Book Review - Fibreart Montage by Judith Baker Montano

There is a book plate preprinted inside the front cover of Judith Baker Montano’s new book ‘Fibreart Montage’. Use it – this is not one that you ever want to risk losing or not finding its way back home! The colours featured lavishly on every page are enough to have me reaching for an order form, let alone the amazing photography featured. There is just so much to learn fibreart!
Five minutes with this wonderful book and I am reaching for my needle, but then I want to grab my camera and replicate the page of window shutters - an item that I never before considered as art. Instead I scamper over to the computer, where I know that I have dozens of fire hydrant images (well, they look really different in other parts of the world, so a bizarre little hobby sprang up) that could just be an ideal focal subject.
It is a text that will have you sighing over beauty and revelling at the artist’s cleverness. There are chapters on getting started, crazy quilting, the collage journey, photography, silk dyeing, landscapes and seascapes, and under water. There are patterns, stitch guides and resource lists. There is so much to learn from this gifted lady, and it is easier due to the fabulous precise diagrams and really clear up close photos. The directions are easy to follow and digest – the whole book will have you nodding your head in agreement.
Judith is clearly a very generous teacher, because she has done what many others do not – photographed so well that you can actually see the intricately fine detail, enough to be able to accurately work from her inspiring montages. The work that will go into your own collage will be well worth the effort when you rejoice in the finished result! Spiral bound inside hardcover, 266pp. Julia .