Stretched Canvas

Modern Lines

Contemporary White

Natural Clear Maple

Unframed print




Hollis Polk, San Francisco
Member Since December 2008
Artist Statement Hollis Polk
Artist’s Statement

I have loved photography since I was 14, having been lent a B&W SLR camera by my father. Unfortunately, getting 1 or 2 good photos from a roll of film made photography a very expensive hobby.

I have loved quilts since my teens as well, even making a couple of large ones with simple designs to account for my minimal sewing skills and lack of room to work.

Then came digital photography – I could take photos to my heart’s content & only print those I really liked. I became fascinated by detail, texture & color.

Nature’s Quillts

One day, looking at my texture photos on my camera, it occurred to me that nature’s textures, when reduced to 2 dimensions instead of 3, looked a lot like calico fabric. Eureka! I could make quilts from my photos!

Nature’s Quilts are more complicated than they look. In order to make them, I had to

• Take over 11,000 photos of nature
• Sort the photos by color so I can find them
• Learn the software
• Find the traditional quilt patterns on which most are modeled
• Make templates on my computer for each pattern
• Create each unique design by populating a template with pieces of several photos, sizing and rotating each piece of each photo to suit each location in the template.
• Print the design and frame it, make it into a card, etc. (I do all this myself.)

Nature’s Mandalas

Eventually, Nature, herself, wanted to become the art, without the structure of the quilt designs. In order to do these, I had to

• Take even more photos (I think I’m over 12,000 now)!
• Learn different software
• Cut individual items out of the photos – I have a library of almost 300 individual objects – and counting!
• Make each mandala by allowing the objects to tell me what they would like to be, & how they would like to be positioned and oriented.
• Print the design and frame it, make it into a card, etc. (I do all this myself.)

The process of making each individual piece of art is a meditative one, and quite healing for me.

Comments

Product No 2738992
Subjects African, Animals, Floral & Plants, Floral & Still Life
Style Graphic/Design
Medium
Tags Hollis, Polk