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The Rich Quilt Colors
June 2005
Once again this year, our Mountain Culture Festival will feature the Great Catskill Mountain Quilt Show. The Festival will take place on July 9th and 10th on the grounds of the Catskill Mountain Foundation’s Red Barn Performing Arts Center in the Village of Hunter. The two large rooms in the red barn will again be filled with a display of beautiful quilts. The images in this portfolio are of a few of the quilts that will be included in the show.
The quilts feature a broad range of images, bright colors and impressive techniques. We’re delighted to see creative artists finding delightful forms to decorate their surfaces while making the most of traditional concepts. For this portfolio we have chosen details of several quilts, and in two instances are showing different images of the same work to highlight parts of the quilts that we particularly like.
Our cover image is a beautiful pattern of leaves. The artist, Ann Casey, calls her work “Fabulous Fall Leaves,” and she has enriched her design by dividing her leaves into two parts, each with a different color. If one looks at the work carefully one can discover compositions with striking decorative qualities. The squares in which four images of leaves are laced are framed by brown outlines, and there are many imaginative designs on the surfaces.
On the left side of the next spread is “Swing Into Summer,” by Betty Verhoeven. Here the artist has shown great skill in the many different details of the image—the girl on the swing with a brightly patterned dress, the flowers in the garden, the rich foliage on the tree and even the river in the background. On the right side of the spread is a detail of a quilt with an unusual image of a girl with flowing hair apparently flying in the air with stars all around her. Entitled “The Guardians,” it was created by Diana Repinz, with sweeping curves that harmonize with each other.
In the next spread we see two images of a quilt called “Wild About Florida,” by Pamela Harmon. On the left, two birds appear to be on the shore, one walking swiftly forward while the other has apparently just landed. The rich green foliage in the background gives a strong character to the image. On the right, there is another delightful image of a bird with a long beak and curving neck, shown surrounded by leaves and flowers.
Then we show two images of “Periwinkle,” by Nicole Rowland. On the left we see how the repetition of forms creates a double pattern—the forms themselves and the star-like frames between them. In the detail on the right, we discover that the forms have eight sides and feature well-designed qualities on their surfaces. The star-like frames have patterns within them, with different colors and textures.
We end with a detail of “Swing Into Summer,” by Betty Verhoeven, a delightful forest-like landscape, with a pattern of leaves covering the surface and details of a landscape in the background. The colors are particularly rich, with different shades of green and yellow, with a strong brown trunk of a tree on the left and pink and blue colors seen in the distance.
--David Finn
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