Dislocation Dejection

I was rather disappointed not to have my entry' Hidden Fractures'  selected for the CQ 'Dislocation' challenge to be exhibited at the  Festival of quilts but with 79 submitted and space for only 44, and an incredibly diverse selection ( see the website here), the judges had a  tough job!  My quilt was also difficult to photograph well being so dark and with a  floating organza layer which gave almost a 3d effect, much  more intriguing in the flesh. With more and more quilt exhibition juried by photo it leaves me with a dilemma . This quilt was an experiment, trying out new techniques and effects  and I'm increasingly using indigo fabrics where the colours and tones are subtle and often difficult to get good photographs. With juried exhibitions selecting from photos looking for impact, do I  really want to make work specifically that  will photograph well at the expense of working to my own criteria?
Anyway  a bit  about the quilt. It was  inspired by marks on cloth: this piece of cloth from bought from Jo Lovelock, and  a piece of my own  indigo arashi shibori  dyed brown silk organza.  Searching the internet for photos linked with dislocation brought up various MRI  scans and X-rays of dislocated bones which these fabrics reminded me of. A few years ago I had a 'mallet injury' of my left hand pinkie  and  had a sneaky look at my x-rays  on the way between hospitals.   It was a very peculiar angle and required splinted strapping for 6 weeks. I briefly considered that as a quilt but decided on something more abstract related to it.

I cut up the fabric and rearranged it  and after a bit of a search managed to track down the right colour of blue threads to machine stitch with

Once  quilted ( I particularly liked the 12wt Wonderfil ) I  took photos of  the 4 different permutations of the indigo organza over the top, spending quite a while deciding which I liked best.

Deciding how to 'float' the organza over the top was quite a challenge - I tried samples with machine stitching the edges or raw and then  decided on hand rolling ( I used to be quite an expert when I made my own scarves from yardage) - time consuming given I was running against a tight deadline  but I'm getting to be a bit of a perfectionist. And then I had  to work out how to attach it by stitching it into the facing ( the bottom took 3 attempts, 1 too loose, 1 too tight!)

Artist Statement:

Inspired by accidental marks on cloth reminiscent of bone fractures and dislocations revealed through X-rays and MRI scans.
Even with modern scanning techniques, detection depends on the experience and interpretation of the viewer.

Tray-dyed cotton sateen fabric dyed by Jo Lovelock cut up and reassembled, machine stitched with 12wt and 40wt cotton threads. Floating top layer of silk organza with hand-rolled hems, attached at top and bottom, hand-dyed with indigo using arashi shibori.