New obsessions

The art quilt meeting on Friday was great, again! The take-away quote of the evening was from my friend Brenda Ramponi, who says "art is a verb," meaning that a work is not static, but derives meaning from its creator as well as those who view it. In that sense, art is also a collaboration between the artist and the viewer, the "action" of art being complete only when the viewer has reacted to it, whether positivly or negatively. Aside from talking about what art means to us, eating brownie cake, and drinking iced tea, we made plans to travel to Quilt National at the Dairy Barn. This will be my first trip to the show, and I'm prepared to be completely awed.

On to the obsessions... Edy's Dibs Bite-Sized Ice Cream Snacks are the work of the devil. I can't stop eating them! I guess I should just stop buying stuff that looks yummy under the pretense that it's for the kids. Although they do like them, too--just not as much as I do. Maybe because I've eaten them all before they could get hooked...

The other obsession is definitely more quilt-related. I'm having a great time with the Setacolor paints that have been sitting in my studio gathering dust for almost a year. I bought them on a visit to the 'rents and have been afraid to use them because "I don't know how to paint." Well, I still don't know how to paint, but I'm having a great time playing with them anyway. I finished another postcard that has painted Lutradur on the front. I like it, but the hand-dyed back is more striking than the front. I don't think the thread contrasted enough with the paint colors. I also painted some Wonderunder and fused it (after much ironing) to black cotton. It's hanging on the wall until it tells me what the next step should be. Then, yesterday I painted some cotton batting with the intention of breaking out the embellisher and felting some fibers to it. Brenda also suggested playing with oil pastels on fabric, so I made a small heart stencil with freezer paper and messed with the pastels on black fabric. This technique definitely deserves more playtime in the studio! I loved the way the colors popped off the black fabric. But, I'm wondering, is it necessary to heat set the oil pastels or treat them in some other way so that they don't rub off the fabric?