ART WORKBOOKS
This category is rather arbitrary and a slippery slope well greased with my good intentions. We may strongly disagree where I draw a line on what belongs on this page as opposed to the main bib page. I am not trying to assert my opinion over yours by creating this page - I'm only trying to make the bibliography more functional and easy to search. So when you look over the contents of this page, keep in mind my personal biases are alive and well and try to understand my viewpoint even though we disagree. Understanding me means you can guess better where I'd put something, versus where you'd have put it were you building this database. If this inspires you to build your own database to share with all of us, please, please, send me the link so I can share it with everyone. Nothing would please me more to see a proliferation of databases that people can browse and decide what helps them best. There is so much fantastic and exciting information locked away in our published works - ideas just waiting patiently for us to stumble across and rediscover them for the revelations they are. Ideas that have already been explored by intelligent creative minds to give us a solid base to jump into our own discoveries and further the journey to a destination we didn't even know we were interested in until we stumbled across that treasure map for it.
So what do I think an art quilt is? Well, I think all but the most humble quilt is an art quilt. Did the maker choose the colors and what block(s) to use and how to set them and whether they used sashing, plain or elaborate, and sooo many choices of borders, and then the quilting being an art all by itself - so yes, of course they are all art. BUT, are they Art. Landscape quilts are obviously art quilts, and they have their own page, the link being on this page and the main bib page. Applique quilts, like Hawaiian quilts? Yes, absolutely art, but I'm not including traditional Hawaiian applique books on this page, or Baltimore album quilts. They have their own pages, like the Landscape quilts, but I'm not including them because when you are making a Hawaiian or Baltimore Album quilt, you are following a tradition that was created a long time ago. Ideas of what those quilts can be are set and well defined. It is either in that tradition or it isn't. But so is a Landscape quilt, right? It either is, or it isn't - BUT, a Landscape quilt is seen as a painting of a unique scene - they may have mountains and trees, but they are never the same mountains or trees. Does that make sense? And then there is Colleen Wise's "Casting Shadows: Creating Visual Dimension in Your Quilts", which got me thinking about what I consider art quilts as a category. Her book is on this page. Why? Because her lessons can be applied to any quilt, Art, Patchwork, or Applique. Her patchwork becomes art through her ability to create the illusion of depth in her works, and she is genius at it. Her patchwork and applique is rooted in traditional works, but it is not traditional works. If you haven't encountered this book, you need to find a copy right now. I will still be here when you get back. It will blow your mind. Watercolor quilts? Linked to this page. Stained Glass quilts? same. These are art styles, not specific traditional blocks that we replicate. So, like Hawaiian quilts or Baltimore Album quilts, they are quite recognizable for what they are - you'd never mistake them for any other kind of quilt - but those styles can be applied to any sort of content you like. Artists who work in the quilting medium like Kumiko Sudo or Katie Pasquini Masopust have links on this page because they also reveal how they did certain effects in their work. I'm going to make so many mistakes building this page, and omissions may be simply that I haven't encountered that published work yet(a heads up is always appreciated). It's easy to build a page for a specific designer - they have well-defined published works I just have to find the bib details for. Classification of this sort is a lot trickier. My question to myself for deciding whether a book goes here or not is this: Is this a recipe book(set patterns that can be faithfully replicated) or is this book offering tools to add to our toolboxes for creating untraditional works, pictorial or abstract, meant to hang on a wall or wear? If the answer is "yes," I'm putting it here.
If you have thoughts on the matter and want to converse, I'm always happy to meet another curious mind who wants to explore the arguments.
Anyone with more information to share, corrections to make, or has books and magazines to donate or sell, can contact me
through My Contact Page.
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