A weekend with Laura Cater-Woods

A piece of work is not art until it has been seen by someone other than the maker. - Laura Cater-Woods

This past weekend workshop Tempting the Muse with Laura Cater-Woods was one of the most worthwhile that I have attended. Laura is a generous teacher who works with each person individually in whatever creative place the student finds herself at that moment. Laura brings her own personal aesthetic to the classroom and at the same time works to create respect and openness for what each person is doing. There was much emphasis on the creative process and less on the finished work. Laura pushed each participant to enter into conversation with her work and encouraged us not to plan everything out in advance or try to control the process. I recommend this teacher to anyone who is ready to stretch themselves.

For my piece I generated a drawing from this photo of a wool blanket. I like the undulation and the depth of field created by the angle at which the photograph was taken and decided to try to recreate this in a small quilt.



For colour I let myself be inspired by this photo of the Guggenheim modern art museum in Bilbao, Spain. Here is my work in progress. The size is approximately 12 inches square.



In my mind the undulation of colour could be a blanket, or rolling hills, or mounds of sand in the desert. In the upper right corner I want to create the impression of a night sky. I would like to work with this idea again, play more with gradations of colour and the perception of depth. I would like to try working only with earth tones, such as the shades of oranges, greens and browns seen in landscapes photographs of places like Antelope Canyon or the Painted Desert in Arizona, USA.