I've just spent two days at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham (UK), and as ever was totally amazed and awed at the standard of work displayed there. Some beautifully made traditional quilts, and many, many highly original, expressive and creative pieces. That's started me musing on creativity and originality. I suspect that my work is craft rather than art - I follow patterns and my original input comes from choices of colour, quilting stitches and threads - and is limited by my skill level. Many of the works on display in Birmingham were original pieces of art.
Now, I'm not in any way putting down the craft approach - I get endless enjoyment and fulfillment from what I do, and was in awe of the standard of some of the traditional work on display. But how to move into the more original work? I wonder if I just lack some artistic, creative spark that gives the artists who produce these stunning pieces their imagination and vision.
Would love to hear people's thoughts on this.

I consider myself a crafter also. I think art can be learned to a point, but after that innate talent takes the lead. Anyone can expand their abilities, but I do think everyone has a unique set of skills and abilities and no two persons are the same. But, when we love what we do, it shows :-)

That is definitely food for thought...however, to me it is all art. Whether following a pattern, or designing our own, our input or individuality makes each quilt different and unique. Unless it is a kit, and even then, no two would be exactly the same, we all add just that little bit of spice to the projects. So whether it is a child's finger painting, a popsicle stick birdhouse , a wool penny rug or a quilt, as long as we are making something that we really enjoy doing, I consider it art. From the most basic to the most ornate, it is still art.

But, looking at your avatar, Nance-ell, I'd say your were an artist, with that inspired use of colours!

Aww, thanks!

I agree! I think of it as art, we cut up fabric so we can put it back together in a different pattern and use many colors. :)

I agree with Sew southern we are all artist to some point.

when you think of it we paint with fabric not so much on fabric.
tho I am going to try my hand a painting on fabric. I have a few ideas in my head I just nead some time to spare to do something about it.

I agree with this. Technique and practice can go a very long way, but it takes an inborn talent to really elevate it to art. I can wield a paintbrush, I can learn about the proper way to hold it and move the paint around the canvas, but I will never, ever be Rembrandt or Van Gogh.

I'm not diminishing what anyone does. I agree that every quilt we make is very personal and unique, whether the pattern is published or original. However, I can't compare anything I make to, say, one of Jinny Beyer's. Some people just have a unique vision when it comes to composition and design.

I feel most people have it but are afraid to try using it. When you sit with fabric, do you never get those little ideas I could make this and put on this material? Then you go settle for a pattern and forget the idea. Today, try something different. Cut a circle and put it on any old leftover square. Just see what that might trigger. Remember, that circle does not have to be perfect, we are doing art. Add a triangle. Listen for the little voice in your head and play. Suddenly you will see something you like, sew it down and you will have created your first art square. Artists play, throw logic and symmetry to the wind,just try.

One of the best comparisons of art vs. craft I have seen over the years is this.

Art:
Creative, unique original
Comes from within
Open-ended, end results unknown
Process is valued over finished product
Self-expression

Craft:
Similar, or identical, to the work of others
Directed from others
Closed, directions-oriented, end results known
Finished product is valued over process
Copying and imitating

I believe that when your creative decisions are based on the principles and elements of design, whether conscious or intuitive, the result is art…good or bad. The artist follows rough trails along the way often branching off in new directions, and there is joy in the exploration.

When your decisions are chop, cut and rebuild according to provided directions, the result is craft…good or bad. The crafter sticks to marked highways with Trip-Tiks from the auto club, and the joy is in reaching the destination.

Artists, craftsmen, crafters, there is room for all and a need for all. Follow the path that suits you best, just as you do with the other aspects of your life. :D

I'm more of the art type. The few quilts I've made according to the pattern all had my fabric/color choices, and most were modified in some way. Right now I'm working on two "originals" - one is a landscape, the other is/was based on the "Omigosh" pattern but I'm going to change it so drastically that the only resemblance to the original pattern is that I used a double nine patch in 4.5" finished squares as one of the blocks.

