My Process for Creating a Blurred Boundaries Entry by Carol Nilsen

While thinking over the concept of boundaries blurring, I focused on spheres rubbing together because they brought to mind entities competing for space or ideas jockeying for position. I chose to work in sheer hand dyed silks, my own printed polyester sheers and linens, and assorted recycled and new commercial metallics, to be stitched to gold lame fused to wool batting which was fused with Mistyfuse to a commercial cotton backing. Initial palette included yellow, orage, red, and blue spheres.

After strengthening the spheres with additional sheer layers around their perimeters, I tried out a few other colors and fabrics and finally decided the blue was too dominant for the concept of blurring. Stepping away from the piece helped.

I wanted to convey motion of spheres in contact, so I cut subtly varying shades of sheers and metallic mesh into arching shapes and attached them to the design wall with pins, which gave me a chance to adjust the composition as it progressed.

After I liked the basic composition, I adjusted the pinning for sewing by removing each vertical pin from the felt design wall and repinning it in a horizontal position. This makes the temporary composition movable and ready for the sewing machine.

I edited and made more changes.

Here's the finished piece and a detail, photographed by Johanna Love.

(Postscript: The juror chose a different piece for the show...)