YO YO QUILTS

ENGLISH SHOW PANSIES
28 1’2” X 30”
2004

Inspired by an illustration on a 19th century seed packet, my pansies with faces are individually machine embroidered, appliquéd and quilted on silk. Each of the
10 pansies sports the hair style of the Gibson Girl and has her own individual personality and color scheme. The “girls” are placed in a lush bed of leaves made of silk yo-yos, a quiltmaking technique popular in the 19th century.
Beads interspersed between the yo-yos represent the seeds of next year’s
pansy crop.

MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME
25” X 45”
2005

Each small vignette in this piece represents something about my house, its setting and its industry in the countryside of Kentucky.  My favorite event on any day is the spotting of a heron flying over our pond. In the summer my flower beds display a dizzying palette
of color amidst the perennial green of the surrounding woods. The pond is a lush background to my husband’s pottery which is found in unexpected places all around our property. The small pictures which are all machine appliquéd and quilted are surrounded by lots of silk yo yos, a novelty quiltmaking technique developed in the 1920’s. Dupioni silk, the main fabric used in this piece, provides a lustrous surface for the absorption of the dyes and I am seduced by the sense of light
reflected by those surfaces.

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD
28” X 32”
2006

This piece started life as a few samples made for teaching facial appliqué to quilters interested in learning some machine appliqué and embroidery techniques. I liked the faces so much that I decided to make them a part of a real quilt. The images are taken from some old movie magazines of the early 40’s that were given to me by the daughters of a dear friend when she was confined to a nursing home. She saved many of the “treasures” of her youth and I was delighted to be the beneficiary of her hoarding. The magazines were nothing but head shots and some innocuous gossip about what the stars were doing when off camera. They don’t do head shots like that anymore though and I found them very charming.

THE REAL COST OF WAR
The following series was undertaken after an experience I had on an airplane with a recent high school graduate from Texas on his way to Fort Knox and a stint in the US. Army. He seemed so naive to me with a false sense of bravado about himself for marching off to fight a war that he had little understanding of. He inspired me to think about all of the naive young men that have gone before him and what a real loss their deaths have been to their families and friends. I am attracted to high school portraits and have used old year books from my family to create these tributes to the sacrifices these young men and women have made
in our senseless commitment to war. 

All of these pieces are constructed of silk dupioni. The portraits for the first three are machine appliquéd and embroidered. Portraits on the fourth piece are scanned images printed onto silk. The yo yos which create frames for each portrait and the structure for the piece are hand made.

THE CLASS of 1911
22” X 29”
2006

My husband’s grandfather’s yearbook provided the faces
for this piece. The sepia tones reflect the color of photographs
in that era and the red poppies tying the whole piece together
refer to Flanders Fields where so many of them died during W.W.I.
The poppy became a symbol for the VFW as a result
of that brutal moment in world history.

THE CLASS OF 1942
26 1/2” X 27”
2006

My husband’s mother’s yearbook was the inspiration for this piece. The colors reflect black and white photography and the stars were symbols of the time hung in the windows of homes with men and women serving in the military during W.W.II. The caption
at the top reflects the efforts on the home front
to support their sons and daughters in what many
saw as a righteous war.

THE CLASS OF 1966
22” X 32”
2006

Based on the yearbooks of myself and my husband, this piece
reflects the hand tinted color portraits of the Vietnam War era.
It makes reference to the counter culture’s reaction to the war by the use of peace symbols and yin -yang signs and the most famous slogan of the war resistance movement. The colors
of the yo-yos are meant to depict jungle camouflage fabric
as this war was the first war for which such fabric was created.

THE CLASS OF 2002
33” X 41 1/2 “
2006

The final piece in this series is based on the image of the American flag. The portraits in this piece were scanned into a computer directly from my son’s yearbook and printed onto silk. The photos are surrounded by the disturbing image of the boots, gun and helmet of fallen soldiers used in battlefield memorials. The cost of war for other soldiers is memrorialized with the addition of milagros of arms, legs, eyes and mental capacity sacrificed in the line of duty.

CONTACT REBEKKA BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT HER WORK AND AVAILABILITY