Every year in June I go to the International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown Mass.  It is a wonderful gathering of painters, printmakers and artists of every ilk. There are lectures, demos, book-signings, a hotel-fair where we get to see each other’s work and a vendor room to die for. I plan my art-life around this event every year. Right now we are at 27 days and counting!

One of the really fun parts of the conference is the postcard show/sale. Each year artist who are willing and able make and donate postcards for sale at a reasonable rate at a show at the conference. The proceeds from the sale are used to fund scholarships for next year’s conference. It’s also a great way to collect a few little keepsake pieces of other artist’s work. My problem is I tend to buy more than I donate. (and don’t even ask about the hotel fair or the vendor room)

This year I’m making a few postcard size Crazy Quilts for the show. I keep a bag in my studio where I toss all the scraps and spare pieces from all of the prints when I do the cutting and piecing. Here are the postcards in process:

Crazy Quilt Postcards in process

When I’m done add the other pieces on I’ll cut the piece into 4 4” x 6” pieces, whip stitch the edges of each piece down then attach them to pieces of 300 lb watercolor paper.

Crazy Quilts were all rage in the Victorian era. It’s an ideal way to use up scraps of quilting material. The original patchwork quilts were done with small pieces of silk and often heavily embroidered in different styles. They were so popular that fully equipped sets were sold. As they entered the general lexicon of quiltmaking more urbane materials and methods were used.[1]

For more information on Crazy Quilts see Wikipedia.

And view some of the Met’s collection of Crazy Quilts.

[1] Roderick Kiracofe, The American Quilt, (New York: Clarkson N. Potter Inc. 1993) pp 146-149