With winter quickly approaching, it might be time to start piling on the blankets for the cold nights ahead. And what could be warmer than wrapping the Black Eye Galaxy around you, or maybe snuggling up with the Pillars of Creation. Making the cosmos cozier is Brooklyn artist Jimmy McBride, who taught himself how to quilt about three years ago. His inspiration- photos from the Hubble telescope. McBride studies the image to break it down into colors and shapes  and then heads to his local thrift shop to find old tee-shirts that match the colors. McBride starts off cutting the tee-shirts into appropriate shapes, explaining that the abstract quality of the shapes found in black holes and nebulas are a nice contrast to the rigid patterns of traditional quilting.

Artist Jimmy McBride standing by his "Pillars of Creation" quilt. Photo Credit: Laura Pelcher

The juxtaposition between tradition and exploration is what drives McBride, who imagines a space trucker in the future in charge of delivering supplies from one space colony to the next. In his downtime, the trucker picks up quilting by checking out downloading instructions. For McBride, it’s fun to ponder about what traditions will be continued once we’ve colonized space? He continues the narrative with the trucker throughout his creative process; a lone worker making stops along his route, running into the occasional traveler, but mostly staring out the windows at the passing planets and stars.

Black Eye Galaxy- Photo Credit Quilt Image: Jimmy McBride, Photo Credit Hubble Image: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team

McBride brings up a good point- according to the US census, people already have an average commute of over 100 hours per year; traveling in space is sure to increase that time greatly. Star Wars doesn’t show a lot of downtime as the Death Star moves from one port to another, but surely there is someone with a couple hours off playing a video game or doing a little painting. McBride, in his inner narrative, is giving serious consideration to what our roles will be in the future of space travel, even if it is an exaggerated version of what might be possible. It’s significant that we’re moving away from epic space battles and into human narratives that take place in the lonely vastness of space. It’s a move from science fiction to science narrative that’s being pushed by artists like McBride and director Duncan Jones with his indie film “Moon.” It will be interesting to see how human nature will be considered in future works of art in the framework of  Hubble images or the latest scientific findings. And it’s not just the artists, even the lawyers are preparing for the future of space travel when writing up contracts.

Reflection Nebula- Photo Credit Quilt Image: Jimmy McBride, Photocredit Hubble Image: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team

The quilts are sold on the artist’s website or on etsy.com.

Tags: art, culture, exhibitions, hubble images, science fiction

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Blogs, Commentary, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.