Art

We became friends with Rene Rowland through our mutual love of the group Walk Off The Earth. Rene hosts a facebook fan page, which follows the unique group's every move, including their current 'Gang of Rhythm" Tour.

But that's only one of Rene's many talents. She is also an artist and currently enrolled in art school where she is expanding her skills.

We asked Rene if we could feature an interview and some of her moseix's in Scribbles. Not only did Rene agree, she provided both the questions and the answers for the exclusive interview below (now that's a first.) 

Check out the time and effort that goes into each piece Rene Rowland creates. It reminds me of the passion I have for Scribbles....only on fabric, instead of online.

Rene and her "Moseix"

What inspired you to create this art form?

The very first art that inspired me in this direction was Pointillism, which I was first exposed to in the third grade. I was fascinated by looking at the dots, which were meaningless up close, and then seeing a real picture from afar.

Later, in college, I saw a hand-torn paper mosaic of Abraham Lincoln at a museum, done in shades of grey. I do not remember the artist, and I have not been able to find it. That was the seed of what I now call "moseix."

I thought I'd like to make a picture like that using fabric. I had started with a poster print of a sunset--surprisingly in color!--and cut it up into one-inch squares, then started stacking them to organize by color. That was extremely tedious and I didn't finish.

...Not long after, my brother sent me a picture of my nephew, and the photo file had a little icon showing my nephew's face. Well, I copied the icon and pasted it into my desktop program, then enlarged it, and A-HA! I had my very first "Photoquilt."

The finished size was only about 30 x 40 inches, but the squares were large and it was hard to see the image unless you were at the end of the block looking at it! It was all a kind of happy accident.

How do you actually make your "moseix?"

Through a lot of patience and eyeballing! But once I found Photoshop in the late 90s I had the key. It was then possible to take an image and decide exactly how many squares to use. Ah, genius, that Photoshop, it pixelates!

The next one I made was a reproduction of a beautiful portrait of my dad at age 27. Not every image will render properly as a moseiq, but a facial closeup with this kind of classic shadowing is perfect for it. It wasn't too hard to find many shades of grey cotton fabric for this piece.

I have forgotten how many shades are in it, but once I decided on my palette of white to black, I stared at the pixelated image in photoshop and plotted the cut squares of fabric onto a sheet on the walll, one by one. Then I sewed the squares together as patchwork. They are all made from 100% cotton fabric.

You have made at least two Disney-themed moseix, is Disney your favorite theme?

My brother is the Disneyphile! He asked if I could do a portrait of Walt, like the one of my dad. And so you see it here, and there's even a hidden symbol in the upper right corner, can you see it?

The colors in the photo are not completely true. When you see it in person, it's a whole lot of fun to find the hidden surprise. In the year 2000, Disney released Fantasia 2000. The Rite of Spring segment moved me to tears, with the sprite, and the forest dying and coming back to life. So this moseiq is done with exactly 2000 squares in (I forget how) many shades of green.

How do you find all of those different colors? Do you dye the fabric?

I looked into dyeing it, but there are many established dye artists, and from them I can get a graded set of one color ready-to-go. But the majority of the fabrics are prints, especially batik prints. These I find at great quilt shops, and I'll travel an hour or two to get there. I don't need to buy much of each color, just an 1/8th or 1/4 yard at most.

But I need to buy hundreds of colors. And for every hundred used, there are a hundred that were set aside. Finding the fabrics is half the fun of making a moseiq. It's as much fun as it was when I was 10 at the Sears paint shop collecting sample paint cards while my parents picked out their home decor.

You mentioned "photoquilt" and "moseix." Are they quilts? What is the difference?

When I first got the idea, the obvious name seemed to be "photoquilts," and I established www.photoquilts.com, where you'll see most of these works (The website is an archive only now). They weren't technically quilts though, because quilting is the stitches that run through the patchwork in various patterns of their own. Therefore, I could never display my work in quilt shows.

One day I realized that the pixel art was decidedly contemporary, even though it was through an old medium (the fabric), and so I tried stretching it on a frame as art, rather than finishing it in the old-fashioned way. That's when I changed the name to "moseix," and now I will only stretch the work on frames. I'm much happier with it stretched, and it has added a higher value to my finished product.

Your picture of the Madonna and child is amazing. It looks like something I've seen before.

That's because it probably is! It's a detail from a 16th-century oil painting by Bernardino Luini called "The Virgin Holding the Sleeping Child with St John and Two Angels." The reason this one is clearer is that it has a higher resolution. That's more pixels per inch, just like with photos.

By the time of the Luini piece, I'd found a way to make the squares smaller. This 20x30-inch piece has 1,1813 squares in more than a hundred colors. The Luini--a copy that I made after the one in this picture--is the first one I decided to stretch on a frame.

Do you sell your moseix? Are they displayed in art exhibits?

Yes and no. Technically I have only sold one, and I believe I parted with it for too little. However, I donated this horse to an animal helping organization, and it auctioned for $3,000. That was pretty good! It still doesn't really pay for my time, but I was quite pleased that it brought that much. The horse is taken from a gorgeous photo of a rescued mustang, an Arabian Mare. You can also see it at www.moseix.com.

As for museums, I made a replica of the Walt Disney that my brother has, and it's displayed in at the Walt Disney Hometown Museum in Marceline, Missouri.

Do you do work on commission? What will you do next?

I have had a few inquiries regarding commissions, but 'til now the cost has gotten in the way. But of course, now everyone at Scribbles will want one, and there'll be a wait list. HAHA

Here's a sampling of Rene Rowland's awesome art. For each piece, we see the original photo or artwork that was the inspiration, a small version of what the moseix would look like from a distance and a closer view of what each piece is actually made up of.

 Rene's Father

 "A reproduction of a beautiful portrait of my dad at age 27. Not every image will render properly as a moseiq, but a facial closeup with this kind of classic shadowing is perfect for it. 

It wasn't too hard to find many shades of grey cotton fabric for this piece." 

Walt Disney

 "My brother is the Disneyphile! He asked if I could do a portrait of Walt, like the one of my dad. And so you see it here, and there's even a hidden symbol in the upper right corner, can you see it?"

Fantasia

 "In the year 2000, Disney released Fantasia 2000. The Rite of Spring segment moved me to tears, with the sprite, and the forest dying and coming back to life. 

So this moseiq is done with exactly 2000 squares in (I forget how) many shades of green."

 

 Madonna and Child

"[This is] a detail from a 16th-century oil painting by Bernardino Luini called "The Virgin Holding the Sleeping Child with St John and Two Angels." The reason this one is clearer is that it has a higher resolution. That's more pixels per inch, just like with photos..... This 20x30-inch piece has 1,1813 squares in more than a hundred colors."

Horse

"The horse is taken from a gorgeous photo of a rescued mustang, an Arabian Mare. You can also see it at www.moseix.com".