Yesterday my mom and I went to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum (check out their search feature, they have tons of pictures of quilts). It was so cool. The main exhibition they had was called Evolution, so all the quilts were art quilts meant to reflect that theme. These were truly works of art with mixed media (lots of painting), and machine and hand quilting together. It showed me the more artistic limit of what quilting can be – meanwhile I’m hanging out on the more “function over form” side. We saw some really intricate strip piecing (some strips were 1/10th of an inch wide, which is crazy thin) and some cool improv/random piecing. Some people included different types of threads, types of fabric – like cotton with silk and organza, and lots of fun applique. There was an incredible mandala type quilt with buttons, a piece that looked like an abstract painting, and improv/cut up strip piecing to recreate geologic formations.

What my mom and I noticed, apart from the art, was that a lot of the quilters hailed from scientific fields – the quilt that won the exhibition was a former molecular bioscientist, she carved a wood block depicting mitosis, printed it on her fabric, and then quilted it (below).

The one that struck me the most was this koi fish quilt called Ritsurin in the Rain by Martha Wolfe. It has a pieced background with appliqued fish, covered with organza, then quilted with “rain” lines and “ripples”. I’ve been thinking about using organza over a landscape applique to mimic a sunbeam, and seeing it in person confirmed that it could work. And the fish! They’re made with layered applique, so each of the patches on the fish is a different piece of fabric, all (I assume) fused together and then placed on the background.

Needless to say, I will definitely be going back when they rotate exhibitions. The talent – and vision – of these artists is insane.