Playing (within) the rules
When a jazz musician improvises, they don’t just play any old thing that pops into their head. They start with the melody, rhythm and chord progressions that have been laid out by a composer, and they play around within that framework. Likewise in improvisational theatre there are always parameters established ahead of time — perhaps a loose structure of scenes, or a set of game rules that place some boundaries on what the performers can expect of one another.
In other words, improvisation does not equal “chaos” or “free-for-all.” But neither does it mean “playing by the rules” in the sense of following a fully pre-determined pattern or rigid technique. Rather, improv is playing within the rules, or at least within a particular set of rules or parameters that the improvisational artist has either set for themselves, or been given by someone else.
The winner of the free custom art quilt contest for my newsletter subscribers gave me a colour scheme and a general mood to capture. She included some photos of art and furnishings in her home (and her very cute dog!) to help me get a sense of what she was describing. As a bonus, she thought to include links to some of the other works on my website that she particularly likes — a brilliant way to help me understand from afar her taste and aesthetic! I have to confess that, when she said her favourite colour was chartreuse/acid green, my first thought was “oh no, I don’t know if I have anything like that.” Was I ever wrong!
I should note that the colour in these progress photos is not the best because the light over my table washed the images out a bit, but I wanted to give you a sense of the assembly process. Note how I’ve used my quilt rulers to hold the un-attached pieces in place. My cats would really like to help with the arranging.
Sometimes the materials play a big role in dictating the design. I had a few tiny scraps of acid green linen that I wanted to incorporate, but they were only 1.5 inch wide strips. So I built off that using a combinations of squares and rectangles in multiples of that dimension.
I love the process of arranging and rearranging the pieces until it suddenly works. And then I piece it together, constantly referring back to the photos I have take of the arrangement, because it’s easy to lose track of what I had where in the short distance from cutting mat to sewing machine!
Here it is — all pieced, and basted with the backing and batting. Come back next week to read about the quilting process.
