Something blue

This is "Deep Blue Yonder" by Christine Restall. She brought it to show'n'tell at London Quilters and it was part of the Quilters' Guild "Connected" Challenge at the (first) Festival of Quilts in 2003.

The catalogue from that challenge surfaced this morning, coincidentally with a discussion on AQL of what makes a quilt an art quilt. The discussion is ranging thoughtfully through craft, design, intention, materials, techniques -- and of course the position of quilts in the craft and/or art world (just can't get away from that one!).In regard to starting points for quilts (a new twist on a pattern, followed by another twist, and another? seeing two fabrics together and thinking Hmm that's interesting? the burning need to voice some passionate belief?) -- does an ART quilt (or indeed any piece of art) have to start with an idea, with content, rather than from putting shapes, colours, fabrics together? Can communicating a thought or an emotion happen even though the starting point might have been, eg, happening to be sorting out all your blue fabrics after you saw one of Yves Klein's deeply blue paintings, and suddently wanting to make a piece that has the same luxurious enveloping effect? I don't know if this is how Christine's "Deep Blue Yonder" came about, but in her artist's statement she says: "I wanted to make an extremely blue quilt, connected with the unexplored mysteries of deep space and deep ocean; also with the ultramarine depths of Yves Klein's paintings". The quilt does convey that kind of mystery -- she has artfully arranged things so that it does.