Bull’s Eye #2: Freedom

Here is one of the quilts I’ve been keeping in hiding for more than a year! I started making this quilt in May 2014, so it’s nice to finally be able to show it on my blog. This quilt, Bull’s Eye #2: Freedom, is part of Nancy Crow’s Circular Abstraction: Bull’s Eyes Quilts which is currently on display at the Muskegon Museum of Art. This quilt is 83″ square. I had it hanging in my living room for a while, and it seems massive, at least for me. Most of my quilts are closer to “poster-size.”

It was so fun to make this quilt. It is a continuation of the Bull’s Eye quilt I made for my “Foreign Language series.” Nancy Crow invited 43 different artists to make quilts for this exhibit that she wanted to put together. We were given pretty loose guidelines. Each quilt had to be between 80″ to 84″ square. Each had to be based on the traditional Bull’s Eye quilt block. It was to consist of four Bull’s Eye blocks, each with four quadrants. Beyond that, we could do whatever we wanted. I enjoy pattern and repetition, so I decided to use commercially printed fabrics like polka dots or stripes, along with solids. My goal was to try to deconstruct the printed fabrics so they no longer looked like the original. Naturally I ended up buying way more fabric that I will likely use in my lifetime, but it was so fun to try to use each in a unique way. I decided to use primarily black and white so I could just concentrate on playing with new combinations and new ideas without worrying too much about color.