The Pigeons, A Work in Progress
Overview
I began working on the Pigeons in 2003. They are small quilted pieces of varying sizes, ranging from as small as 1½ inches by 3 inches to about 20 inches by 20 inches. My intention is that they be installed together in a random arrangement or several arrangements. All of them or a selection of them could be installed. The current number (as of March, 2013) is 150 and I am in the process of making more.
When I began, I thought of them as little scrapbook or photo album pages made out of fabric. Rather than turning the pages of a book, each page is presented concurrently with the others. This presentation, along with the changeability of arrangement, allows for more complex and varied visual relationships that investigate formal structure and patterning. The additive quality of the exploded scrapbook provides a context or a history that, although mostly fictional, adds weight and meaning to the individual quilts.
Materials and Conventions
Photographs, either vintage photographs or prints from vintage negatives, are stitched into the fabric. The fabric comes from a variety of sources: vintage baby blankets, baby and doll clothes, nightgowns, and yardage. The fabric is primarily cotton or wool flannel. I often tea dye it and include bits of ribbon, lace, eyelet, embroidered sections of garments, and other stitched elements.
The color palette, like the texture, is intentionally soft. Where the photographs are too contrasty for my purposes, I cover them with bits of glassine or other sheer material. If the flannel is too strongly colored, I use the reverse side and let the shadow of the pattern show through.
I observe several rules or conventions in the fashioning of the quilts. These have to do with what stitches I allow myself to use or not use and when and where I can use stitches. The conventions also determine the organic quality of the shapes of the quilts and how that happens. They are primarily squares or rectangles, sometimes ovals, but never straight geometric shapes, never completely flat or perfectly pieced. I want to note here that I take some inspiration from the work of the women of Gee’s Bend. I employ these conventions as a source of definition for and engagement with the work.
The Name
I chose the name Pigeons intuitively. There are many of them, they are softly colored, their voices are gentle, and they are common. And yet, if genuinely observed, they radiate and shimmer.
