Virtual Workshop: Lenticular Quilt

Virtual Workshop: Lenticular Quilt
Lhotka/ Schminke/ Krause Studios, 1999

"heARTland Quilt/ Lenticular Print"
36 x 36 inches (91.4 x 91.4 cm)
© Digital Atelierç 1999

In 1998-99 Bonny Lhotka, Karin Schminke and Dorothy Simpson Krause produced a portfolio of work called heARTland. As a symbol of the series, they chose details from their images for a quilt which became the cover of a CD and catalog, a silk scarf and an experiment in lenticular printmaking. The quilt, a typically American art form, is symbolic of the artists' decision to work together, sharing parts of their lives and their art to make a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

To developed their skills in lenticular imaging, the artists worked collaboratively by phone and email from their studios in Boulder, CO; Seattle, WA; and Marshfield, MA. Keeping in touch at each stage of the project the artists shared their successes and failures to incorporate this cutting edge technology into their art. Using Flip! software, a series of "pitch tests" were printed on the Roland HiFi JET to determine the lines per inch to match the lens. In this two-flip quilt, the interlacing Flip! software slices the two images into linear stripes and reassembles them. When placed behind the lenticular lens, the interlaced print flips from one image to the other as the viewer moves.

The MicroLens 40 lpi lens, a piece of plastic with a series of 40 parallel lens or lenticules per inch, was cleaned using Graphic Media Product's anti-static roller. The lens was then aligned with the printed interlaced image of the quilt and laminated together with a CODA laminator. As the viewer moves by the completed lenticular quilt, the frames "flip" from one image to the other.