Journal Quilts with Marilyn Rose

Back in 2002, Karey Patterson Bresenhan, director of the International Quilt Festival in Houston and Chicago, opened a non-juried exhibit for Journal Quilts.

These are the 8.5" x 11" quilts designed to represent a moment or a day in a quilter's life.  Bresenhan recognized the break-out quilting trend and encouraged it by organizing and curating an exhibit each year at the International Quilt Festival.

Almost 6,000 journal quilts later, created by 918 artists, Bresenhan and Interweave Press collaborated to produce Creative Quilting, The Journal Quilt Project.

This sleek book pulls 400 of the "best" of the Journal Quilts from those exhibits, and organizes them by type, technique and inspiration.

"Each quilt shown here represents a page in a quilter’s life story, chronicling joy, frustration, tragedy, inspiration, mundane moments, artistic epiphany—and every event and emotion in between," explains the publisher.

Mississippi Quilt Association Member Marilyn Rose has a journal quilt in this book.  It is the second photo in this posting, the one with the colorful fireworks.  It is on page 239 of the book.

Marilyn said the "Fireworks" Journal Quilt was a small representation of a larger quilt she made in an online class through Quilt University Online.

(Not to be misleading, the "Fireworks" Journal Quilt that Marilyn made is in the book.  The rest of the Journal Quilts photographed were made by Marilyn, but they are not in the aforementioned book.)

I especially loved her "Hurricane Ivan" Journal Quilt, photo #3 and the vegetable "Still Life" journal quilts, photos #4 and #5.  Notice how she created highlights and shadows...three dimensional objects...with her fabric.

Marilyn spoke on Journal Quilts to the almost 200 quilters at the June Gathering of the Mississippi Quilt Association.  The "Hurricane Ivan" Journal Quilt was made from an Internet weather map printed on fabric as Hurricane Ivan unfurled its wrath. 

The two "Still LIfe" Journal Quilts were made as part of a Fast Friday Challenge Group. (still need a link for that group.)

Photo #6, is one of Marilyn's first year of Journal Quilts, a series she calls "Drive By Shootings".  She snapped photos of the scenes with her point-and-shoot camera "from behind the wheel going way too fast on the highway".

Note how she sewed "darts" in the striped fabric in Photo #6 to give the illusion of a vanishing point through the swamps along Interstate 20 between Baton Rouge and Lafayette, Louisiana.

Photo #7 features three more of Marilyn's roadway Journal Quilts from 2003.

In Photo #7, the night driving journal quilt with the red brake lights in the right lane and the headlights in the left lane...again, ingenious! It was created from a photo Marilyn took in Meridian, Mississippi. 

The third Roadway Journal Quilt from Photo #7 as inspired by a stretch of road in East Tennessee.

The next series of three Roadway Journal Quilts, photo #8, are from Birmingham, Alabama; Interstate 40 in Tennessee; and from East Tennessee.

I enjoyed the whimsy of "Easy Street" where all the houses are built on credit...little pieces of credit cards.  I think Marilyn said she used the paper-representations of credit cards...the promotional material one gets in the mail.  This was a JQ from March of 2005.

Remember when I showed you the Chocolate Candy Quilt that Marilyn had appliqued and pieced...that my hand-quilting teacher Betty Lewis was quilting by hand?

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Still not quite finished with this post on Marilyn's quilting art.  Check back later for the third update.