As a quilter I find inspiration all around me. I’m sure you do to. It might be the colors of the flowers in a garden, in the clouds of a sunset or frost covered brambles. Or perhaps you are stopped in your tracks by the carpet pattern in a hotel lobby, a bathroom floor tile or a wrought iron grate. Have you ever looked up at a ceiling or closely at a door knob in a Victorian era building? Inspiration is everywhere.

Last week my husband and I went to the Denver Art Museum (DAM) and my senses were super-charged with color, pattern, design and quilting ideas from the exhibits I saw.

We went to DAM specifically to see the Monet exhibit; I’m a huge fan of the Impressionist painters. Two years ago when the Degas exhibition came to DAM I celebrated my 60th birthday by partaking of that exhibit with my daughters and husband. I am no art historian or art expert, but I can wander, look, experience, listen to the audio tours and trust my gut instinct, just like you. So I invite you to join me on my inspirational trip to DAM.

We took in more than just Monet’s incredible work while at DAM.

BRITISH PORTRAITS: 1500-1600

While we were waiting for our 11:45 am tour time, we wandered through an exhibit of British paintings from the 1500-1600. It always amazes me to view such old art that is in such pristine shape. I had the same feeling jaw-dropping experience when I visited my daughter in England and Scotland 3 years ago. As we traveled around to York, Leeds and Edinburgh I was transfixed by the architecture and artwork. I’m thankful that there have been people through the centuries who have valued art, and invested time and money to preserve it for future generations, for me, to enjoy. Art, in all its forms, is not an addendum to my life, but a vital necessity that feeds my soul.

As I looked at the portraits in this exhibit, the photos of the 16th and 17th century, I was enamored of the detail in the portraits of these ladies and gentlemen. I imagined the painstaking work by the artists to replicate the intricacies of the lace in their collars, cuffs and jewelry. What amazing colorists they were, too, capturing the tones of their facial features, and the textures of their clothing. You could feel the velvets, brocades and silks of their garments, even though it was paint on wood canvases.

Seeing these paintings hanging in all their rich detail encourages me as a quilter who does hand work. It’s worth taking the time to painstakingly, lovingly stitch by hand, all the little details. These paintings were not made in a day, nor are my quilts. But they have value, as do my quilts; lasting, heirloom quality value.

And, of course, as I’m looking at the beautiful lace details I’m thinking of quilt pattern ideas for the future. Nothing specific right now…but who knows what might show up. Perhaps the lace will be a reverse applique design element or a quilting stencil idea. Time will tell after it rumbles around in me for a while I’ll see what comes out.

MONET

11:45 am and it was time for our tour of Monet, the famous Impressionist painter most famous for his paintings of Water Lilies.

“The richness I achieve comes from NATURE, the source of my INSPIRATION.”

This is the Monet quote that sets the tone for the Denver Art Museum’s exhibit of his work. Immediately I knew I was in for a treat. I don’t wish to be presumptuous, but I knew I was a kindred spirit with Mr. Monet. My idea of a great vacation is to porch sit and watch the scenery change, to hike in the mountains, putz around in the flower garden or sit by a stream. In other words, be in nature to experience and drink it in in all its beauty. And my quilt patterns are inspired by the world around me.

Though I have seen Monet’s paintings in books, there is nothing like seeing them in person. A picture cannot capture the texture created with the layers of paint with the Impressionist style. Kind of like our quilts. Pictures never quite do them justice. As I wandered through the exhibit I enjoyed many of the ones I’ve seen in books. But I found certain ones just really drew me in to stop …and… linger.

Monet mostly painted landscapes and water…the effect of time of day on water, light on water, sky on water…. reflection on water. And as he grew as an artist, his fascination with water grew. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In this particular exhibit there was only one painting depicting night. It was done in 1873, The Port of Le Havre, Night Effect.

“This nocturnal view of Monet’s hometown harbor is striking not only for the time of day but for its blurred and sketchy treatment of forms, which evokes a sense of movement in the stillness of the night. By now Monet had abandoned his conventional beginnings and was ready for the first Impressionist exhibition the following year.” So this was the beginning of Monet’s work as an Impressionist artist.

I really liked his Path into the Forest, 1865, but I’m drawn to images of paths. They call me in with possibilities and questions. Where is it going? What lies ahead? Who’s there? What will I see along the way? What will I hear? What are the smells? I think about poems like Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and Scott M. Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled. Monet’s painting beckoned me in and the busy gallery full of people fell away.

The Garden at Vetheuil, 1881, a painting I don’t know that I’ve ever seen before, stopped me in my tracks. Unfortunately my picture doesn’t do it justice. The impressionist style of painting creates a sun-shade dappled garden that’s a jumble of color and green. I just wanted to sit in the shade, leaning against the tree and read a book, or take a rest and listen to the birds singing and the crickets chirping. And then this garden path and stair appears in your view leading you in and up into the painting. As you walk into it you notice a house where perhaps a friend is with a cool glass of water, or since its France, a glass of wine.

“For me, a LANDSCAPE does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment.”

