Digital Quilts

Lura Schwarz Smith and Kerby C. Smith recently celebrated the release of their new book, "Secrets of Digital Quilting: From Camera to Quilt."  What an intriguing title!  I had to know more.  The book is available at www.lura-art.com and www.ctpub.com

One of Lura and Kerby's digital quilts was recently juried into Quilt Visions 2010, one of 40 artworks selected from 600 entered.

What is digital quilting?

Kerby: In the cyber world one often asks What is real, what is virtual?" The shift from analog to digital communication has greatly increased the possibilities of how we can express
our creative nature and how we view reality. Digital quilting is the process of translating the vision of our virtual world into cotton and silk and sewing them together.

Lura: Or, in other words, digital quilting is adding to our stash of fabrics our own, unique photographic images processed by our own computers and printed on our home computers. These can be realistic or highly manipulated imagery, which may be further enhanced and worked with surface design elements.

What is it in your background that prompted you to teach and write about digital quilting?

Kerby: I started my career as a journalist and have worked as both a photojournalist and an investigative reporter. Later I worked as a magazine editor.

Lura: However, what got Kerby into the quilt world at all was marrying a quilt artist 32 years ago. Then, as he began to do more art photography over the past few years, printing on photo canvas led me to ask him to print on other fabrics which I could use in art quilts. And there we started. As I had already been teaching quilters, it was a natural for Kerby to begin sharing his expertise with quilters, first in team-taught classes, and now on his own, as well.

How did you split the writing tasks for the book?

Kerby: It was easy -- we both wrote about what we knew. I wrote about the technology and Lura wrote about the design and quilting process. 

Lura: I also wrote about some of the techniques I enjoy using and teaching, such as drawing, shading, inking and painting on fabrics. These are demonstrated by the various projects in the books. And we did have fun proofing and kibitzing each others' writing.

What is the biggest mistake that people new to digital quilting make?

Kerby: Not knowing your computer. It does not matter whether you use a MAC or a PC, you need to know the basics of computing that go beyond e-mail and surfing the web. You have to know how to use a mouse or touchpad to navigate around your computer. You have to know where your images are stored and how to find them once you have uploaded them to your computer. An understanding of where your files are located, how they are stored in folders and how to create new folders is essential to being able to work with your images in the digital world. 

Lura: For my part, I think that beginners may tend to treat their digitally printed fabric as a precious item, rather than think of it as just another piece of fabric to be integrated into the rest of the design in one way or another. Instead of just printing a nice photo on fabric and framing it, let's merge, blend, and integrate it with other fabrics for a more interesting treatment.

What's in your future?  Short-term?  Long-term?

Kerby: Crystal balls are funny things, I can never seem to see anything in them. Short term plans include teaching at the Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar in California, Quilting by the Lake in Syracuse, NY this year. I am especially looking forward to teaching at the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops next year with Lura, since she tells me the food and chocolate are marvelous. 

Lura: Mainly, I hope to make time to get more art done! I love the teaching, but as we know, time is our most precious resource, and I am working on my own juggling act to allow more studio time.

This story was written by Valley Fiber Life contributor, Virginia Spiegel.

Virginia's new book - "Wild at the Edges:  Inspiration from a Creative Life" 

Website: http://www.virginiaspiegel.com 

Blog:http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/blog 

Tweets: http://vspiegel/tweet

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