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Farewell to the Silver Bird
Printable
version
- Copyright © 1997 Caryl Bryer Fallert
- Size: 48" x 48"
- Techniques: Hand dyed and painted, machine pieced,
appliqued, and quilted
- Materials: 100% cotton fabric
Batting: 80% cotton / 20% polyester
- Collection of the artist
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In many of my quilts,
birds have represented the ultimate
feeling of freedom that I imagine
birds must have as they soar
across the sky.
In June of 1997, after 28 years as
a flight attendant for United Airlines,
I retired to pursue my career as a
professional quilt artist. This quilt
represents my taking leave of the
corporation to fly solo in my own
career. The silver bird, naturally
represents the airline. The globe
represents the areas where I flew
professionally in my 28 year career:
from Alaska to Venezuela and from
Montreal to Hawaii. The red, orange,
and blue stripes in the border are
the logo stripes found an every United
airplane. The bird flying away is
made from the spectral colors of light
that I often use in my quilts to represent
life and energy.
The globe is quilted
in the contour patterns of the earth
that I saw every day as I was flying.
The border is quilted in more organic
and decorative patterns. Hidden in
the quilting in the right, top and
left borders are the words so-long,
farewell, and good-bye. Surrounding
the globe are a series of quilted
airplanes. The first few are silver.
As they fly from left to right they
graduate to gold and finally to rainbow
colors.
The back of the quilt
is made from a commercial fabric in
a pattern of clouds.
Even though this design is very simple, it was challenging to make two birds, headed in opposite directions work, without drawing the eye off the edge of the composition. I began by scanning drawings I had made of two different birds and turning them in to vectors (closed shapes representing templates) in Corel Draw. Next I drew a series of concentric squares and place the outlines of part of the globe in one corner of the center square. |
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| I layered the birds over the background and tried a lot of different arrangements, experimenting to see what would capture the idea of leave-taking without becoming an awkward design. |
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| I looked at all of these designs together on my computer screen and chose the one I liked the best. In the background, I added a circle of airplanes surrounding the globe to drawing, and tried some color. Finally, I projected the line drawing onto freezer paper to make a full size pattern and templates for cutting my fabrics. |
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Exhibitions and Awards:
- Brigham City Museum of Art and History's International Quilt Invitational, July 1-August 23, 2014, Brigham City, Utah
- Spring Quilt Festival, 2003, Chicago,
IL (Professional Quilter Magazine
booth)
- Solo Exhibition: Little White School
Musuem, 2003, Oswego, IL
- Airborne: Birds, Flight, and the
Wrights, Aullwood Audubon Center,
Dayton, OH (invitation)
- "Evolving Styles - 20 Years
of Color & Design", Solo
Exhibition: LaConner Quilt Museum,
LaConner WA, March 16 - May 15, 2005Caryl Bryer Fallert: A Sense of
Wonder, solo exhibition at the Burlington
Arts Center, Burlington, ON, Canada,
Feb. 28- Mar.30. 2001 info@BurlingtonArtCentre.on.ca To
see the whole show, Click
Here
- Crossed Connections, 2000 (juried)
T.L.D. Design Center, Westmont, IL
- Spring Festival of Quilts, Empire
Quilters of New York City, 1999, Invitational,
New York City, NY
- EXHIBITION OF NQA MASTERPIECE AWARD
WINNERS, Museum of the American Quilters
Society, 1998, invitational, Paducah,
KY
- Silver Star Salute: Caryl Bryer
Fallert (Retrospective Solo Exhibition)
International Quilt Market/Festival
2006, Houston, TXQuilts=Art=Quilts , SMArt Center,
1998 (juried) Auburn NY (Juror's Choice)
- ART CENTER / OLD FORGE, 1997 (invitational
solo exhibition in conjunction with
Northeast Quilts Unlimited) Old Forge,
NY
- Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry: 40 Years of Color, Light, & Motion,
- University Museum, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, January 26 - April 16, 2016
- Mitchell Museum, Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Mt. Vernon, IL, July 31-October 9, 2016
- Nixon Centre for Performing & Visual Arts,
Newnan, GA January 9 - February 17, 2017
- Texas Quilt Museum, La Grange, TX • March 30 - June 25, 2017
- Color, Light, & Motion: Fine Art Quilts by Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry, Art at the Old Alcohol Plant Gallery, Port Hadlock, WA, July 8-August 26, 2018
Publications
- Quilters Gallery 1998 , (All American
Crafts Annual) p. 34
- Paducah Morning Sentinel, Sunday,
April 12, 1998 Page C 1
- Spotlight, Press
Publications Entertainment section,
May 19-25, 2000 Cover, pp.2 &
6
- Windhover: A Journal of Christian
Literature, Baylor University Press,
2007, Cover & page 181
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Web Site Design by Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry © 1997-2022
All Rights Reserved
Bryerpatch Studio • 10 Baycliff Place • Port Townsend, WA • 98368 • USA
360-385-2568 • caryl@bryerpatch.com
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Updated
1/8/17
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