The stitched line

I just had a message from a fellow quilter State side, Pam Rupert.
Pam is the creator of PaMdora whom you no doubt you have heard about and seen. Just in case you haven't, PaMdora (Pam's alter ego) resides on big supersized quilted cartoons depicting the perils she runs into as she makes her way through a funny series of circumstances. In case you haven't seen the latest, here is her QN entry for 2007,

Gee... quilted cartoons, who'd have thought....? Brilliant!

Anyways, these days Pam is also looking into Artist Statements, and has asked me to elaborate some more on what I said about the stitched line on my website and show some examples. Happy to do so Pam!

I find that the quilting world (industry?) is supplying us all with a LOT of embellishment gizmos, tools threads, ribbons etc. There is nothing wrong with this stuff but we may be in danger of losing our way with our work if we are not careful about looking beyond the glitz before incorporating these into our work. Remember tyvek...?




I buy this stuff as often as anybody else as I love to muck around with new goodies. They are fun to play with and I love to make small studies to explore their potential. But they get parked over in a corner of my studio where I can watch them until I am ready to 'press them into service'. By that I mean I have no intention of ever using them as embellishments.


I find that it is much more powerful to work with the expressive qualities of these items. That usually needs a bit of thinking before acting.


The stitched line, be it cotton thread, couched wool or silk floss does not appear on a piece unless it contributes to the overall design of my composition.












For me, the design rules what is used in a work not the ingredients.

Any thoughts?