Two Hours at the Beach

(Above: Two Hours at the Beach, art quilt ... yup! It's more than three layers ... two of which are fabric ... held together with stitches! 51" x 38". Click on image to enlarge.)

I generally don't create work for specific competitions or juried shows. My "to do" list is already too long with my own ideas. Adding another project just seems unreasonable. So ... when the Brush Gallery's Art Quilt Lowell 2011 announced that there would be a theme for this year's event, I thought I wouldn't enter.


(Above: Two Hours at the Beach. Click on image to enlarge.)

Their theme is "the sea". I don't do "the sea" ... but a nagging idea kept haunting me. I couldn't resist the challenge. I couldn't resist the concept of using "trash" collected from the beach as the raw material for an art quilt. The piece is meant to resemble a cross section of the ocean ... from the rock floor, the plant life, and the white capped surface of the water.


(Above: Two Hours at the Beach, detail. Click on image to enlarge.)

My first trips to the ocean resulted in almost no waste. South Carolina's beaches are kept very, very clean ... especially in the late winter and spring months. Then, I went to Folly Beach ... to a location with easy access to the inlet just around the bend from the wide sandy areas. Here, trash was EVERYWHERE. It took only two hours for me to pick up all this "junk". Later, I separated all my "materials", washed them, and lay out my design on a large piece of acrylic felt that had once been used as packaging material for a kayak being shipped from a distributor to the local outdoors shop. (I blogged about this HERE ... with images of all the "junk".)


(Above: Two Hours at the Beach, detail. Click on image to enlarge.)

I used wedding tulle ... leftover from my I do / I don't installation ... over the top of the design. It was then placed on an over-sized piece of acid free, foam-centered board. I stitched straight through the tulle, the felt, and the foam-centered board. Some of the pieces had to be wrapped in tulle separately ... then stitched down. Some of the container tops were places on top of the tulle and held in place with a button from my stash. Most of the objects were either "couched" in place or stitched around to encapsulate them in the tulle. I trimmed the foam-board as I stitched the edge.



After it was finished ... something seemed "missing" on the top. I added the crab shells that I collected while visiting Daytona Beach last month with my parents. Since they are so fragile, I filled them with hot glue first. Since they were added after the back was complete, I can easily replace/remove them if they are damaged.



I used a piece of hot pink acrylic felt (which I have no idea why I owned) for the back ... stitching it along the edge ... straight through to the front. Black, wooden strainer bars were cut as a hanging device. I stitched it straight through the entire piece to the reverse and added a wire.



The old license plate dates to 1959, the year of my birth. It was given to me by my neighbor Gita who cleaned out her storage shed recently! I painted out the numbers using tinted shellac and added my name and the title of the piece.

Most importantly, I finished in time to enter it in this competition. Whether it is accepted or not isn't really important to me. I loved the challenge and the results. I love the message. (Can you believe that I found TWO plastic dental floss tools? Who flosses at the beach? Why do so many people leave all this trash along our seashore?)