If You Could See Me Now

I have been convalescing from a cold I caught while in NJ, and today I spent time at the studio regrouping after some weeks away. It's hard for me to jump right in, especially with my current low energy levels, but I wanted to be back in my creative space, even if I wasn't going to be cranking out a new quilt right away.

I sat and leafed through the latest issue of Quilting Arts Magazine and read about the power of sketching to keep your creative juices flowing. The writer of the article also suggested collaging and creating altered books. A light went on in my head, and I was off to the nearby flea market to collect old magazines. I returned with a pile of issues of National Geographic, Islands, Southern Living, InStyle and some others, plus a 2006 ring-bound calendar titled American Impressionism.

It felt great just to sit and play with images, without committing myself to the thought process of designing a new quilt. I let the images call to me from the pages of the magazine and soon I had transformed the calendar's cover photo of Frederick Carl Frieseke's Woman with a Parasol into this: