's okay.  Click for a bigger picture.

Orphans Together, 2013, 44"x65"

This quilt began with the long piece of woven Guatemalan fabric on the left side.  Friends with involvement in an orphanage in Guatemala were working there this summer and brought me back odds and ends of weavings that they found in markets.  The material is woven on narrow looms, often, and the women 'seam' the pieces together with rayon embroidery.  The second, long vertical line in the woven piece is a row of embroidered frogs that joined these two pieces. (The first long vertical row is Swiss flower trim.) But the rest of the joined fabric went to make something else, leaving me with this long, narrow, beautiful strip.  Then the job involved finding pieces that would go with it since it was quite a bit heavier than standard fabrics.  Finally I settled on a lot of other 'orphan' pieces, so that I could use lots of ribbons and trim in it, as well as the odd piece of silk tie and decorator sunflower, making it a collection of orphans.  This one is still on my living room wall. 

And soon to be finished (putting the binding on now) is a brown and turquoise quilt which was inspired, in great part, by a piece of Sharon Roye's beautiful discharged fabric that she gave me at Penny's in North Van last spring, maybe, when we met there.  

The work continues!  Long may it wave.  Judy Ross

Also, note that I have turned the administration of the blog over to Sybil, so I trust you will soon be able to make better use of it than you have with me as administrator-not-in-residence, so to speak.  But i'll continue to post my work here from time to time.  jwr

Thanks to everyone for our last show artists and attendees both.  Here are some comments:

'Wonderful art! What a gift for all of us who came to see' 

'Very nice work with difficult media to work with.'

'Absolutely gorgeous.'

'Trees are magical wonders.'

'Wow I was really surprised by the intense art work. It was gorgeous.'