When I was a girl, I was a horse doodler. I would draw horses all day long…. in class, at home… was totally horse crazy. For my 12th Christmas I got an oil painting set and my first painting was of a ghostly white horse galloping across a cobalt-blue night landscape. The painting hangs over my desk at home.
Naturally, one of my favorite quilts in Houston was this large painted portrait of wild horses, by Laurie Britt.
Because of the size of this artwork, when standing in front of the piece, you feel like you are eye-to-eye with lifesize mustangs! Laurie's fine brushwork has as much detail as any human portrait.
There was a time when a painted art quilt like this caused quite a controversy. Some argued that painted quilts were not really quilts. Now there is a whole category of Painted Surface Art Quilts in the IQA show, thanks to pioneering artists such as Hollis Chatelain. Last week, Laurie's piece took First Prize in the painted category, after winning awards in previous regional shows.
For all you horse-lovers who are not ready to paint horse portraits, we've made a collage of the horse quilt in the center, and eQuilter horse fabrics all around. We love the Laurel Burch fantasy horses, slathered with gold metallic.
The other night I heard an owl hooting outside my window, and I thought of the lyrics of that Michael Martin Murphy song:
"By the dark of the moon I planted
But there came an early snow
There's been a hoot owl howlin' by my window now
For six nights in a row
She's coming for me I know
And on Wildfire we're both gonna go
PLEASE NOTE:
My Quilting Arts TV clip about the SAQA fundraiser collection with Andover is available now, plus 2 African Fabric videos with samples from my trip to South Africa.
