First RPE Quilts: Finished

Last week I blogged about my new printing and quilting projects based on the retinal pigment epithelium and choroid and today I'm back to share the first three small quilts I made from those printed fabrics.

This first one was a piece of painted silk, and finished 20" x 20".  After painting and markering the back RPE layer, I quilted around all the cells.  Then I fused down the orange choriocapillaris layer, quilted it, then painted it some more, then quilted some more.  This one was made to enter the Vision 2020 exhibition being curated by Brenda Gael Smith. 

RPE #3: Age-related Macular Degeneration. 20" x 20" c. Shannon Conley, 2020, Photo by Mike Cox

The second and third ones were made out of a scrap of polyester crushed velvet.  I painted the back since I thought it would give me a crisper print, but then you couldn't really see it on the front.  However, I think the thickness of the fabric mean more paint was absorbed, so the colors turned out very vibrant.  These two are both donations for SAQA, one for the annual 12x12 SAQA auction, and one for the SAQA spotlight auction at the annual SAQA conference in Toronto.  The spotlight auction quilts are really small, and not finished on the edges.  They're 6"x8" and then matted so that the final part that shows is 4.5" x 6".  That's why it looks so unfinished here, all that edge will be cropped out with the mat.

RPE #1, 8" x 6", c. Shannon Conley, 2020

This one is showing for the month of March at the Shirley Stiles Gallery in Westwood, MO  and for the month of May at the InterUrban Art House (IUAH) in Overland Park, KS, so if you happen to be in the area, stop in and see the exhibition.  It'll be a collection of these 12x12 quilts from SAQA members in our region.

RPE #2, 12"x12", c. Shannon Conley, 2020

These three were all in the same colorway, but I painted several others, so there will probably be some more coming with a similar theme.  It was certainly fun to experiment!