The Emperor's Harem

My friend Louisa Smith is an award-winning quilter and fabric artist who is known both nationally and internationally. When she saw my abstract... more

by Jean Hall

Title

The Emperor's Harem

Artist

Jean Hall

Medium

Photograph - Digitally Manipulated Photography, Abstract

Description

My friend Louisa Smith is an award-winning quilter and fabric artist who is known both nationally and internationally. When she saw my abstract Intergalactic Orange Grove, which I had made from a photo, she asked me if I would play around with some images of her quilts, and I was very flattered to do so. The second one I tried was called Dualistic, and it can be seen at the following web address: http://www.quiltescapes.com/gallery/dispquilt.cgi?quilt=dualistic

Her design was full of circles and diamonds and contained a lot of turquoise, pink, light purple, and green, as well as smaller amounts of red and orange -- and just a little bit of yellow. I had gone through a few dozen steps when I hit the colored pencil filter on PhotoShop Elements and something magical happened.

This abstract is the result, and it looks almost nothing like Louisa's original quilt. I later did abstracts for her that were much closer to her quilt's original colors. I thought this version had a Chinese flavor and imagined it as the carved screen in front of an emperor's harem room, veiling all kinds of mysteries from public view. Another alternate title I considered was Magic Carpet. I really love how it turned out, and thank Louisa for her permission to post my adaptation here. (Hope you will also check out her wonderful quilts on the website above.)

Uploaded

May 17th, 2015