Carole Lyles Shaw

Friday evening I had the pleasure of attending the opening reception for fellow art quilter Carole Lyles Shaw's exhibit "Memories and Dreams 2006" at the Touchstone Gallery here in D.C. Carole's art quilts have been seen in numerous publications and exhibits and she has been in all of the Mazloomi exhibits of African American art quilters. She is quite an art quilting force. She also started the website africanamericanartquilt.com, which I've mentioned in an eariler post.

Her collages were both dreamy and vibrant, some incorporating photo transfer portraits of her family. My favorite was the rose-colored "sunrise" collage. When I saw it (and not the title), I thought of sunset at first. I interviewed her about her work and art quilting and you will be able to hear it on the next Sew Chick podcast. One thing we talked about that's not on the podcast is her transitioning to collage work. She feels that she is doing fewer art quilts and more collage work. Her creative priorities have shifted and collage work is what she is feeling right now. Art quilts only comprised two of the works that she had present and I told her that you can see how one medium influences the other in her work. After all, quilting is a form of collage.

My friend Nicole likes to say that as artists, we go through creative periods where we reach a point that we are "done" with a particular form of expression and we move on. Perhaps we might come back to it again in the future, but it's the current form of expression that works for us and allows us to "get it out." As artists, I feel that sometimes you to have to challenge yourself in order to propel yourself forward. It's what keeps you from stagnating creatively.