In keeping with our Day of the Dead theme, we are featuring a quilt from artist Sandy Small Proudfoot. Sandy hails from the town of Mono, in the province of Ontario, Canada. She taught quiltmaking in Toronto for 10 years, during which time she was accepted into the very selective Ontario Art and Design University, where she earned a diploma. Her quilts have been juried into worldwide Mancuso quilt shows. As you can see below, she has a wonderful sense of style and perspective.
Many thanks to Sandy for her generosity in sharing her photos and descriptions with Quilt Inspiration!
Electronic Intrusion by Sandy Small Proudfoot ,Ontario, Canada.
Long-arm machine quilted by Mary Light, Ontario, Canada
Sandy writes, "Cell phones are both a blessing and a curse.
Distracted driving often ends up in fatalities and life-changing
accidents. This quilt, while addressing the subject in a somewhat
playful manner, speaks to the improper use of electronic devices. The portrayal
of the pre-Columbian festival Dia de Los Muertos (Mexican Day of the Dead) finds a
sugar-masked corpse hanging from a cross of cellphones.The depth on the skeleton’s shroud was attained through three dimensional
placing of the cloth by softly folding the material vertically.
Tiny cadavers
dance mischievously amongst brightly coloured marigolds, the Flor de
Muerton/Flowers of the Dead which decorate cemeteries at festival time.
Set against a lively print background depicting the vibrational energy emitted
by cellphones, it is a reminder that distracted driving can end in tragedy."
She continues, " I
work in the old fashioned way of applique, always, hand turning the edges,
adjusting my curves with my needle. I no longer press the individual
patches given that the material used during the decade of the nineteen-seventies
was a cotton-polyester broadcloth, (one hundred percent cotton was difficult to
find during that period of time unfortunately) and because of the difficulty of
working with this cloth, I used to press each patch with a hot steam iron, thus,
without knowing, I was releasing the toxic material from my cloth into my
respiratory system. It has impacted on my health since that
time.
What a creative way to emphasize a very important message! This design is extremely innovative and original, especially the way that the
dark cross exemplifies the screen of a cell phone with its colored
apps. Sandy has created an excellent sense of dimensionality, with the blue
background which looks like the heavens lit from behind the sky, and
the skeleton with its shroud looks very three-dimensional also. We
really like the brilliant use of contrasting colors to show the Flor de
Muertos, or the marigolds at the base of the cross, with the dancing
cadavers.
Sandy's quilt really caught our eye, because of its color, symmetry, and design elements. The deep blue background fabric which represents the heavens looks as if it has been lighted from behind, which enhances the bright orange and green buttons of the cellphones. We think her work is exceptional !
Sandy would also like to thank those quilt artists and designers who
accepted her invitation to teach at the First Canadian Quilt Conference, which Virginia Avery later termed, a Symposium. Sandy says, " Without the impact of seeing the work of Jean Ray Laury, Beth
and her then husband, Jeffery Gutcheon, Virginia and Michael James, I would not
have been so inspired in realizing that a quilt was more than just two layers of
cloth with batting in between, but that a quilt was also a form of art and
design. It wasn’t something I’d related to before as I was a
traditionalist in my teaching and making quilts. Jean, Jeffery and
Virginia are honoured in the Quilters Hall of Fame now and although names that
may not be familiar to quilters today, they were the forerunners of a very
different style of design created on quilts during the early part of the
nineteen-seventies and thereafter."
Image credits: Images are shown with permission of Sandy Small Proudfoot. All Rights Reserved.
