Home Is Where the Art Is
Home. It's a nebulous concept, one that's been on my mind a lot lately. These mini quilts are an expression of longing, rootlessness - perhaps "home" is a part of us that we always carry, though it may drift to the bottom with the kleenex and loose change.
[The Home quilts were created for my top-tier Patreon patrons in 2016. I closed my Patreon page in 2022.]
Following is a more detailed look at the quilt construction process:
Notes on construction, quilting patterns.
Drawing a general outline onto the batting.
Sewing the pieces directly onto the batting, as part of a quilt-as-you-go technique.
The first one with all three layers (top, batting backing) assembled and quilted.
Quilting lines look so cool on the back.
Moving down the assembly line...
Finished blocks, photographed on a convenient hedge.
Quilting creates such wonderful textures.
More stitches. I'm not a fan of stitch-in-the-ditch, but I love getting right up toward those ditches.
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Hand-finished binding, always perfectly imperfect.
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672 Tiny Paintings
Sushi Leftovers Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 18 inches, 2016 by Sarah Atlee. $910 For purchase inquiries, contact Cerulean Gallery at 214.564.1199 or caroline@theceruleangallery.com. UPDATE: SOLD
This post first appeared on my Patreon page. Join today for all the goodies!
How did I complete 672 tiny paintings?
One at a time.
I'm loving the grid these days. We're old friends. It's a beautiful device, bringing order out of chaos, or merely giving chaos something to lean against.
I often use a grid for making a preliminary pencil drawing on a canvas. It saves me a lot of time, and it's easy to cover up with subsequent layers of paint. The fun starts when I decide to let some or all of the grid be part of the final image.
In the case of Sushi Leftovers, I created a much smaller grid than normal. This is an 18" x 18" canvas broken down into three-quarter-inch squares. 24 squares times 24 is 576. But wait, where are the other 96 tiny paintings? Answer: I always paint my edges. That's four more groups of 24 for a grand total of 672.
I thought based on my experience that breaking one complicated image down into a bunch of smaller, simpler ones might make things easier. Not in this case! But this series is all about the play between digital imagery and traditional painting. So the squares became pixels. Some of the pixels are functioning normally. Others are ...broken.
Enjoy!
Sushi Leftovers will be part of the On Edge exhibition at Cerulean Gallery, 16 September - 28 October 2016.
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Lemons out of Balance
Lemon Imbalance. Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 18 inches, 2015 by Sarah Atlee
Click here to purchase Lemon Imbalance.
Let's talk about balance.
It's overrated. It sets us up for false expectations, failure, and guilt. "It's as useful a concept as original sin." (That's from Danielle Laporte.) Actually, we don't really need to talk about balance.
Let's talk about letting go of "balance."
I've shared this Bruce Sterling quote on this blog before, and I'm sure I'll do it many more times. It's from a speech he gave at the Computer Game Developers Conference in March 1991 in San Jose, California. (Read the whole text here.) Behold:
"Don't become a well-rounded person. Well rounded people are smooth and dull. Become a thoroughly spiky person. Grow spikes from every angle. Stick in their throats like a pufferfish."
That's really all the advice you need. Now, let's look at some other artists who have embraced both lemons and asymmetry! Click on any image below to view its source.
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Glass and Lemon in a Mirror. Oil and magna on canvas, 1974 by Roy Lichtenstein.
Lemon Peel. Sculpture, 1963 by Sven Lukin.
Half Lemon. Acrylic on canvas, 1969 by Gene Davis.
Lemons. 1972 by Funasaka Yoshisuke.
Lemons, May 16, 1984 by Donald Sultan.
All this imbalance making you feel icky-poo?
Feel like life handed you a couple of lemons? There are options. You can embrace the lemons, or refuse to accept them in the first place.
Lemon Imbalance is available in the Store!
Click here to purchase Lemon Imbalance.
Lemon Imbalance was shown in February 2015 at Ro2 Art in Dallas.
UPDATE: For Real has been reviewed by Jenny Block for The Huffington Post! Read the full review here: "A Hyperrealism That Questions Reality With James Zamora and Sarah Atlee at RO2 Art"
Day/Night Quilt Fragment
Day/Night Quilt Fragment, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 inches, 2013 by Sarah Atlee
This painting grew out of the process of creating an actual quilt (read more about that here). I painted this for the 2013 edition of OVAC's annual 12x12 fundraiser. I wanted to create another composition along the lines of Beside the Ironing Board:
Beside the Ironing Board, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 inches, 2011 by Sarah Atlee
Just as with this earlier painting, I found the raw "material" I wanted in a quilt-in-progress.
Day/Night Quilt Fragment in the studio, with the model in the background.
In a beautiful act of generosity, the person who bought Day/Night Fragment gifted me with a box of quilt pieces that his great-aunt had begun before she died. I feel sure I will complete that quilt someday, and share it with you here.
Sketchbook 2012: Day/Night Quilt
Day/Night Quilt sketch, ink on paper, 2012 by Sarah Atlee
I had so much fun with my Millennium Quilt series that I raced right into this quilt concept for a friend's impending baby.
mely's quilt beginning cropped
I began cutting and piecing not long after finishing the sketch, though it was almost another year before I completed the quilt proper.
At one point, I was so enamored with the finished sections of the quilt that I decided to turn one of them back into 2-dimensional art. I'll post pictures of that piece next week.
Here are pictures of the near-completed quilt in my studio (I just love the morning light in here):
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Day/Night Quilt, detail view in the studio, 2013 by Sarah Atlee
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Day/Night Quilt, detail view in the studio, 2013 by Sarah Atlee
Update: See the portion of this quilt that became a painting.