Quilts
A beginning with fabric and color
CARLA CORBIN, 2019 – 2021
Four Trees, Four Seasons
Size: 24” x 34,” 2019
I had never made a quilt. No quilts were passed down in our family; for additional winter warmth we had my father’s Army blankets.
When the compulsion to do something with fabric made itself felt, I started browsing local fabric stores and looking at quilt magazines. Two new pieces of information: quilts were the medium for arty work on fabric, and quilts could be hung on the wall, and thus did not need to be bed-sized.
On the Banks of the River of Time
Size: 41” x 29,” 2020; In the collection of Monica Kindraka
I think in terms of place: tangible, bump-into-things places, imaginary places, or places that might exist for a season, or at a particular time of day. The ‘river’ in this piece was essential to get the composition to work, and while the idea of time as a river is not new, it’s appealing to think of the banks of the river as quiet places outside of time, for sitting still, observing, catching one’s breath.
[The reference to time came from an impulse to include circle elements – which further into the process, hinted at clock faces.]
Where the Sidewalk Ends
Size: 27″ x 48,” 2020
Made in a dyeing workshop, this cloth bore the distinctive patterns of experimental, random printing.
As I cut up elements for re-organizing, a story line and place began to emerge, which gave the composition a place to go. Some printed shapes resembled paving bricks, and the sweeps of green on other pieces could be grass, or simply a stand-in for nature. This became an idea of a liminal place, a threshold, where the bricks begin to run out, removed or broken, and growing things begin to take over. Out here on the edge of town, I envisioned a view toward a secret sunny meadow, a place of airy light, open and softly green.
The name pays homage to Shel Silverstein, who was also a fine cartoonist.
There’s No Place Like Home
18″ x 18,” 2021
“. . . the house protects the dreamer,
the house allows one to dream in peace.”
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
The idea of dwelling – where we spend time, eat, sleep and feel safe, invests these containers, or structures, with meaning beyond the simple function of shelter. Dwelling over time accumulates memories, which are anchored to place – to the successive places we’ve felt at home, where both dreams and memories might have shelter. In this piece I was thinking about the many ways dwelling places can be contingent – maybe a little tilted, not fully enclosed, or lacking a door.
Detail shown above
