IQF portrait quilts, part 6

Another day of portrait quilts from the International Quilt Festival in Houston. All of the quilts I’ve shown you have been part of the judged competition. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on that wall? I would be fascinated to hear the discussion that must go on between the judges when they are trying to choose which quilt will be awarded which ribbon. It must be so difficult!

Consider this amazing work called “Wisdom” by Jennifer Day. It is a digitally printed photo of an 82 year old man. She thread painted it with over 4000 yards of thread and over four million stitches (some machines will count your stitches). I really enjoyed studying it. How can I even describe it? The attention to detail is phenomenal. She said she used 51 different colors of thread and it took 96 hours to complete.

I really enjoy the work of Joan Sowada, too. She works with commercially printed fabric to create her quilts. For this quilt, she says she used images of herself as a child, a teenage, in midlife, and also of her elderly aunt. Her color palette, she explains, typifies the plains of Wyoming where she’s lived the last 33 years. I don’t know for sure, but the fabrics look like they may have been recycled from actual clothing. I like how Joan has used a variety of scale throughout her piece.

(As mentioned previously, according to IQA’s quilt photography rules, “If you post your photos to your personal web site, you must include appropriate credit for each quilt artist, and note that the photos were taken at International Quilt Festival.”)