Thursday, March 7, 2013

Challenge

Southern Cross Quilters Melbourne CBD group have included me in their challenge this year, despite the fact that work stops me attending the monthly meetings. I received this piece of fabric in the mail today:
The challenge instructions are that we should:
"Use it as a starting point for something, totally free choice on the item eg hat, bag, clothing, runner, quilt etc. You can use the fabric or not, but you must reflect the work in your final piece. The finished works will be revealed at our Christmas lunch, and then it is a free swapping among participants. If you like someone else's you can ask for a swap."

I don't know how many different works of art are represented  One member posted hers on her blog here:  Degas.

Mary Cassatt was new to me, so I had to do a bit of googling. She was an American who lived from 1844 - 1926. Most of her adult life was spent in France, and she became well known as an Impressionist painter. Lots of her works feature women and children. I must admit that the image on the piece of fabric isn't the most beautiful picture. But when I searched for the original I discovered much more depth and subtlety in the colours. It is from painting called Summertime, which she painted in 1894:
I found both the image above and below online. Which one's colours are most like the original I wouldn't know, but either of them look nicer than the fabric interpretation.

So sometime between now and Christmas, I need to produce something inspired in some way by this work. It will be an interesting challenge!

4 comments:

jacaranda said...

Glad you received yours, I haven't got around to googling yet but will go to the library to see what I can find. This will be one challenge that requires some thought, looking forward to it.

Anonymous said...

What an interesting challenge.

I found this reproduced in a book, and the colors were bluer than all your examples, but closer to the bottom one.

Vireya said...

Thanks for that! It sounds like the I can ignore the colours in the fabric version, then.

Dee said...

There were actually 2 versions of this scene painted by her. "Summertime" and "Summertime 2", which accounts for at least some of the variations one can find on the internet.