Welcome to the Art With Fabric blog hop hosted by Alida at Tweety Loves Quilting and welcome to Melva Loves Scraps! Details of the give away will be at the end of the post, along with the links for all participants in the hop. Be sure to stop by each blog and see the amazing inspired art they present.
If you are a first time visitor, I hope that you will take a little bit of time to look around my blog...
You can learn a bit about me on the About Me tab at the top of the page...
And you can get a brief tour of my studio on the Studio Tour tab...
And finally, you can enjoy all of the Quilters Through The Generations stories that I have featured. {{BTW, I am currently seeking quilters that are willing to share their family's story of quilting. If you are from a family of quilters and interested in having YOUR story documented and preserved let me know!}}
This hop has the special theme of "My Favorite Color"... And my favorite color is blue. There is such a wide range of shades!
I did a quick search for Monet and found that he used lots of blues. So, with further research I found a 1985 Chicago Tribune article written by Larry Doyle that explained that it was likely linked to an eye problem...
"Late in his life, French impressionist Claude Monet, who died in 1926, produced a series of paintings most notable for the fact that they were very, very blue.
He may have been trying to make an artistic statement, or capture a particular mood. Or the reason the canvases were blue could have been because that was the only color Monet could see."
Dr. James Ravin, an ophthalmologist with an undergraduate degree in art history, has spent five years studying how Monet`s failing eyesight and visual difficulties affected his later work. He has consulted Monet`s letters to his eye surgeon, talked with art historians and examined a pair of Monet`s glasses.
In an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Ravin discusses this influence on an acknowledged leader of the impressionist movement.
''The cataracts that blinded Monet were an important influence on the way he saw the world and the way he painted it,'' the article concludes.
Monet`s visual difficulties first became apparent when he was in his 60s, Ravin says, when his loose impressionist style began to blur even further. By 1918, Monet wrote a note to a Paris eye doctor to complain of the change.
''I no longer perceived colors with the same intensity,'' he wrote, ''I no longer painted light with the same accuracy. Reds appeared muddy to me, pinks insipid, and the intermediate and lower tones escaped me.''
My Grandma Teegarden was an artist. Her specialty was china painting. After her retirement from the University of Arizona she returned to campus as a student. She earned her Bachelors of Art the same year that I graduated from high school.
As an art major she had to study all mediums of art, including watercolor, oils, acrylics, still life, portraiture, abstract, pottery, etc. In the end, china painting was still her forte. And our family has an abundance of china! She too had cataracts in her advanced years. Following her surgery in the 1990's she was in awe of the brilliance of colors and commented that she had not realized how dimmed colors had slowly become.
Monet noticed a dramatic change after the operation. The cataracts, which had formed a yellow-brown filter on his right eye, had been removed and now
''Monet was able to see colors he had not seen for years, particularly violet and blue tones.''
Ravin explains that similar to a person who has been in darkness for a long time and then goes out into the sun, Monet saw the new colors as brighter than they were.
''I see blue,'' Monet told his physician in 1924, a year and a half after he had cataracts removed from his right eye. ''I no longer see red or yellow. This annoys me terribly, because I know these colors exist.
''It`s filthy. It`s disgusting. I see nothing but blue.''
''Monet was able to see colors he had not seen for years, particularly violet and blue tones.''
Ravin explains that similar to a person who has been in darkness for a long time and then goes out into the sun, Monet saw the new colors as brighter than they were.
''I see blue,'' Monet told his physician in 1924, a year and a half after he had cataracts removed from his right eye. ''I no longer see red or yellow. This annoys me terribly, because I know these colors exist.
''It`s filthy. It`s disgusting. I see nothing but blue.''
Here is a screen shot of my "Monet Blue" search...
And... here is my Monet Inspired Mosaic quilt...
The block pattern I used were 12" blocks and happens to be one I drew out myself while still in my early quilting career years.
The pieces are designed to be off-set so that matching seams is not a problem. In fact... I try to never have the same sized blocks opposite each other (I however failed in this one... can you see it?) I didn't notice it until I was marking the lattice quilting lines on it! And I was not going back to rip out one block to remedy the problem...
The border is made up of 4-1/2" and 2-1/2" pieces, offset again so that seams never match up. I filled the border with free-motion feathers...
The back features blue butterflies bordered with bright yellow...
I love that the feathers pop on the back!
A few weeks ago my mom sent me a devotional that talked about a quilt being a useful work of art. I have struggled at times in frustration because many people do not see quilting as art... They view it as a hobby or a craft... and then someone goes and calls a quilt a blanket... **ugh!** **deep breath** I am sure I am not alone in this.
If you are a quilter, repeat after me... "I am not just a quilter. I am an artist." Thank you Alida for coordinating this Art With Fabric hop!
You can follow this artist over on bloglovin', facebook or instagram or by email (sign up in the right side bar)...
Now is the time to give the details of the pattern give away! Simply leave a comment telling me what your favorite color is before November 12th.