I had a bit of a let down at the Paducah show this year. I saw one gorgeous quilt that was awesome and won the AQS Longarm Award - a top award. It was a letdown because upon further research I found that it was almost identical to a previous Paducah BIS winner! Even down to the "signature" Sharon Schamber's unique binding. In fact, when I first spotted the quilt I thought it was one of Sharon's. The previous BIS winner was Sharon's, this one was one of her students who pretty much copied the quilt with only a minor adjustment to color. While it was indeed a gorgeous quilt and exquisitely done ... I was a bit disappointed that it was almost and exact replica of a previous quilt. I personally place a lot more emphasis on originality. While OK and indeed encouraged to borrow ideas from other quilts, an exact replica was not my idea of a show winning quilt.

The "craft" to me is the execution of the item, the art is the originalality - even if it's a traditional pattern the colors etc must be pleasing. I look at a show the caliber of Paducah as an "art" show as much as a craft show. Something about it should be original.

Just my two cents.

DH and I go to a lot of art dept. shindigs. Seems to me if the dept needs a show or ticket boost anyone local with enough works to display will get an exhibit.

Spot on!!

I have found over the years when going to shows or listening to a speaker, that the majority of the "names" have had an art background,many of them have a degree in some form of art.I love the FOQ, this is the 1st year since it started that I have not attended. Over the years another thing that I have noticed is that there is more and more what I would call textile art in the show.Brilliant event though, hope not to miss it next year.My friends and I usually go for three days, staying in a hotel.

It's true that the big names have art training, but that training did not necessarily come before the quilting bug bit them. For many it was the love of quilting that sent them in search of art training as a means to improve their work.

It doesn't take an MFA to learn the basics and it can make a huge difference in the way you see things and in the quilts you design.

I consider quilting to be both. With art, we are creating visions, colors, layout...the craft part, we are taking a medium (fabric) and creating our visions

A painter can paint a bowl of fruit in class... her or his interpretation may be to make it look life like (identical) or abstract. But each painting will end up being unique in it's own way.

We call the painter an artist, even though his subject matter is the same as everyone else in the class, or maybe the subject being used is one that has been painted hundreds of thousands of times before such as the Mona Lisa. They are copying something, basically using a pattern.

Being quilters, we may choose to follow a pattern. We may choose to make the quilt look identical to the pattern or have subtle or bold differences. It doesn't matter how many hundreds of thousands of times a pattern has been recreated, each quilt will have it's own subtle to bold differences.

Artists who paint, have tried to recreate famous paintings to no avail... there is always atleast one aspect that distinguishes an original from a copy :wink: and yet we still consider them an artist :D
The same happens when we use a pattern for quilting, even using the same identical fabrics. There will still be differences...

A bowl of fruit to a painter, a pattern for a quilter...
We all create in ways that are pleasing to us individually. We may be more traditional, more abstract, or falling inbetween.

So in my mind, we are all artists. Some of us may be accomplished famous artists and others of us not. But all of us are artists just the same :D:D:D

Thanks for all the responses. Plenty to think about here. I feel at the moment as though there may be some original creativity in there somewhere, but I can't access it - probably the lingering effects of childhood messages that I was no good at anything like that. I've overcome a lot of that (was told my sewing was rubbish, believed it for 45 years, then discovered I could make quilts!), but it still has its effects. I think I need to go and play!

This is indeed spot on. I feel the shift came for me from crafter to artist when I began to enjoy the process and actually feel a sense of loss when a piece was finished - so thanks so much for putting this into words. To add to that I would also say that I believe an artist starts with an idea or concept then manipulates the materials and techniques she has at her disposal to interpret that idea.

