This is a 24" x 18" fabric and paper collage I kind of stumbled into putting together this past week. It's been out in the garage next to my ironing station and every time I slipped out there to press a seam or another fabric scrap, I puttered with it, moved things around, added, subtracted. I've been obsessed with this color scheme of pinky/oranges blending into turquoise for years, but I recently realized why: Up until last year when I moved my studio inside, I'd been working exclusively in my garage in the Houston heat and humidity for years. It was not at all unusual for it to be topping 100 degrees in there, but there I'd be, whiling away hours with a fan blowing ninety to nothing on me. I've come to realize that my need to use bright, almost fluorescent, yellows, oranges and reds was (and evidently still is, if this week's collage is any indication) a way for me to express my own experience in the searing Texas heat. The blue was, and remains, my longing and need for cooling waters to dunk myself in when the days' work was finished.
Being out there again last week with the heat must have brought out all those same longings and this collage is the result. I hope soon to come close to recreating all these colors in fabric so I can translate this into an art quilt- it's screaming for embellishments that only stitch can offer. :D Nothing has been adhered to anything yet, so I can still putter with it if I want, but It feels done to me.
Unfortunately, even a great camera can't overcome bad lighting, so the
colors seem a little off in the photo compared with what it looks like
in real life.