And don't forget... check out all of the other Art With Fabric posts!
Quilt Happy!
Melva
If you are a quilter, repeat after me... "I am not just a quilter. I am an artist." Thank you Alida for coordinating this Art With Fabric hop!
You can follow this artist over on bloglovin', facebook or instagram or by email (sign up in the right side bar)...
Now is the time to give the details of the pattern give away! Simply leave a comment telling me what your favorite color is before November 12th.
And don't forget... check out all of the other Art With Fabric posts!
Quilt Happy!
Melva
Monday, November 5th, 2018
Tuesday, November 6th, 2018
- Susan: https://desertskyquilts.
wordpress.com/ - Terry: http://www.terryaskeartquilts.
com/ - Lee Anna: http://lapaylor.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, November 7th, 2018
Thursday, November 8th, 2018
- Bea: http://www.beaquilter.com/
- Irene: http://Irene.grimes.wordpress.
com - Wendy: http://www.piecefulthoughts.
com/ - Judith: http://www.frimart.ch/
Friday, November 9th, 2018
What beautiful work!! This has really been an inspiring hop!
ReplyDeleteAqua blue and coral are my favorite colors. You can tell by my fabric stash-haha.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bambi for helping to make this hop a fun and successful event. :)
DeleteWhat a great blue quilt! I enjoyed learning more about one of my favorite artists and seeing the collage of his blue paintings. That was so interesting, because after my husband's cataract surgery, the two things he said over and over were "Everything is so clear and sharp!" and "I had forgotten how many colors there are". This is a great post, and your quilt is really scrappy!
ReplyDeleteI like that you used prints with dots in them as Money was such a master of making something with tiny dots of color. Lovely inspiration and quilt!
ReplyDeleteWhile I call myself a quilter, I think of myself more as a fabric artist, esp. when I do these types of challenges.
ReplyDeleteI do love blue and my last quilt turned that blue corner without my intended it to. I actually struggle with steering away from blue otherwise every last quilt of mine would be in that color palette.
Very informational and fun post!! I love your blue quilt. I didn't know they could remove cataracts in the 1920s. I learned something new today. Now they just don't remove them they replace the old lens with a new artificial lens. But we've kept the term "removing cataract" anyway. So glad you participated in the Art with Fabric hop. I wasn't able to this time; maybe next time. So do tell, do you have any blue fabric left??
ReplyDeleteI don't have a favorite color, but lately, I have been gravitating towards reds. Prior, it was green, and prior, blue. My stash definitely reflects my moods!
ReplyDeleteI love your blue quilt! Blue is my favorite color too
ReplyDeleteLove your post, very informative...love the quilt.
ReplyDeleteMagenta and Fuchsia are my favorites.
ReplyDeletebarbkaup(at)(yahoo)(dot)(com)
Truly a lovely quilt and thank you for the info about monet. I had no idea
ReplyDeleteHi Melva, thanks so much for sharing Monet's journey of blue with us. It would be frustrating to not see the colours that you know are there. Your Monet Inspired Mosaic quilt is lovely and the quilting amazing. Congratulations and keep making art! ps. I love all of the colours and change my mind often about favourites.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed your post, Melva. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to see clearly again; I recall my mom talking about that when she had cataracts removed. Love all the blues in your mosaic quilt; it's pretty and calming.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing all that information about Monet and yes, "big breath in, big breath out" when someone calls my quilted pieces of useful art blankets :) The piece you created is just a fantastic interpretation of the theme! Thanks for joining the blog hop!!
ReplyDeleteMelva, I love the backstory. I love blue and always have. My first husband used to tell me that if he didn't go shopping with me, all my clothes would be blue (and mostly navy) and sailor. I couldn't find a pattern for a sailor suit for work, so I made one. I used a classic skirt pattern. Then I found a jacket pattern that I left open and adapted a sailor collar from another jacket to it. The sleeves from one of the two jacket patterns had a slight bell sleeve which happened to be popular at the time. I used white, small gross grain ribbon on the collar and sleeve bottoms. I made a round necked blouse that buttoned on one shoulder so that I didn't have a closure that showed when I wore the jacket. Back to quilting, I think I have only made one mainly blue quilt. Blue happens to be sister-in-law's favorite color also. I made her a predominately blue queen sized quilt for the bed in the parsonage after her ordination. My brother made the bed. I ordered most of the fabrics online from a collection. So, I need to restate my previous statement. I have made two blue queen size quilts. From the "scraps" from my SIL's quilt, I made a queen quilt for our bed, too, using the same pattern. The borders of each were scalloped. It was fun to make very similar quilts.
ReplyDeleteInteresting story about Monet! My favorite color is teal and all its variations. I’d love to win this pattern! Thanks!
ReplyDeletecathylouwilson@gmail.com
Royal Blue fabric and white quilts are the first things I want to make in the new year.
ReplyDelete