I too was at the F of Q this weekend and the standard was incredible - so may different textile artists from all over the world, so many ideas and ways of looking at the world then use of established traditional quilting techniques, alongside more contemporary textile manipulations to interpret these ideas. I came away with my brain buzzing and bags full of stuff. So inspirational! :-D

As you study the work of any artist you will note that they return to an idea-rendition- to perfect it. Years ago at the National Gallery of Art there was an exhibit that demonstrated this method. It would be called growing, focus, thinking about the piece, thinking again what might be better. They really build in their own method of developing a "show piece". Some artists keep a painting around for years adjusting it. I for one an working on color theory. I just have to pound it in to my head by informed practice. One day I may be set free with this knowledge. I saw a quilt brought into my local shop that blew my mind it was so creative...however, I do believe that this was not the first time the quilter used the pattern, but this time she had her own brilliant inventive color concept added to a traditional block along with excellent quilting skill. My reaction to her was not to let it out of her sight-it was enviable.
A lot of the quilts on display are intimidating. I resolve to be happy developing my skills and enjoying the feel of my quilt when I wake up in the morning.....hate to get up out of the coziness. But I do. I feel my growth in quilting and am so pleased to feel the growth. That is my happiness.

The next time you see a challange or a contest (usually sponsored by fabric line) sign yourself up. They usually have either a fabric line or idea to work from and you have to create to show it off. This will stretch your creativity and you might surprise yourself.

Great idea - also, work from a photo of the physical world or a piece of art in another genre (obviously respect copyright at all times). This gives you clues to line, perspective, scale etc - the design 'rules' and you can begin to see what works artistically speaking and then you can begin to explore the reasons why something works then translate it into your own work. :-D

My daughter was a fine arts major in school and was told by one instructor that if a project was in any way useful, it was not art. So pretentious! Sometimes I think definitions are just meant to limit instead of clarify.

That's what I want to do. I have an aerial photo of the farm my mom grew up on. I would like to make that picture in a quilt. The buildings are all gone now. I can't quite get my head around it yet, though. I guess I need to gather fabrics that will work, just start cutting them and placing on a background. This is a whole new thing for me and it is kind of scary. I usually just do scrappy quilts or a traditional pattern in traditional fabrics.

This is fascinating. I guess the move to art comes from finding something that inspires that need to create, to express something uniquely - or from curiosity or playfulness. I felt for years that my creativity was stifled by a job that didn't suit me - I had to spend so much time doing something I just wasn't comfortable with that I never felt completely "me". I retired 6 months ago, and as I've recovered, my urge to write is coming back. I'm also noticing a lack of enthusiasm for just finding the next quilt pattern to follow - there's a vague desire to do something different without quite knowing what or how! So thankyou for the suggestions that have been made as to how I might get started. If anyone knows of any other resources (online or UK-based) that might help me start to explore whether there's any creative spark waiting to be coaxed to life, I'd love to hear.

Interesting thread.
Gostrider, a most interstiting comparison.

I don't have much to add, but just wanted to say that in a way I believe that tye art of quilting may come with experience. I have only been sewing for three years, never even owned a sewing machine before that, and I find that many of my ideas remain just that just because I don't have the skill to transform them into fabric and stitches. So right now, I am trying to improve my skills by learning many techniques and hoping that one day, I can have an aha movement when my hands can follow my mind in translating those ideas into work.

That's another issue I've been thinking about, Candi. I'm not that experienced a quilter and there are a lot of techniques I've never tried. Looking at all the art quilts, the level of skill demonstrated in, say, applique or free motion quilting, also really impressed me. To some extent, unless you're the sort of person who has an innate ability to see how to do something, surely you need a good grounding in the craft in order to create the art? For that reason, I'm not beating myself up for being a craft person, following patterns until now - it's all giving me a good basis to move on to more original work if and when the time is right.

