Done at last! Slipstream Adventure

The 2 left panels of Slipstream Adventure.
The 2 right panels. As soon as I get the REAL photography done I'll compose a single image that lines them all up. Right now I can't do that. This is the 4 panels hanging in my gallery at the front of the studio. As you can see I "wrapped" the third panel around the corner.

This is a detail shot showing the quilting as well as the foiling done with fusible thread.

I am so glad I did this huge project. As I was diving into it I was reminded of the whole house remodel I did in Florida several years ago. Each day it is just a matter of seeing where I was in the full scheme of the project. This project was started 6 months ago. I took off about 5 weeks overall. It's final size is 76" x 154" or about 6 1/2 ft x almost 13 ft.

There is a certain relationship one develops with a project of this magnitude. Understanding its parts and being able to break it down into those pieces is what makes it confrontable. Getting the sequence right is a bit trickier and involves being able to think several steps ahead of where you are. For instance-- I couldn't do the fusble thread/ foiling until I had already done the side binding because I wouldn't be able to press the whole piece once the foil was on it-- it would have melted back off and left a mess. Also-- thinking ahead far enough to tear off the side strips that became the facing before assembling the layers enabled me to have facings that matched the backs. This is something one learns from DOING.. as opposed to simply planning or thinking about it.

This project's inspiration came primarily from a vision I had of a coloration. On August 16th, 2007 I posted an image of a drawing I did with colored pencils. It was my initial vision of where this project was going. This isn't the first time I was inspired simply by wanting to see what happens when I put certain colors together. I'm not aware of other artists having this as an inspiration point. Perhaps it happens all the time. Maybe I'm just weird. I'm okay with that.

As I write this I am awaiting an offer from a prospective employer. I'm thinking my next piece will be along a theme of "When push comes to shove."-- which pretty much covers where things have been at. So I am thinking along the lines of the juxtapositioning of the desire to create art, the need to have an income and the irony that I've worked harder in the last 6 years than I have in my life and that none of those years count at all toward the needed credited quarters of "employment" that allows me to have earned the opportunity at 65 of using Medicare. I don't know about you-- I knew you had to earn social security. But I didn't know you had to earn Medicare. I thought you just paid for it every month. Seems like there is the potential for a social issue there. I never heard of someone not qualifying for Medicare--unless they were a foreign illegal or something.

Thanks for going the distance with me. I WILL have quality photos posted here as soon as I get them. I will include the backs as well. I love reading your comments and appreciate them immensely.