When many people talk about "representational" quilts they mean those that are relatively accurate pictures of people, places or things. But I also would define it to include pieces with identifiable pictures embedded in a nonrepresentational background. And defining it that way allows me to show you some quilts that I found particularly appealing at Quilt National.
I don't know what the story is, but there are clues -- several beautiful dresses, a couple of guys smoking cigars. It's one of those quilts that makes you keep looking, trying to identify more of the little pictures.
The more I looked, the more I loved this quilt. I could even make a case for it to receive a big award.
I've known Shelley's work for a lot longer than I have known her in person, and this is a little different from most of the pieces she's made in recent years -- darker, smaller, but equally mysterious. Like Lorie, she tells stories whose meaning the viewer can only guess at. Here the hands, the child's silhouette, the suns, emerge from the abstract background to tease us.
In many ways I find these quilts with just a bit of representation more intriguing than those where the narrative is plonked out there for everybody to see. What do you think?
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