Monet would paint the same scene over and over again from different angles and at different times of day, trying to capture it. It might be the same scene, yet it’s different. The time of year, the amount and angle of the light…all these things affect the colors. These are two of his paintings of the Seine at different times of the day from different banks of the river.

Monet was also fascinated by water. The color of water is changed by the sky and reflects what’s around it.

This, for us quilters, would be like making the same quilt over and over in different colorways. Each remaking in different fabrics brings out something different in the design. If you have a quilt design program like Quiltster or Electric Quilt 8 you can have the fun of re-coloring your quilt in multiple ways without having to actually spend the time making it. I personally like to do both, re-color in a computer program and actually remake a quilt, just for fun, because it looks so different. If you poke around on our website, or in the Customer’s creations album on our Facebook page you can see some different colorways of the same quilts.

Monet found winter brought its own creative interests. In the same way that water is colored by what’s in it, under it and around it, snow and ice, as frozen water, provided the same fascination for Monet. Have you ever noticed the color of snow? We think of it as white, but what is white anyway? All you have to do is go to a Home Depot to look for paint samples to see how many different “white” shades there are. Have you ever noticed the color of trees and bushes in winter when they are covered with ice? Isn’t it amazing how many shades of brown there really are? They all seem to come out with unique clarity when the sun shines on ice-covered branches. These are two snow scene paintings that Monet painted in Giverny in 1885 that I particularly liked out of about 15 in the exhibit.

The Frames are Inspiration, too.

Though I have cropped the frames out of most of my pics in this blogpost so you could see more of the actual paintings, the frames themselves were stunning. As a quilter they were inspirational, too. All were gilded, though some more burnished rather than shiny, quite heavy and full of scrolled detail, as befitting Monet’s time period. I can see these as possible reverse applique or applique border designs in future quilts. (Boat Lying at Low Tide; frame 1.corner; frame 2.Ctr.horizontal; frame 4.corner-horizontal)

WATER-LILIES

Monet is perhaps most famous for his series of paintings of Water-Lilies. Many people think Water Lilies is a title of one painting, but it is actually the name for Monet’s series of paintings. I don’t know how many paintings he did of them, but there were at least 12 just in this exhibit alone. In his later years he built a Water-lily pond in his garden and he almost exclusively painted the pond and the water-lilies. Next to painting, his garden was his passion.

Two of the three paintings I’m going to share I don’t think I have seen before.

Water-Lilies 1908

Water-Lilies, 1908 is such a beautiful soft piece so exquisitely set in its frame. It’s like you are looking through a looking glass into another world. I don’t think I had seen an image of this one before. I just wanted to sit on the benches the museum provided and gaze at it. The smooth glassy water in which the paint is also smooth within the impressionist style. Then the water-lilies themselves vibrant with color and texture with “extra” paint. You can see and feel the depth. The frame shape adds to this painting to shape the focal point of it. I cannot imagine this in a square frame.

Water-Lilies 1914-15

Water-Lilies 1914-15 I had seen in books but it’s spectacular in person. “In this painting, we still recognize the waterlilies-blue, green, and lavender in the upper half; orange, red, and pink in the lower section-and yet, shapes are beginning to dissolve, and the lily pads, once rendered with heavy applications of paint, seem included here merely as decorative elements that break up the reflections on the water.”

The Water Lily Pond 1918

The final painting in the exhibit, The Water Lily Pond 1918, was breathtaking. I had never seen it before and I couldn’t get enough of it. My photograph makes it look dull and boring which is the exact opposite of what it was. This painting was dynamic and rich, full of vivid color and texture that you could feel, as well as see, from across the room. My close ups give a better taste of the actual painting. I wanted to touch it, but just like at a quilt show when that urge strikes, I restrained myself. This painting is full of color and movement. At first glance one isn’t sure whether you are looking at vegetation on land in the background, the top half of the painting, and the water in the foreground, the bottom half, or whether the whole thing is the pond reflecting the land, but there is a shore dividing land and water. This is something Monet did throughout many of his paintings.

“Above all I wanted to be truthful and exact. For me a landscape hardly exists at all as a landscape because its appearance is constantly changing… You have to know how to seize just the right moment in a landscape instantaneously because that particular moment will never come again, and you’re always wondering if the impression you got was truthful.”-Claude Monet

What a challenging task he set before himself. The moment he blinks that moment is gone…the light has changed. All in an era with no smart phones to capture the image. Can you imagine how well trained his eye was and how skillful he was with his brush and what a colorist he was. What a master. It’s no wonder he could paint the “same” subject for a lifetime.

I hope you’ve enjoyed sharing my trip to the Denver Art Museum. I believe that all exposure to art and nature serves as inspiration to any creative endeavor. Exposure to color, design, and composition in one art form will rumble around inside of us and spark our own imagination to create. We cannot all be Monet’s, but we are uniquely us, and we all have a creative voice that finds our own expressionsof truth and love in our quilts.

Happy Quilting!

If you are in the Denver area, I encourage you to visit the Denver Art Museum and see the Monet exhibit.https://denverartmuseum.org/exhibitions/claude-monet

Or look for the exhibit in a Museum near you.