This is a quilt called “Doves of the Window” by Creola Bennett Pettway. It was created using cotton and denim work clothes. This is an example of formstorming in how the artist used different combinations and arrangements of colors to bring out different parts of the pattern.

I selected the “Doves of the Window” quilt as my example of formstorming. In this quilt, you see repeating squares of the same pattern, but each square contains a different combination of colors. This shows the idea that formstorming is approaching the same prompt in several different ways, seeing how deep into your creative juices you can dive. Much lie the pattern project we just completed, this quilt shows the viewer how different colors interact when paired together. Each patch is unique, and each shows a different approach to the theme, doves in a window.

This quilt uses a fair amount of geometric, abstract and representation. Every piece used in the quilt is a geometric shape, either triangle or rectangle. These pieces form distinct squares, making it obvious where the pattern starts and ends. And, based on the title, it is both abstract and representational. We can deduce that it’s an abstract representation of doves in a window pane. The cross sections around the “circle” of color in each block seems to represent the panes of a window. And the found diamonds stitched together could bee seen as birds, with the outer two diamonds as the wings and the inner two diamonds as the tale. This is certainly an abstract depiction of doves in a window, but it can also be argued that it is representational, since it appears from the title that it does, in fact, represent a scene that the quiltmaker saw.

The quilt is also very balanced and rhythmic, in that it is equal on both sides of the quilt, which is a result of the heavy reliance on geometric forms.

The work of the Gee’s Bend women, much like this specific example, shows formstorming because there are many iterations of the same pattern, but with different colors, fabrics and approaches. This shows the artists experimenting with other forms to see what kind of quilt they could make.