Lenore Crawford

Midland, Michigan

Lenore Crawford is from the Midwest, but her colorful works depict France and French architecture as someone who has taken the culture into her soul. Here there is a country back road where bicyclists race, there a garden walk. A lake at sunset gives peace. Villages abound.

Yet her love for change takes her down new paths. One of her newest pieces, Emma in the Looking Glass, embraces her love of flower gardens and introduces the aspect of portraiture into her work.

Previously working in science, Crawford now has only to walk upstairs to begin her day in her attic studio. There her quilts transport her to a place where beauty reigns.

Inspiration

My inspiration comes from the years I spent in France, beginning when I was 16. I love the country’s architecture and gardens. The ancient buildings with their interesting decorative elements lend themselves to this medium. Using fabric to recreate them gives the designs great texture and warmth in a unique way.

Breaking ties that bind

My full-time job used to be working at the Dow Chemical Company in the research lab. During that time, I also created fabric art and sold it through my website. My lab partner, who was a woman a year older than me, had had breast cancer. When the cancer returned three years later, we researched clinical trials and other options for treatment. When one of the tumors wrapped around her heart and she died, I talked to my husband about quitting my job and doing my art full time. It was my passion, and I wasn’t getting any younger. He agreed, and I quit two weeks before 9/11 happened. Not a great time to quit a good-paying job with great benefits! But I was so happy every day.

What I’ve learned from being a full-time artist is that you don’t get to do a lot of actual art. The job includes invoicing, teaching, marketing, sales, accounting, etc. I have also learned that I can’t make a full-time living just selling my art. I teach and sell products to supplement my income.

My typical day begins on my computer doing all the business stuff —getting out orders, answering email, updating my website, paying bills. Usually by mid-

afternoon I’m finished with that and can focus on being creative. If I have too many other tasks to do, like getting out large pattern orders, I may never get to the fun.

I am currently getting ready to begin a new piece and have to decide what it will be. That can take days or months. Traveling to teach takes a lot of my time, so the days when I’m gone I look forward to returning to the studio to work.

The rhythm of creativity

My art quilts are mostly made using the same technique: raw-edged fusing. I developed this process to make going from a photo to an art quilt fairly straightforward. But sometimes a certain area of a piece is a bit of a construction challenge: What to put on top of what? Then it takes time to determine how best to get the look I want.

My favorite piece so far is the one I just finished, Emma in the Looking Glass. I don’t normally do people, so that was a challenge. When I was young, I used to do only portraits in acrylics and pen and ink, so I’ve been enjoying doing landscapes for the past few years. For Emma, I created the stones first because I was anxious to see how they would come out using my many Stonehenge prints from Northcott Fabrics. That was fun.

Then I worked on the concrete pots. Normally I go from section to section where one butts up to the next. I continued construction that way. I searched for the perfect fleshtone fabrics for

above left: Port of Cassis 48 X 52 inches, 2010

Emma but couldn’t find any that matched my picture. This section of the quilt was created with fabric paints to get the colors and values I needed, and I changed the colors of her clothes and hat to work with the background. I dyed the fabric for the water and eliminated the trees that were behind her along with their reflections in the water. In my stash I found a beautiful garden fabric that worked perfectly. The big challenge of this piece was the stitching. I hadn’t stitched on images of people, and I was afraid I would ruin the whole piece.

My favorite thing about my process is the design stage. Watching a piece grow and seeing my ideas realized is very rewarding. Deciding what to do is the most difficult aspect of a project. Sewing has to be done and so becomes the work part of the project.

New direction, end goal

I have been thinking about changing my style of work. I don’t know exactly how yet, but the idea has been swirling around in my head. I love creating architecture in fabric and adding the fine detail with fabric paints to make it more realistic, but I am a person who loves change. After doing the same thing for a long time, I need something different.

The world is so full of beauty that I want to capture and share with others. My art is a celebration of the world around me. When an artist isn’t present to interpret his or her artwork, the works should speak for themselves.

above right: Afternoon Delight 34 X 28 inches, 2010