Mondrian I

It has been sitting around almost-done for a long time, but a few weeks ago I finished the piece I'm calling "Mondrian I."  It's a rendering of Mondrian's Composition in Red, Yellow, Blue, and Black in scrap corduroy.  This is admittedly kind of a weird concept, but... well, you be the judge, jury and executioner.  The title "Mondrian I" kind of gives away the secret that I'm thinking of doing more Mondrianana.*

Here's the real deal, right, for a point of comparison.  The altered palette was driven mostly by the particular box of scrap fabric that happened to wash up in my attic -- a large box worth found by Mrs.5000 at an estate sale for a buck a few years back -- but I think really gives the fabric rendition a nice identity all its own.  The quilting follows the nap of the corduroy at roughly the width of the black framing pieces, all of which are cut so that their grain runs up-and-down, regardless of whether they are horizontal or vertical pieces.

Dimensions: 58" x 58"

Batting: A thin mattress pad from "the bins" -- this is a 100% scrap-and-salvage quilt.

Backing: A sheet of scrap khaki.

* I made up this word!  Like it?

Neoplasticism 2.0

Synchronicity, part 1

So last summer Mrs.5000 found this big box of scrap corduroy for a buck at a garage sale and hefted it home a good mile or something so she could give it to me for my birthday. Mrs.5000 understands me.

Meanwhile, in 1921, Piet Mondrian painted one of his famous grids of rectangles and primary colors. (Neoplasticism, I think the genre is called. The de Stijl movement! i iz likes art history.) This particular one is usually called Composition in Red, Yellow, Blue, and Black.

Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

And so eventually the idea of "What shall I do with the corduroy?" rattling around in my head ran up hard against the idea of "you know, of all the painting genres, the de Stijl stuff is the one that would be most susceptable to a treatment in quilt form. From that collision was born a Bee in my Bonnet*, which involved compulsive internet searches for the simpler of Mondrian's work and appraising sorting of my corduroy trove.

Once I found Composition, I transferred its grid onto graph paper, made some very rough color equivalences, and started cutting. And when I say "rough" color equivalences, I mean a not-as-light-as-it-could be grey for white, burgandy for red, golden tan for yellow, and a dark, greenish blue for blue.


Nevertheless, I am very happy with my little "Mondrian Quilt" face. Indeed, I bet its one of the best adaptations of Mondrian in scrap corduroy to have been achieved on the West Coast this year!

Next question: how am I going to quilt this sucker? I guess I'll have to try to be guided by the obvious question: How would Mondrian quilt it?

Also:

The is the 100th State of the Craft post. Huzzah!