Quilts and Wheat

Art in Rural Communities: Halsey Project 2016

I didn’t sleep much last night because I couldn’t turn off my brain. Things are certainly shifting and moving with design ideas for the wall project. Friday I took a trip to Eugene and went off 99W for a couple of photos. The skies were filled with dynamic clouds, rain showers in the distance, and very strong lighting. It was just after noon. I realized the next time I go out would need to be late afternoon for high contrast in the fields. Wheat will definitely be part of one design square. In the past, Halsey was one of the largest shippers of wheat in the valley. It remains a strong crop for the area.

During the Coffee & Donut talk on Wednesday, I mentioned thinking of my work as being similar to quilts: using square/grid format as a base. This morning work started on an overall design idea. Following in my sisters quilting footsteps, I pulled out grid paper and started work. The initial thought was to use 3ft x 3ft squares, 2ft x 8ft rectangles for vertical separation, with 2ft space between everything.

After this sketch, I realized I only have 11ft height to work with (or do I? Accurate measuring to come). Using 8ft, I would only have a buffer on the bottom of 3ft. Not so good! Plus this design would require 4 sheets of 4’x8′ material. Dropping down a bit in size gives me the below image (1.2)

Design 1.2 drops dimensions a bit. Squares at 2ft and verticals at 2ft x 5ft. On second thought, I’ll probably drop that to 1.5ft width for the rectangles. With it covering only 5ft in height I’ll be able to give a generous 5ft lower buffer for the work. Below is a general idea of how much space it would occupy.

This is just the first concept and it allows my brain to think about height and overall space. Sunday will be another road trip to double check dimensions and take out paper squares/rectangles to tape on the wall. I’m probably dreaming way too big, but why not! I see this project as a great brain challenge.