A few years ago, I bought a foot-
wide pine board to use as a shelf.
I set it in the garage, months went
by, and when I got around to it, I
found that the board had warped.
I bought another board, mounted
the shelf, and the warped board sat
forgotten in a corner of the garage.
Early this year, my husband ordered
some bonsai tools, and they arrived
wrapped in Japanese newspaper.
Intrigued, I smoothed out the paper
and set it aside. Then the shutdown
happened. No weekly visits to local
quilt shops for that perfect piece of
fabric for my art quilts, no reason
to sew any garments since I’m
working from home, no wandering
up and down the aisles looking
for art supplies. Even trips to the
hardware store were fraught with
issues. I soon ran out of projects
and inspiration.
Rummaging around in the
garage, I came across the pine
board—but now it was bowed,
warped, twisted, doglegged, and
completely unusable. I thought,
well, if I cut it into random lengths,
I can use the scraps to try out
some collage techniques I’ve been
thinking about—like using that
Japanese newsprint. So I cut up
the board, selected a piece, and
using some liquid matte medium,
laminated the newsprint to the
board. It looked good, so I kept
going and applied some transparent
watery teal paint, then cut up some
greeting cards and glued those
down—I then thought that it sort
of looked like an underwater scene.
A koi fi sh was in order, so I cut up
some handprinted paper, edged
the pieces with gold paint, and
glued those down. Now I really
was having fun and added more
embellishments, attaching some
crystals for bubbles, a glass bead for
the fi sh eye, and painted in more
detail. I attached a length of chain
to the top for hanging.
Next, I used a smaller scrap, and
playing around with a magazine
cutout of an iron trellis, painted,
stenciled, spattered paint, and came
up with a peacock sitting on a
garden wall in the moonlight under
a starry sky. Another scrap yielded
a cockatoo perching beside a dahlia
blossom.
By now, Home Depot was
accessible, so I bought more boards,
and a frog resting under a bed of
fuchsias next to a musical score
soon followed. Then I went big
with a 2' x 2' MDF board; a large
bouquet of fantasy fl owers next to
a window looked a little sparse so
the fl owers were soon joined by a
collage of my kitty Annie made of
pages from an old math textbook
that I smeared with paint. I’m
just fi nishing a collage of a Lesser
goldfi nch nibbling the leaves off
some sunfl owers. I have so many
more projects planned.
How to explain this burst of
creativity? Using that warped
board—which wasn’t perfect, or
expensive, or artist quality—wasjust so freeing. I could try out
anything because it was ok to fail. If
it didn’t turn out well, I could just
toss it. If nothing else, it might lead
to a new idea. Having the restriction
of using only what I had on hand
turned out to be a fun design
challenge.
Especially freeing was starting
without a plan. As an engineer,
that’s just a nutty idea on the face
of it, but letting go of preconceived
notions is working for me right
now. My general thought about
the vase of fl owers was to have a
bird in the window, but the bird
idea turned into my kitty, and the
fi nished collage now makes me
so happy. The frog collage started
out with a photo of a Mendelssohn
score which appeared in a
newspaper article about composers’
manuscripts. Pacifi c Coast tree
frogs are everywhere in my garden
and very noisy in the spring, which
made me think of the book FROG
MUSIC that I just read, so the score
became a backdrop to the frog and
the fuchsias in my shade garden.
We don’t know what the future
holds in store for us during this
pandemic. Focusing in on cutting
tiny scraps of paper, mixing paint
colors, choosing fabric scraps for
art quilts, and living in the moment
relieves my anxiety. I am truly
grateful for many things, not the
least of which is having a hobby
that gives me so much pleasure.the last word.
BY KATHLEEN LASSLEHaven’t you been quilting long enough to
start thinking about your own creative
legacy? Submit your complete essay
(up to 800 words) along with a
low-resolution image to
[email protected]
with “the last word” in the subject line.