Treasure found

This is an antique quilt found at a thrift shop. When I saw it I could not believe my eyes but as often, I tend to first dismiss it. I took it home and looked at it carefully. It is covered with carefull red, white and blue stitches all done by hand ...millions of stitches! ...and there is so much more to it. It has these bands of paterns hand stitched as well, each band is a diferent patern, and it is very very old. I can't say how old but It has to be at least 19th century. It was once double it's size most likely but probably fell apart on one side and someone cut the edge of the bad part and refinished a smaller version of it by applying the edge strip to the cut edge of the salvaged side. The result is a slightly assimetrical design with an interrupted corner on one side(photo above) and proper wedged corners on the other. Looking at the material and looking at the colour theme and pattern, it looks like it could be even older than 19th cent...

But that may be wishful thinking!

If you know anything about this type of blanket, let me know. I did a search but have not come up with any worthy reference so far.

I will post a bunch of other picts on my flickr page...

Detail of new painting - "Life in the woods"

I was trying to describe today to a friend what this painting was about. I got caught in a web of long sentences that sounded intellectual and vague.

The thing is, my true voice IS my painting. Everything else is an interpretation. Words are so limited to what is habitual, the conventional. And lets face it, I am not that good at verbalizing my ideas... because... they are not ideas. And too many things wants to come out at the same time. I do notably better when I write. You can slow down, you can go back, re-organize things a bit!

...Like I do as I write this.

This painting is about all that is hiden in life in general, in nature in particular, in forest most specificaly. all that is hidden from us because of our very short range of sight, of hearing, of understanding. I am asking the viewer to look within at his/her own concept of a forest. Should one reconsider what we mean by forest? The question is hanging. You do not need to answer.

The answer is in the question, the question is the answer.
- you can see more details on flicker.

creative process

I am now looking at materials to find out what will work. I chose a scheme of blue white and a touch of red. but nothing is written in ink yet. it's just food for thought... literally!