In the Detail

For me it's not the devil that's in the detail, but pure pleasure. I realized that again yesterday when I was blown away by the detailed hand stitching on several Japanese quilts made by Reiko Domon. Sadly although I took pictures I don't really want to show them here due to copyright restrictions so instead you're getting details from some of my own work.  But if you click on her name above it will take you to pictures of some of her work (I have been unable to find her own website so am assuming she doesn't have one).  I've always known that I love texture on my work. And the main reason for that is that I like people to be impressed by my work both from a distance but also from close-up. The distance impact is provided by colour but the close-up interest is due to hand stitching and beading. And I've come to realize that I find details fascinating.

The Colours of Alba detail

That doesn't only apply to my quilts but also to my photography. Last week, when the theme for the Calumet group on Blipfoto was landscape, I went out on purpose to capture views of the larger world, and although I did end up with some photographs I was quite pleased with, I'm nowhere as content with them as I am with some of my macro flower pictures such as the one seen above of the Fuchsia Quasar flowers.

Clouds canvaswork detail

I am happier immersed in a small world, filled with the finer points of life. I enjoy seeing on pictures what can barely be deciphered with the naked eye. I love getting close to a work of art and seeing each individual brush stroke and I am filled with great enthousiasm when I discover fine hand stitching and beading on a quilt and this also extends to my love for beadweaving using minuscule size 15 seed beads. This predilection for the small must be part of who I am and it has been influencing the way I make art and take photographs for as long as I have been doing both.

Snapshots detail

I'm sort of surprised that that knowledge has taken so long to finally reach my conscious mind but in truth I must have been aware of it for many years. It's the small things in life  that count for me, sometimes more than the larger picture. It's why I make art. I hope in some tiny way to make the world a more beautiful place, even if it's only on a very miniature scale compared to the size of the earth itself.

And finally if I'm not here as much as usual that will be due to the fact that we have a visitor to stay in the coming week but rest assured my Journal Quilt will be here this week (as it's finished already!) later on, and who knows I might have some pictures of outings although the weather today is as far from promising as it's possible to be!