Imagine, if you will, that you were in a foreign country and you stumbled upon a candy shop with 1000 types of candy and chocolate, sitting in big glass jars.
Imagine that you were so far away from home that you could order *anything* from that candystore, all mixed together in an insanely wild mashup of flavors and styles…and nobody would know but you.
Imagine that you didn't have to justify your choice to *anyone* at all. You could order all the things that piqued your interest, and walk out of the store with a big lovely mess in a brown paper bag. What would you do?
Tonight I attended a music festival with a group who did just that – and we all walked out with a head full of stars. We all carried home our invisible bags full of inspirational fireworks. It really just blew our mind – who would ever think to mix HipHop with Haydn???
As I listened to Stravinsky, Hungarian Rhapsody, and Gloria Gaynor's disco anthem "I Will Survive" in a brilliant improvised mashup, I started envisioning quilt genre mashups in my head.
Baltimore Album mixed with Hawaiian Quilting?
Trapunto mixed with Rag Quilting?
A Lone Star morphing with Bargello?
A Modern Quilt made with solids…and overripe watercolor florals?
Floral appliques made with yarn-dyed plaids?
(Actually – I've seen this at the Tokyo Quilt Fest)
String Piecing mixed with multi-layered tangled Celtic Knots?
Why Not?…or perhaps, Why Knot?
Luana
p.s. this photo was taken in a Dublin candy shop. The shopgirl had the biggest fake eyelashes I've ever seen in person. Somehow she looked just perfect with the hundreds of jars of colorful candy.
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You’re right. The shop lass’s eyelashes are perfect in the candy store setting – a continuation of the general splashiness. Thoroughly enjoyed the Hungarian Rhapsody. I’m Hungarian – doesn’t hurt that the violinist is so very handsome!
Thanks for another great blog, Luana!
Oh your idea of quilting mashups is wonderful.
I walked through my studio for a pair of pinking shears the other night and the place is a zoo full of scraps from making some small Amish-style one-block wallhangings… some summery floral wallhangings in yellow and blue… a couple of charm quilts made from vintage reproductions… a dive into Anna Griffin’s Honoka collection… a bunch of batik brights that got me safely once again from November into the wonderful light of January… and the inevitable pile of red, white and blue scraps from my annual 4th of July foray into folk-art flag-making.
All that was fun but I’ve been dodging that studio now for two straight weeks, basically thinking of it as “that mess in there.”
Now thanks to you, I’m inspired to make a big ol’ audio playlist including Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” (and thank you as well for that reference) and then go see converting some of those fabrics into a couple of midsummer mashups. There’s still a cleanup process involved but now I think it will be a lot of fun!
I can?t think of anything than staying at that store for the rest of my stay in that county. I am such a candy freak!