Bouncing off of the Legacy: What You Do quilt, I idly doodled more abstract symbols in my journal in an attempt to keep my hands busy, which usually leads to a new piece. The symbols reminded me of the flotsam and jetsam I like to examine when I am at the beach, and prompted fresh drawings for stencils. From bags of hand-dyed scraps I pulled out what seemed to me ocean-related colors and moved on from there, knowing I wanted a crisp white summery background.
What the Sea Brought In
26"w x 40"h (66 cm x 101.5 cm)
Hand-dyed cotton, velvet, linen; handmade stencils with fabric paint; hand-quilted with embroidery and button/craft threads
Details:
To break up the stark shapes I let the knots show, which added texture and character.
The white-on-white background stitching has the knots on the back, leaving the focus on the individual objects and shapes: eighteen of them (chai).
Jellyfish; snail shell; crab; scallop shell; horseshoe crab pattern; feather; seal; sea star; kelp; anemone; sea grass; squid; gull; clamshell pattern; coral-like pieces; cone shell; bottle
I thought of the trash often washed up, but kept it to just the bottle. Please humans, I repeatedly say to myself, please take care of our ocean and all of its creatures! How can we coax our culture to be more nurturing in all ways?
I'm re-reading [Amazon link] Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It's a start.
Comments