Quilts

Saffran  Happy Birthday!  2016   24" x 24" sewn photographs with journal pages

detail  Happy Birthday!

Saffran  You've Come A Long Way, Baby  24" x 18"  sewn photographs with journal pages work in progress  2016

detail  You've Come A Long Way, Baby

 

 

Amy Hagberg, good friend and fellow alumna of Lesley College of Art and Design (better known to my graduating class as the Art Institute of Boston), have continued the schedule of twice yearly artist residencies that we began as MFA students.  In our version of the residency we alternate between Amy's home in Maine and mine here in Vermont.  The last time we met I shared the collages I have been working on in the "1969" series.  (see Thursday January 21, 2016 post)  After several minutes of true looking Amy said these should be quilts.  That was all it took! 

Armed with my newly found "The Standard Book of Quilt Making and Collection" by Marguerite Ickes, copyright 1949, I set to work.   In quilts I have found a design structure and a connection to time past and to women's craft that are perfect accompaniments to my photographs.  I try my best to follow the quilt patterns but invariably get lost along the way and end up with an amalgamation of tradition and invention. 

My goal is to have five quilts finished in time for the August show Amy and I are having at Axel's Gallery.  Our shared penchant for mediating memory through the photograph will make for a dynamic show.