grave rubbings for art quilts

I was fortunate to go on a vacation to Paris earlier this month and during the week, we took some time to visit the Pere Lachaise cemetery. I came prepared with white Kona cotton and several pieces of lovely vintage silk from disassembled Japanese kimonos... and some crayons so I could capture interesting grave rubbings.

This one above I think was the most successful. I plan to enhance it with thread painting and trapunto. For my non-quilter readers, that means I will add a layer of batting underneath the image, I will sew along the image outlines, and then cut away the excess batting so when I lay it on its foundation, the bird will be raised up off the surface.

In case you are not familiar with Père Lachaise, it is one of Paris' most famous cemeteries. The place is huge and several hundreds years old. There are so many famous writers, artists, musicians and statesman buried here that you'd really need a couple weeks to explore it all. Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Frederic Chopin, Camille Pissaro... and many others. It is such a beautiful and peaceful place and the art is simply breath taking.

Here's my photo essay from my short time inside the cemetery.

Here's another successful rubbing. I like the 'gravelly' look of the outer circles. I am planning to enhance this one too somehow and incorporate it into the center of my Celtic Cross quilt, which is very much still a work in progress.

This is the Celtic Cross that I am still working on. Its quite large... the photo is deceiving. I think it is about 5 feet high, about 3 1/2 feet wide. Its made with hundreds of one-inch squares. The Celtic design on the edges of the cross is hand-applique trapunto. The inner circle is unfinished. It will be covered in some form or fashion... eventually! Once I get these things done, the whole thing will be quilted.

I have to credit the amazingly talented Susan Lenz for the information on the best way to capture grave rubbings! Susan's series of art quilts based on grave rubbings is just stunning, as is the rest of her work, of course.

I am linking up with Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays. So many cools blogs to explore there, check it out.

Stay tuned for more on the Celtic Cross and other grave rubbings I am working on. After such a lovely vacation, its just hard to get going again... so I am a bit slow on the blogging routine!