Saturday, June 1, 2013

I am participating in a quilt challenge from Art Quilts Around the World and today I reveal my latest work.

When we were given the challenge of "Out of Asia", I had no idea what I was going to do. Soon there after, though, I was sitting listening to a speaker talk about spring and the trees blossoming, which made me think of a trip that I had made to Washington, D.C. for the Cherry Blossom Festival, and I immediately sketched out what I wanted to do.

I originally planned to figure out how to make origami fabric cherry blossoms, but after a couple of attempts I decided that it just wasn't for me. This got me discouraged and I started thinking about other things that would be considered "out of Asia". I thought about doing a rendition of a Buddha, as I am also learning some about Buddhism and meditation. I thought at one point as I looked at the oil seeping out of the wrecked Arizona at Pearl Harbor that I would do some abstract play on the idea of the oil slick and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but I quickly set that idea aside as my previous quilt had been oil-slick-esque. I then started doing some research on Japanese beetles and thought doing a big beetle would be an interesting take.

Sadly, time was passing and I still hadn't made up my mind what exactly I was going to do. That is until one day as I was walking through the halls of the office building where I work and I came upon a picture of a cherry tree in full bloom with Mount Fuji in the background. Now, I have passed this picture hundreds of times, so I'm sure the image was planted somewhere in by subconscious, but when I saw it this time I knew that it was meant to be....whether I did origami cherry blossoms or not.

Therefore, here is my abstract of Mount Fuji with Cherry Blossoms:


I broke down and used silk flowers and a hot glue gun, but I still like the effect.

And, now on to the next challenge....I really need to just stick with my first thought as I seem to keep going back to what pops into my head when we first get the challenge.