Oysterville, WA ~ Then and Now

Art Quilt maps are a way to create a visual of a place.  Designing with the element parameters of maps as we know them provides the viewer with a universal context in which to view the art.  All that said, this piece, Oystervile, Now and Then, was a creative and fun adventure for me.  I love the concept of layers and I enjoy adding detail to enhance design elements in a piece.

Last January I took a class with Valerie Goodwin which provided the techniques for this piece as well as inspiration for it's design.  If you ever have a chance to attend a class with Valerie, I do highly recommend her.  Ms. Goodwin also has written a concise book giving step by step easy to follow directions with illustrated details called "Art Quilt Maps ~ Capture A Sense Of Place With Fiber Collage - A visual Guide."

Oysterville, Now and Then depicts a loose interruption from an arial map of Oysterville, WA.  Photos were incorporated to give a sense of time between the present and the past history of the land and the Willapa bay that surrounds it. The Bard-Heim Barn was a dairy barn once located on the property where my brother and his wife now reside. The photo of the old barn was the perfect representational element for time past. While the street map of the village is fairly accurate, I did allow artist license when selecting placement details of current elements such as structures and topography on the art map collage.

Oysterville, Now and Then, will be shown as a part of the Peninsula Quilt Guild entry into the Special Exhibits at the Northwest Quilting Expo in Portland Oregon on September 24 - 26, 2015.  After the show the art quilt will go to a private collector in Oysterville, WA.

The Making Of An Art Quilt Map Collage ....

The background was created using scrapes of cotton fabric sewn to a stabilizer.  I chose crinoline as the stabilizer.

Fabric Background Construction

Background with Photo for Placement

Hand Stitching

Once the background for the map is flip sewn, then the raw edges was were hand stitched.  The next step include painting the background.  While the amount of paint, color  and placement are choices, I choose to cover the entire background lightly.  Dye-Flow fabric paint by Jaquard was watered down and extended with Golden's Gac100 medium.

Construction - Back Lit

Construction - Back Lit

Painted Background Foundation

To construct the roads I used crinoline.  Elements such as roads can be made by painting as well.  I like the texture that the crinoline adds.

Crinoline Place on top of Map

Removal of extra Crinoline

Roads Sewn from Backside

The final touches were fusing shear layers, adding structures, hand stitching and embellishing.  The house, the barn and the mariner's compass were painted first and then hand appliqued to the map.

Oysterville ~ Now and Then

Detail

Detail

Wikipedia:
"Oysterville is located at 46°32'56" North, 124°1'36" West (46.549021, -124.026735) on the Long Beach Peninsula. Oysterville is located on the east side of the (north-south running) peninsula, on the shallow and sheltered Willapa Bay.

Oysterville was first settled in 1841 by John Douglas, who married a local Chinook woman. Oysterville was established and named in 1854 by J.A. Clark. It was a hub of oyster farming as the name suggests."