25 June 2012

Which book?

For the upcoming "untutored session" at CQ's summer school at lovely Alston Hall (in Lancashire), I've been going through my bookshelves looking for a book to bring and share with contemporary quilters. One book? I'd like to take all of these -
 Jun Kaneko's ceramics with their wonderful patterns; Munakata's fabulous woodcuts; El Anatsui's scrap-metal "cloths" -- these are all quilt inspiration. And Barbara Lee Smith's "Celebrating the Stitch" (embroidery) is a book I keep going back to with pleasure.

That's not all that's on my shortlist -
Sean Scully is an obvious quilt inspiration, in terms of easy-to-piece shapes, but his colours are an education in themselves. Denise Lach shows how calligraphy can hide, or over-ride, the "text" in "texture". Aboriginal art in its many varieties always amazes me, especially the large-scale work of Dorothy Napangardi - and the little "Twmps" book has David Nash's charcoal drawings of the wonderful hedges at Powis Castle, which I eventually visited on a gloomy November afternoon and photographed but did not draw.

Some of these have a large dose of nostalgia in their selection criteria (and why not?) - the Nash and the Smith (a gift from a friend); the Napangardi (souvenir of trip to Australia); the El Anatsui (another gift); the Munakata (I missed the exhibition); the Lach (linked to my writing/drawing essay).

Four more days before The Book has to be chosen, the suitcase packed...

1 comment:

Cate Rose said...

Wonderful links, thanks. I so wish I were going to CQ with you! Have a blast.