“This is one of a series of pieces I have done based on the imagery and texture of the natural outcropping of granite where I live in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Yosemite National Park. I am intrigued with the way shadows both echo and redefine form.
The imagery for this work came from one of my husband’s black and white photographs – of a tree shadow cast across granite stone on our property. I enhanced the paper print with oil pastels to suggest a human figure, adding arms and hands. I then manipulated the colors in Photoshop and printed the fabric in reverse to create two figures within the rich textures of nature.
In our use and abuse of the earth’s precious resources, humanity is casting a very large shadow – one that stretches far into the future. I incorporated human figures here – to give recognition and scale to this portrayal.”
Lura Schwarz Smith has a BA degree in art from San Francisco State University. She has been producing art quilts since 1975 and has received awards both nationally and internationally. One of her quilts was named as
“100 Best Quilts of the 20th Century.”
Smith’s work can be seen in galleries and art quilt exhibitions, such as Quilt National and Quilt Visions. Her work is in many private collections and she is a member of the Studio Art Quilt Associates. Together with her husband, she is co-author of “Secrets of Digital Quilting: From Camera to Quilt.”