On one of the quilters lists to which I subscribe there has been quite a bit of discussion recently about how quilters go about naming their works – someone commented that ‘Untitled’ is a bit of a cop out – and yet, at least with such a title the viewer’s mind is then free to roam around the impressions created by the work without being influenced or inded puzzled by the title.

One quilter even asked other readers to check her website and help her name a recently finished piece pictured there ….. does this mean the work is a collaboration between artist and the one who supplied the final name? To me, choosing a title even a blah one like ‘Untitled’ is part of the creative process, as important as signing the completed work. I enjoy all the processes of making a piece, and I jot down words and ideas in my mind while I am making it, so that generally by the time I get to the end, the title has worked itself to the top of the list. To me, a satisfactory title is like a mini-statement, and IMHO all that is needed to assist the viewer regarding a particular work. People who know me know that I don’t care for wordy artist statements about every work, since so many of them are literary fabrications, so often a whole of of artspeak that may or may not offer the viewer any connection to what they are seeing. And a major pet peeve is the confusion many quilt artists display with them, often filling the allocated space with technical construction and process details, for want of anything else meaningful to say in terms of inspiration or personal feeling contained in the work. Climb down off soapbox…. er hem.

Very big this winter in the leather shops here in Montevideo are suede outfits, blouse amd shirt type tops and skirts with decorative punched hole edges ….. these and my growing collection of lacy samples are clearly influencing me … plus many fibre artists are making ‘lace’ out of all kinds of stuff, so why not leather … I am thinking seafoam, coastal landforms and topographic maps … landlace perhaps? Anyway the pile of little circular cutouts and slivers trimmed from what I am working on grows by the hour. the hands are aching a little, or perhaps this is the onset of cooler weather… but the leather punch is such fun. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 25th, 2006 at 9:42 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.