Thirty Minutes, Six Months

Months ago, inspired by my friend and artist, Margit Burmister, I deconstructed some maps, separating the fabric backing from the paper. I used acrylic paint, brayers, brushes, and stencils to transform the stained, beige linen into a stack of collage material. 

I couldn’t figure out how to use them.

I stitched them on a sewing machine, tore them into smaller and smaller pieces, and added them to collages, only to peel them off later. What I gradually realized was that their saturated, rich, deep colors stood out far too much against the muted vintage tones of the papers I was using them with. 

This morning,  walking back from the bus stop, I had a vision of sewing the pieces together into a quilt; fabric art that would stand on its own and not be part of a collage.

I took down the vintage cafeteria tray that had held them for so long and started arranging them on my studio table. The studio was cold, and my fingers and toes started to complain. Rip, arrange, rearrange, I put the pieces together in various combinations, imagining adding the stitching and how the seams would look.

Arranging them, I realized I wasn't thinking about seams and stitching anymore - I was composing them the way I always do, seeing color relationships and balance. The fabric demanded to be treated as a collage, not sewn fabric.

I took a prepared 9” x 12” x 1.5” cradled panel and found the container of gel medium I use for heavy fabric and papers.  Using an old credit card and a palette knife, I covered the panel with the adhesive.  I rebuilt one of my compositions, adding more gel medium as I went, changing the composition to fit the panel dimensions. 

In less than fifteen minutes, I had a finished piece

Following the same process, I moved on to a second panel, arranging the fabrics before adhering them. I played with edges, threads, added fabric removed from book covers, some with paper still attached.

I brought them upstairs and set them next to the wood stove, under bags of rice, to dry, hoping the weight of the rice would settle some of the bubbles I could see beneath the fabrics. 

Did I make these too quickly? Is it art if they took less than an hour to make? But they didn’t really, because the material was sourced, prepared, painted, considered, and auditioned over months before finding its way into these pieces. 

If I still like the pieces in a week, I might make more, maybe even a larger version. If not, and I tear the fabric off and add it back to my cafeteria tray, I’m still another step closer to discovering a use for this material.

Fabric Collages 1 and 2, shown insitu