Maria Shell's Quilt-Making Process
Making vibrant patterns from little bits of fabric.
Photo via Maria Shell: Tales of a Stitcher
Maria Shell’s quilts are visually stunning. She’s a true color-work genius, creating patterns that pulsate and excite the eye. Her patterns are vibrant, dense, and complex. She accomplishes this by creating various sizes of repeating patterns, themes, and mirrored or symmetrical sections of stripes, which can then be cut up and stitched back together.
She has been widely recognized for her work. In addition to showing quilts in solo and group exhibitions, she has gained significant acknowledgement for her immense talent: “Maria is the recipient of a Sustainable Arts Foundation 2011 Winter Award, a Rasmuson Foundation Project Award, and two Rasmuson Fellowships. In 2012, Maria was one of 44 artists from the Northwest invited to participate in the Bellevue Arts Museum's Biennial High Fiber Diet. She was a featured artist for the 2013 Surface Design Association's International Conference held in San Antonio, Texas."
Photo via Maria Shell: Tales of a Stitcher
A statement from her website explains the philosophy and artistry behind her process:
"I have always been interested in pattern and how complex pattern can also create complex figure ground composition. In 2011, I began to wonder what would happen if I selected a particular pattern–in this case the grid–and continued to play with it over the course of a series. What I discovered is that limiting the pattern but manipulating the line, color, and shape, can produce dynamic results that not only stand alone as compelling individual compositions, but also are intriguing to look at as a group.
Limiting the structure of my work to a grid has allowed me to more fully explore my love of color. How to make color vibrate on the wall? That is the question for me. Most often the answer lies in proportion of line and shape in relation to color. Color is dynamic, fickle, explosive, solemn, mysterious, and beautiful. All colors possess these characteristics, and it is my daily work to explore how color is capable of being all these things for the viewer."
Photos via Maria Shell: Tales of a Stitcher
How does she plan and create her gorgeous, complex quilts? Maria is a self-proclaimed “bit-maker." She lets us in on her process of working with small pieces of fabric in the two videos below.
In The Quilt Show interview video, Maria talks about her transition from making quilts based on traditional designs to creating modern quilts, inspired by studying with Nancy Crow.
In the video Creating Stripes with Solids Demo, from C and T Publishing, Maria explains two ways to make stripes - the basis for creating complex, repeating patterns.
First, she explains how to cut strips using a clear ruler and cutting mat. Then, she explains her technique for cutting strips without a ruler, making pieces with wavering widths that create the undulating effect in her quilts.
More From a Master Designer
You can read about Maria's process and see images of her work on her website Maria Shell: Tales of a Stitcher.
You can order her book Improv Patchwork: Dynamic Quilts Made with Line & Shape through her website, and order her patchwork quilted oven mitt kits here.
Interested in having Marie lead a workshop or give a lecture to your group? Contact her here. Click through to her classes page to read descriptions of workshops that include "exploring color theory, composing abstract design, improvisation-ally cutting and piecing fabric, working with prints, and trouble shooting patchwork construction issues...."
Her lectures cover: the tradition of American patchwork quilting, while "connecting to both the modern and art quilt" movements; her experience of working with a group to create a quilt based on shared experience; her personal journey "in and about the traditional, art, and modern quilt movements"; and, how to turn your quilt-making into a business -exhibiting work and becoming a professional quilt maker.
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