Braquesin, Sara's Modern Quilt

I struggled with this theme for quite a while. modern is an often used word that describes many things. I remember listening to a Lecture at the first QuiltConn gathering in Texas on "what is modern". The speaker referenced art movements at the turn of the century - the nineteenth to twentieth century, when the traditional French art Salon was challenged. I mulled over the different art movements and fretted over what I was going to do for most of the time we had to do this quilt. Over the New Years Weekend, my husband I went to Little Rock, Arkansas to attend a wedding. while there we visited an art museum that had a collection set up in historical order. I was really entranced by an engraving by George's Braque. Braque and Picasso developed the cubist movement of Modern Art, 

I did an on-line Google Image search and found several examples of Braques' engravings. One that I find particularly captivating is "FOX" as seen at http://www.artvalue.com/photos/auction/0/54/54968/braque-georges-1882-1963-franc-fox-3596064.jpg . 

Rather than copy this piece, I created a sketch inspired by it. I used black and white cotton. The black lines and arcs were cut from black fabric fused to Steam A Seam. I secured all the pieces with straight stitches using black rayon thread through all 3 layers of the 11 by 14 inch quilt. I added lines using grey rayon that are reminiscent of the shading in Braques' etchings. I wanted to add text but not use the word "fox" so I quilted in my name. The background is quilted with random lines in white rayon.

I am not a cubist but I really enjoy compositions created with moving lines and it was a lot of fun to start with the inspiration of an image and take it in a different direction.