manipulation continued

I started quilting on the gray piece I blogged about a few days ago. The colors remind me of late autumn in my area, when most of the leaves are off the trees, the weather is gray and rainy, but there's a spot of bright color left here and there. So the quilting lines are mimicking tree bark of large trees, with small trees behind.

But now that the quilting is started, and after a walk past the golf course where I saw bald cypress trees turned rust colored reflected in gray water, I realized that I had been looking at the piece upside down.



It just looks right this way. The light spots become reflections of sky on water, the rust the leaves still on the trees. I know it's a very abstract version of what I see that no one else might be able to identify. But that's the way I work. I struggle to compose and design without an inspiration to guide me--I need that to guide me. Even if you don't see it in the final product, I do.

Maybe that's a result of my Midwestern, practical upbringing, that idea that art has to be about something. I am drawn to the abstract expressionists, and drawn to the idea that I want to make art about where I live. So I'm forming a new series, one called Hancock County. I realize that the last couple of pieces I've made are probably in the series. It's about what I see in my everyday life here, the view out the car window at 55 miles per hour. (It's easy to abstract that blurry view). I'll go back and put labels on the pieces I think belong. And when this one is done (I haven't quilted a piece this large in a while...wow), there'll be more coming.