As I mentioned in a recent podcast, one of my sabbatical objectives is to watch several of the Great Courses lecture DVDs I've had stacked up in my house for a bit, as part of the course-swap with my sisters. (We all own different titles and a couple of years ago I swapped some with one sister, and am just now getting to watching them.)
The set I started out with is Museum Masterpieces: The Louvre, a 12-lecture series highlighting some of the artists and periods represented in the Louvre. I'll never remember the detail of which artist created which work and how they compare with other artists of the period, but what definitely sticks with me is the concept of light, color, motion, balance...all those design principles that Jaye and I are talking about and that I'm studying in my quilt design study group.
I'm also working my way through The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, which is a 12 week series of readings and activities meant to unlock one's creativity. In the first week, she describes "artist dates," a period of time you're to spend by yourself doing a variety of things that will lead to an expanding of your creativity. One of her first suggestions is to visit a museum by yourself. (She emphasizes "by yourself" because then you're free to ponder what you need to ponder and you're not being rushed through or distracted by others' needs or interests.)
I find myself going back again and again to thoughts about light. Some paintings in the DVD series had particular qualities of light, particular uses of light for emphasis and mood, that simply intrigue me. I've seen quilts that seem luminous in their use of color and value to portray light. I'm finding myself inspired to explore that further.
So for today's Slow Quilt Monday thoughts, I'd like to encourage you to find a way to look at some art from another media this week--paintings, sculptures, whatever, anything that doesn't use fabric--to explore what you can carry away from that work to your own.