This morning was spent speaking with students at a local primary about my artwork. They are having an 'artist week' this week, and I was invited to share my work with preprimary, grade 1 and grade 2. I took some of my childhood quilts, completed ones as well as quilts in progress, and described the process I go through. I also demonstrated screenprinting, which showed up in several of the quilts.I don't have any photos, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I loved their observations and was impressed by what they all noticed and asked. One of the grade 2 students asked why I quilt instead of paint, which is actually quite a deep question. (Speaking about my work like this helps me to verbalise what I do, and is a valuable learning curve for myself). I answered that I have always loved to sew, and also, more practically, that paint is much messier so that it would be more difficult to manage with small children around. Not a completely satisfactory answer (well, it satisfied the student but wouldn't hold up so well in arty circles), but it's better than 'just because'. I should probably dwell on it a bit more.
For now though, I have left everything down by the front door and am going to put up my feet and work in a running-way-to-far-behind-to-get-it-finished-on-time birthday present for a soon-to-be seven year old.
4 comments:
dear ruth, today at school i heard that you did an amazing job...now you deserve to put your legs up!!
Hi Ruth,
2 of my children heard/watched/learned from you this morning, and they both really enjoyed it! But then they both asked "why can't you do quilting like that too?" looks like I've got some learning to do now!! (actually, I've never done any quilting :-)
regards, Hilde T
Oops, Hilde - with one of the groups I did actually talk about how we all do/enjoy doing different things, but maybe that message didn't come across too clear :)
Ellen, I don't know how teachers manage to do this day in, day out!
What a great thing to do, and wonderful that you got something out of it as well. I think you answered the quilting vs painting question well - creating is all about doing what you enjoy. The only reason to dwell on it is if you need a better answer for yourself.
Post a Comment