Looking Back: Along the Beach Road

A post in an occasional new series – looking back at artworks or mediums I worked in from earlier in my artist years.

Here I show you a fabric wall hanging from 1999.

It’s called “Along the Beach Road” and I made it from my memories of various views of the New Jersey shore in the southern part of the state. As I remember, around this time, we did a show on the boardwalk in Cape May and took the opportunity to drive around and snap some photos. This wall hanging is purely from my imagination, though. It’s maybe 24″ x  28″ ,more or less? Or maybe a little bigger? Back then I did not keep records on these statistics as I do now.

Along the Beach Road small

This piece received a lot of attention, as I remember. For one thing, it won Best of Show at the Lansdale (PA) Festival of the Arts in August 1999.

Best in Show Lansdale 1999 Along the Beach Road small

In April, 2000, I entered three wall hangings in a juried show at the William Penn Charter School, a private school in Philadelphia that at the time had an art event to benefit the school. My work was accepted and I remember receiving very nice compliments from the judge, which really encouraged me. Here I am with my three pieces on display.

Claudia - Penn Charter Exhibit 4-00 small

 

 

To create my fabric work, I laid out a base level of canvas fabric and pinned the cut fabric pieces to it. I then machine-sewed them to the base, using either free motion stitching, (such as you see for the vegetation), or closely spaced zigzag stitching (for areas I wanted outlined, such as the roofs of the buildings). In neither case did I turn under fabric edges – they are all left raw. In this way you can see that I worked as I later did in paper collage.

Like pretty much all of my fabric work this piece was sold long ago. But I do have many good memories of it, as you can see, and it was art that I was proud of making.

 

19 thoughts on “Looking Back: Along the Beach Road”

    1. Claudia McGill Post author

      Thank you. Just writing this post reminded me of a time in my life and I enjoyed being back in it, even in memory. Also reminds me, when we are able to travel, I will go to see the ocean again.

  2. jennifer barrile

    Wow unique art congrats on your past accomplishments. I love the perspective of the image and all the lovely texture .. How are you doing? I hope all is well 💓

  4. Laura (PA Pict)

    I like the strength of the compositions and the harmony of the colours. Textile arts are most definitely not in my wheelhouse so I always admire the skills and talent of people who can work in this medium.

    1. Claudia McGill Post author

      Thank you. Like everything else I sort of evolved things through experimentation. I learned a lot about composition and colors through fabric art.

  5. Diane

    This is great fun seeing this work again. And a trip down memory lane also! Thanks for this post.

  6. tierneycreates

    Wow – so you do incredible art with fabric too. I suspect if I gave you a box of paper clips you would create something spectacular with those too! 🙂

    1. Claudia McGill Post author

      Thank you. Fabric art was my first venture into artmaking, I felt comfortable with it since I was familiar with fabric from making clothes (which as I think I have said, I was not very good at it). Don’t know about the paper clips, but I feel I’d make a try, if that was what I had to work with. Hmmm how about some twisty little people?

  7. Sandra McCall

    Congrats on the Best-of-Show award Claudia. That is awesome and well deserved. I love these wall hangings- even the little peeks at the other two are exciting.
    I’m with you- twenty years ago, I did not take photos of my artwork. Now, most of it has been sold or given away- I do wish that I had record of it all. Or, if I actually saw it, maybe not. LOL

        1. Claudia McGill Post author

          Thank you. I have put on my list, when things are better, to make sure I return to the shore and look at the ocean again in person. This wall hanging reminded me.

  9. Pingback: Art Day and Fabric: Let’s Catch Up On What’s Going On in My Head These Days | Claudia McGill and Her Art World

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