I think even if we are following a pattern, what we do is art as much as craft. When you follow a pattern, don't you make little tweaks and changes here and there? I recently did a quilt for my daughter's teacher, and even though I followed a pattern for a paper-pieced apple block, I chose the colors of the apples (I used a different fabric for each one), I decided what to use as the blocks between the apples, and I chose the fabrics to use as the borders. I just finished the top of a "Gay Pride" quilt for my nephew, and even though I had a rainbow pattern, I changed the colors and the order of colors in the arch. I keep trying something new with every quilt I make, and I'm watching with much interest the "Quilting Arts" shows that come on every weekend. I don't know that I'll ever go THAT far with my quilts, but I'm just sayin'.....it's all art as long as we can make the choice as to what we're doing and how we want it to look! :c)

Just jump right on in to the art water! Your ideas are as good as anyone else's. Want to make a log cabin out of grays and whites and then scatter red paint drops on it?
Mess up on an Ohio Star and rename it wonky-doodle?
Dip one end of ecru muslin into blue dye and the other end into green and and in the middle applique some flowers you fussy cut from something in your stash, make some creative sashays around it all with your sewing machine--or by hand--call it "Lawn and Sky" or ""My Backyard" or "Smog on a Sunny Day" and you will have a work of art.
froggyintexas

I feel just like you do annesthreads after seeing all the beauties at a really inspiring quilt show. All that inspiration can either trigger a stream of new ideas for me, or it can be quite daunting and freeze my creativity in its tracks for little while.

But really, unless quilting completely from a kit, aren't most quilts a combination of both art and craft? And clearly some folks take your breath away with their artistic gifts and/or crafting skills, but aren't we all a mix of both: crafter and artist?

I am more concerned about keeping my SCRAP quilts from moving into CRAP quilts.

I think I agree. This afternoon I was watching myself as I planned a quilt: I started by looking at the fabrics I'd bought , and an idea gradually came as to what sort of block I'd like to make with these colours. Then I browsed Quilters Cache and found a block that reflected my thoughts, and spent some time playing with paper and coloured pencils, working out how the blocks would look when joined together, and how to use my colours to best effect. Next is the craft bit - paper-piecing the blocks. But I was using creativity this afternoon - noticing my response to the colours and the sort of shapes I was thinking
about as I looked at them, then trying out different placements of the colours to produce a pleasing effect.
I think the list that was posted of the differences between art and craft was a bit harsh on craft. You're right - we need both. The balance between them will vary from person to person, and I'm beginning to feel challenged to find ways of bringing something more original to what I do, but to get to that point, I've had to become competent in the techniques I need to use.

Love your avatar. Where did you get the pattern?

I found this to be true for me. Several years ago I saw a challenge sponsored by Quilters Newsletter for some gorgeous reproduction toile fabric collection, Season of Toiles, made by P&B Textiles.
http://www.antiquequiltdating.com/A_...of_Toiles.html

I dreamed about one of the fabrics, a medallion border print covered with circles. I even dreamed designs for the fabric.

I decided to try to make my dream a reality. I bought yards of the medallion fabric and cut it up into hundreds of little squares and sewed them back together again, just like I saw them in my dream. They made sort of a Love Ring design.

I liked the result. t was very much like I had envisioned. So I took photos and entered the contest.

Much to my surprise, my quilt won the challenge! It was exhibited at the Allentown Museum. And the prize was $1,000. I bought our daughter's wedding gown with it!

My husband took my photo in front of my quilt at the museum. If I look a bit shell shocked, well, I sure was!

So I will surely second the motion-- challenge yourself. Surprise yourself. Stretch. Grow. Learn. See what develops. I bet you surprise yourself too!

Have fun playing :thumbup: We all need playtime :D

I'll second entering a challenge. I did that for the Isis quilt (see the avatar) and it was a fantastic experience creatively. I learned a huge amount.

Well..... My "high" comes from viewing your creative and wonderful quilts.. Some of your art moves me almost to tears, and I'm grateful for the artists conception that so many of you produce..

If I have any artistic talent, it is that I can appreciate your works of art, and I consider that a blessing...

Thankyou! It's Hidden Wells, and I found it at

http://www.reocities.com/quiltfrenzy...aterworld.html

though there are plenty of other instructions on the Web. It's quite easy to make as long as you're accurate.

Congratulations! That's a beautiful quilt.