what was I thinking?

This piece is for submission to an invitational juried exhibit with the theme "Beneath the Surface,"  so, being a part-time linear type thinker, I toyed with the idea of having two actual surfaces in my work, one beneath the other.

As I have stated in my previous explanation of the evolution of this composition, I used my first digitally created image, "nude stitches,"  and digitally superimposed that form on photos of traditional quilt blocks I had created.  I have reincarnated "nude stitches"  in art quilts many times (blog posts of August, September and October, 2008).

My goal was to have a metaphoric and literal image that translated: beneath the surface of an art quilter is a traditional quilter.

So, why not print my new composition on cloth, place the actual quilt block behind the photographic image of it, and cut open that photographic image a bit to reveal, "beneath the surface" of this art-quilt-composition, the real block?

What was I thinking? First, I would be cutting into a crystal clear image that I really liked:

As you can see from the relative size of my Converse All Stars atop a chair, this is a huge piece of cloth -- three feet across, four feet high.

Here is the quilt top on a queen sized bed (note the "stay" letters on this wall of our guest room --if you overstay your welcome, that greeting mysteriously disappears and the imperative "go" appears):

If I cut into it, I would either have to remove that cutaway cloth, or somehow tack the cut cloth back to reveal the block beneath. This seemed criminal to me.

As well, as you can see in the first photo above, the colors of the original block don't really sing in harmony with the lower-intensity version of the printed photograph of the block.

A conundrum. What to do next?