In the Beginning

Origin story of this piece: I had found a hand stitched unfinished quilt top on a free table and then a friend had given me a crochet tablecloth that her grandmother made that had seen better days. Both items felt like they needed to be in an art quilt, and that there was an undiscovered story to unearth. I began to think of the stories of our past and all the hands over time that have woven and stitched those stories together to create this present moment. I imagined a creation story of my own making; it is an origin story about the beginning and possibly the end of time with Ravens weaving and stitching the earth together. This is a discovered story uncovered and revealed in the objects used to compose the art piece. This is just one of the Undiscovered stories floating around us in the object we touch and used they hold stories of their own unknow to us until we take time to listen and translate. That’s what I tried to do in this piece.

I used a piece of the beautiful vintage quilt top as the grounding pattern and strips of it are woven to provide a nest for the earth form which has a trapunto treatment to give dimensionality. I cut a slice of the timeworn croquet and hand dyed it using indigo dye to use as the sky. In between these two vintage pieces are the Ravens and the earth on a background of indigo cotton fabric. The Ravens and the earth are digitally generated images that I printed on cotton fabric and then enhanced with acrylic paint. To give movement and energy the earth and moon are ringed in metallic thread and free motion quilting is used to provide texture and definition on the raven and earth shapes. I hope my quilt in both provocative and pleasing, a gift from the past and a cautionary tale of the future. 24×48″ created Winter 2021