Lantern 3: Finished

 Over the weekend I shared about this art quilt I made last year.  I really hated the colors, they felt really gross to me.  I struggled with what to do with the piece. I thought about cutting it up and using it in something entirely new, but I really liked the shape and the texture from the couching, it was just the colors I hated (Easter candy barf).  I thought about spray painting it black, or spray painting it neon pink, but I worried that I wouldn't be able to get into all the nooks and crannies in the smocked folds.

Finally I just decided to try painting over the pink.  The pink is what was really bothering me.  I know that's a shocker to everyone who knows me, but pink with brown and yellow was just bad.  I got out my orange pain and just tried my best to cover up the pink without looking like I had just slathered orange paint everywhere.  I picked orange since I thought orange/brown/yellow (with again the weird pops of turquoise-no idea what I was thinking originally), would pull it back into the colors of the southwest, the rocks, the cliffs, the mountains, the dry high desert, and the sky.  I think the orange also goes better with the burnt maroon and brown yarn that's couched on the surface.

 Up close there's now a lot of fun color variation and while I don't think it will ever be a favorite piece, I at least like it enough to share it with the world!

Lantern 3, c. Shannon Conley, 2023, 30" x 13" x 5"

So a few lessons learned here.  First, sometimes it just takes a few months of something ugly hanging on the wall before you settle on a way to fix it.  And second, even if there's a pressing show deadline, if you hate the starting fabric, you'll probably hate what you make with it!!

Have you ever had pieces you really didn't like?  What did you do with them?