Want To Go Way Back With Me?

     I was glancing up on my kitchen wall looking up at an art quilt I created over 10 years ago. At the time was teaching chemistry and had just started making art quilts for fun and didn't even come close to consider calling myself an artist. I was invited to join an art group and bring something for show and tell. I had never shown anyone anything I had created before let alone a group of artists. I was terrified. I almost didn't go to the meeting. But the women I met were very encouraging and friendly so I went. This is what I took to show.

Kitchen Concoction

     To create this, I took a photo of this bowl.

My wooden salad bowl

And a photo of this bottle.

bottle of flavored vinegar

Then I manipulated them in Photoshop Elements until I got layers of colors and I printed out the photos. I chose fabrics with those colors and cut out the shapes and fused them onto the base fabrics and sewed it all together and then quilted it. The difficult part for me was to machine embroider the words for the sauces. I actually ripped them out twice before I was happy with them. The "vapors" are painted on with Shiva paintstiks.

     Looking back at this beginning quilt, there are things I would do differently. It definitely would benefit from having light values in it. I didn't know about varying values back then. I would balance out the dark green more. It's all on the left side. I would also change the shape of the vapor trails and change where the fluid coming out of the bottle intersects with one of the vapor trails. But, overall, I still like this early quilt and that's why it still hangs in my kitchen. And I still cook and/or use the sauces that are named on it. 

     So that day way back when I stood up and showed my quilt the group was very nice and welcoming I decided to join and I am still a member of ArtsEtc today. It has been such a great influence on my artistic life and now I do call myself an artist. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.