Cooperation and sharing. That was the prompt that Eunhee Lee gave us in the beginning of April 2020. She wrote a lovely post about the topic here.  I must admit, I sat on this topic for quite a while.  I wasn’t feeling very creative a month into sheltering in place.  I had several ideas, but didn’t feel like working on any of them.  One day, while cleaning the studio, I came across one of the last abstract pieces I had printed myself.  I just loved printing on dupioni silk with fiber reactive dyes.  The color is intense and the slubby, irregular texture really makes me happy. 

Here’s the original digital drawing which always reminded me of somewhat cacophonous music.  

After playing with in in Photoshop, I came up with the design and hot pink and lime green colors.   I’m usually not a fan of highly saturated complementary colors, but this combination just made me happy.

So back to the prompt.  Cooperation and sharing also makes me think of music, especially jazz bands. The musicians share their talent and cooperate on who is going to be featured in a solo. So I started thinking of music, then, because of some of the shapes in the image, trumpets.  Which led me to trumpeters.  This image didn’t remind me of Miles Davis at all, so he was out.  Somehow my mind wandered to loud colors and trumpets, which brought me to Doc Severinsen.  Doc was the band leader for Johnny Carson’s band (the NBC Orchestra) on the Tonight Show.

In addition to his music, Doc was known for his flashy wardrobe.

So put all those ideas together, and I give you Doc’s Sing, Sing, Sing.  Here’s the video that inspired the title.

Here are some detail shots of the quilt. Click on an image for a larger view.

Doc’s Sing, Sing, Sing
Name: Deb Cashatt
Dimensions 40″ x 20″
Material: Digital Print on 100% silk dupioni (Pixeladies), wool batting, polyester backing. Perle cotton, rayon, polyester, and silk thread.
Technique: Digital collage. Hand applique. Hand quilted.