piecedgoods

Inspiration

Posted on January 31, 2011 by piecedgoods

A lot of the quilts I make and quilts I like have repeating forms. I don’t know why, but I find repetition soothing.

I find tile patterns interesting because much the same thing happens so I try to snap pictures of them when I see one I like. These are some that I think I’ll use to make a quilt some day.

The one here reminds me a lot of a French Braid quilt I’ve seen on the wall of a quilt store.

I’ve noticed that older buildings have some of the most interesting tile patterns whereas newer ones tend to go with a more conservative approach. Either that or there’s the Italianate villa mosaic border kind of thing that goes on a lot.

Posted in Quilts | Tagged Mosaic, Quilting, Tiles | Leave a comment

Other Pieces

Posted on January 27, 2011 by piecedgoods

I consider mosaics pieced goods (even though ‘pieced goods’ technically really refer to cut and sewn things).My friends, husband and I jumped into the deep end of mosaics by taking a class on mosaic portraits. Katherine England teaches mosaic’ing amongst other things.

We were told most people learn to cut glass and glue or thin set it down before starting representational stuff much less people, but we skipped that step and went straight to making portraits.

We’ve since had Katherine teach us how to to make mosaic’ed balls too. Everything else mosaic’y has been easy-peasy compared to portraits.

Posted in Mosaic, Uncategorized | Tagged Mosaic | Leave a comment

Worth more than a look

Posted on January 25, 2011 by piecedgoods

Henri Cartier-Bresson, the Modern Century is a collection of photo works that runs until January 30. Five short days from now. If you are into photography, photojournalism, the 1930’s and/or world history of that time, it’s a show worth seeing.

I’m reminded each time I go to a museum how much more amazing it is to see artists’ works in person. I’d seen plenty of Cartier-Bresson’s photos in books, but seeing the original thing is always so much more powerful.Seeing a collection even more so. The prints are not anything to write home about – some look faded and they’re not printed in some outsize way (they’re smallish by today’s standards), but there’s an aura or something about seeing the real thing on a blank wall, framed behind glass, that makes me stop and really look harder.

His framing and composition was masterful. HC-B didn’t believe in cropping so how he saw things in the viewfinder is the way these pictures are. And of course there was no adjusting things in Photoshop. Film is and was expensive. There was no screen on the back of the camera to see what was just shot. And yet, he captured so many ‘decisive moments’.