Friday, June 29, 2018

Aerial Photographs & Art Map Quilts

This could be a Really Random Thursday post except that it's not so random because it is about quilts (in a way).

So.  I love aerial photographs.  I find them fascinating and beautiful.


Years ago, when I was in college I happened upon a large-format, inexpensive book of aerial photographs at a used book store.  I took it home and marveled at the colors, the arrangements of houses, fields, rivers, cities.  It is a treasure, buried now in a box with other rarely-used books.  These days I can use Google to search "aerial photographs" and find screen after screen of images I find interesting.



The images above come from Earth View with Google, a website where you can choose a location on earth and see photographs at both a far distance and closer to the earth.  In aerial photos I see a kind of beauty about the way people have organized and arranged the land -- farmlands divided into fields, towns and cities where homes line streets organized into communities -- and photographs where nature has arranged the land her own way.

A few months ago, at a library I rarely visit, I was browsing the shelves of quilting books and came upon Art Quilt Maps:  Capture a Sense of Place with Fiber Collage---A Visual Guide by Valerie S. Goodwin.  It caught my eye in the same way aerial photographs do.  Maps and aerial photos are similar in that they are both elevated views of a place.


I doubt I will ever make an art quilt map but I fell in love with this book and the creations I saw inside.  Here are a few pages.  You see maps, of course.  Do you also see improv quilts?

Improv, yet they capture the essence of a specific location.


Chapter topics include, among others:
> mapping out ways of working
> materials and tools for creating a fiber-art map
> background music:  the landscape layer
> step by step ways to create that background layer (paint, translucent fabric, etc.)
> materials and techniques to create lines and shapes
> fiber-art travel maps
> mapping personal memories and landscapes

Throughout the book are small galleries in each chapter showing finished quilts and how the techniques were used.  Also included:  gallery of work by the author, gallery of work by students, and resources. 

Perhaps this book will appeal to you. 

Do you like to look at aerial photographs?  Have you ever made a map quilt?

--Nancy.
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4 comments:

  1. I just love that there is always something new to learn and something interesting to try. Have you got a project planned using the information in this book?

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    1. Isn't there so much to learn, Robin?! Sometimes I feel so ignorant, but the world is very large and so many know so much more than I do!

      I don't have a project planned from this book but there are some old maps and drawings of places where my ancestors lived and it's at the back of my mind to try making a quilt based on those. Maybe one of these days....

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  2. I checked out that earth view thingy, but could not choose where I wanted to look at! frowny face here. Would LVOE to have some of those views translated onto fabric though!

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    Replies
    1. Were you unable to choose or just couldn't decide, QuiltGranma? I enjoyed most of the views I saw. Yes, I thought some could become really interesting quilts.

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