Night Driving – 2021.05.10

Last August, I started thinking about what I would submit to the Grand National 2021 exhibition ‘Crossroads’. I made two pieces specifically for this exhibition: Night Driving and A Study of Pattern and Perspective. I submitted my entries in December, but didn’t want to post about them until the exhibition opened on May 2. This post is about Night Driving – my inspiration and construction techniques.

As I often do when searching for inspiration, I did a Google image search for the theme title and similar words. As usual, one image search led to many others and eventually I was looking at a screen full of time-lapse photos of highway traffic at night. I was struck by the beauty of the streams of light, and I decided to see if I could replicate that effect in a fibre art format.

I started with a sketch of two highways, one passing over the other, with red taillights on the right and white headlights on the left. I cut the highway shapes from freezer paper to use as templates as my plan was to quilt the highways separately from the background.

How to depict streams of lights? I considered paint, but that’s not my style. I considered fusing very skinny strips of shiny fabric. It had to be bright enough to show up against the dark background. I decided to use embroidery floss couching it in place by zigzag stitching over it with shiny thread. I made a couple of samples and was very happy with the results.

I constructed each highway piece separately. I layered black fabric over black felt and stitched through both layers. For each one, I started by stitching 7 evenly spaced lines, over which I couched embroidery floss. This ensured my lines curved accurately with the curve of the highway. Then I filled in with a variety of colors and overlapped some of the curves. I frequently pinned the highways on the design wall to evaluate the effect.

I made the highway pieces a couple of inches longer than the templates to give me some ‘wriggle room’ when I did the final positioning and stitched them to the background. So on the design wall, during construction, the highways extended past the edge of the background. At some point I realized I really liked that effect and incorporated it into my final design.

Here is the finished piece – Night Driving. It is 28″ x 22″. This my artist statement:

Driving through the night, across the featureless landscape, headlights and taillights blur into glowing streams of light, crossing in the darkness. As I drive, I realize I am surrounded by strangers; all of us travelling in our own socially isolated bubbles. I wonder about the people in all the vehicles around me. I wonder about their destinations – are they heading home, across town to visit friends, or perhaps starting a long trip toward a new adventure? I wonder about their hopes and dreams.

On the weekend, at the virtual awards ceremony, I was thrilled when ‘Night Driving‘ was awarded First Place for Excellence in Thread Work. You can see all the pieces in the exhibition on the Grand National website. This page has a slideshow of the 48 pieces. This page shows thumbnails of all the entries, and you can click on any item to see a full size image with the details. And you can vote for your favourite for the Viewer’s Choice Award.

Thanks for stopping by.  I will be linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.

• Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday
• Can I get a Whoop Whoop? by Confessions of a Fabric Addict
• Love Laugh Quilt Monday Making
• Quilt Fabrication Midweek Makers