Purposeful Play
Purposeful play is a deliberate free-form practice with one goal in mind: to ultimately improve the outcome of the finished product while capturing a thought, emotion, or technique.
I have a lifelong desire to make and to learn how anything is made, and I am persistent about it. I am currently focused on quiltmaking and the traditions of those who came before me. This gives me a path to think about where I am going. It’s a very thoughtful process.
I CAN THINK OF THE IDEA,
I CAN SEE IT COME TO LIFE WITH MY EYES,
I CAN FEEL IN MY HEART IF IT’S WHERE I NEED TO BE,
AND I CAN PHYSICALLY CONSTRUCT SOMETHING THAT REPRESENTS ALL THOSE SENSES.
My purpose is to use art as a self-healing tool. I can search my past to work through issues, ideas, and memories. After all, I can only dig from my own experiences. Although I could choose to work through sadness or grief, I like to think that every quilt/art I make is all about joy, even if made from a place of sadness.
Repeating a technique over and over until it’s easy or stumbling onto an easier way to do something is part of what excites me about quilting. Jumping in and cutting up textiles is a great way to watch and see how fabrics come together and learn construction and techniques. There is also the satisfaction I get from knowing that I can dismantle something and put it back together in a way that tells a story.
Waverunner II / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, 2009, 45˝ × 45˝
Lattice Blooms / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by Linda Sekerak, 2010, 66˝ × 86˝
A lot of my early work is just okay. Some of the color palettes I used were awful, even my choices in fabrics are questionable! But by all of those choices I made over the years, I have trained my eyes to know what I like, what works well with each other. You have to make ugly pieces and then learn from them. You have to make something that is just so fabulous that you look at it and think, Wow! I can’t believe I did that! For myself, the failure and the successes are equally valuable.
I am not saying everything I make is great. This is me saying the current work is slightly better than the last quilt I made, and every quilt I’ve made in the past has led me to making better quilts now.
One never reaches perfection. If that is your goal, then good luck with that! I make to satisfy myself. If I feel I have pushed myself as far as I can on the given project, then I feel I’ve done a good thing. Sometimes after working so hard on one project, I do something that is ridiculously easy just to get it done. After I make a quilt like that, I am recharged and ready to take on another challenge. I might consider that quilt a warm-up exercise … before the big game.
Being aware of why I “play with purpose” keeps me connected to my creative thoughts and my purpose. I must enjoy the journey, express myself, tell my story. To do this, I find I have to work quickly, capture the energy when I have the moment where the hairs stand on end, and just push forward. I make choices quickly, live with them, and make more quilts. I let go of outside noise—meaning the likes or dislikes from others have no purpose here, unless it’s from a handful of people whose opinions I value and who push me a little further along in my journey.
With every quilt I make, I learn something about myself and my art. I enjoy pushing the limits to see just what I can do. I am my own worst critic. I am my own quilt police. And that is totally okay. That is a part of my purpose. I can self-edit, I can change, I can grow, I can make mistakes, and I can create. Ultimately, I must make.
Tile Quilt / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, 2009, 60˝ × 60˝
Sometimes I have an idea that incorporates many different block options and sometimes, I kick parts out of the quilt once I get a firm grip on where I’m going visually. The blocks for Sun Showers were made for Black Flowers in the Sky, but the scale of the blocks did not fit my final vision for the quilt. The color palette was inspiring though, so I went on and completed Sun Showers, using black as my negative space to push foreground and background.
Black Flowers in the Sky / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by Angela Walters, 2011, 65˝ × 65˝
Sun Showers / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by Shelly Pagliai, 2012–2013, 68˝ × 72˝
Short Stacks / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by Shelly Pagliai, 2017, 59˝ × 72˝
Pattern Play / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by Shelly Pagliai, 2015, 69˝ × 81˝
Quilter’s Cairn / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by Shelly Pagliai, 2013, 107˝ × 94˝
This is a quilt I always wished was king size, so I could have it on my bed. This is why I make so many large quilts! In building this quilt, I put four little triangles in the wrong direction on purpose. (I like people to look at my quilts to find the not-quite-right thing or the “Made-Fabric” in each quilt.) Three years later, I found an “error” that I never saw (nor did anyone else) until after the quilt was done. This shows us that looking and thinking are two different things. Your brain tells you what to see, but take a photo of it and look at it again—it will look completely different. Stepping back for perspective helps you see what is really there. My method 15 Minutes of Play can go a long way! Mistakes are how you learn and grow. Train your eyes to see. Make more quilts.
The Star Splitter / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, 2010, 81˝ × 91˝
Complete quilt instructions and acrylic templates can be found on my website.
I love pushing foreground and background by making the two elements play off each other. I do this by using the white improvisational piecing within the star and as a background color. Mixing improv with technical piecing is one way to add visual layers to your quilts. You can also see by adding three more blocks to Thunderstruck, the visual affect gets extremely more powerful in Thunderstruck Four Block.
Thunderstruck / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by Shelly Pagliai, 2016, 40˝ × 40˝
Complete quilt instructions can be found on my website.
Thunderstruck Four Block / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by Liz Haskell, 2018, 88˝ × 88˝
Whirlygig / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by John Kubinec, 2014, 79˝ × 79˝
Summer of Stars / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by Linda Sekerak, 2011, 102˝ × 98˝
Orange Melange / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, quilted by Shelly Pagliai, 2017, 70˝ × 71˝
Dropping a Stone / Victoria Findlay Wolfe, 2012, 54˝ × 54˝, hand and machine quilted