Heading up to the cross quarter day[1] of
Imbolc (August 8 this year, but traditionally remembered on August 2), I’ve started to notice small changes in the
vegetation. Lots of native blooms, especially the native varieties of wattle
(acacia) are starting to show their colours, moving from green into all shades
of pale to vibrant yellows, as our southern orientation of planet Earth takes
us gradually back towards the sun - and into the fullness of warmth and light.
For me, this season is a signal of reassurance that life’s energies are returning
for another cycle. For the cycle of creativity as expressed through the natural
cycles, it is the breath of fresh air that signals renewing energy and
inspiration to create.
The quilt I made for this early pre-spring equinox revival
in nature is called “Season of the quickening”, a term that I understand was
used originally in farming practice, in reference to the lambing season as
spring approached. It’s a large quilt, (140cms long and 93cms wide), and it is
made from hand-dyed cotton fabrics, using a combination from the more
conventional stripping with free-cutting techniques, to evoke a sense of
continuity and change experienced in the cycle of Earth’s seasonal expressions.
The design started with the idea of looking through a shuttered (remember
venetian blinds?) window frame out into the bush that is starting to regenerate
and come into bloom after the dormant winter months, and skies are lighting up
to their wide and intense blue. Now, many years on, I have to return to the comments made in
my PhD thesis about the grid formation at the bottom of the quilt, where the
reddish strands are interwoven through the yellow and blue patches. No doubt I
was experimenting with technique. I think, put simply, I was engaging with the
space of the creative void and the possibility of change as the ongoing act of
all Creation.
***
There is a strong resonance with the earlier quilt made for
the season of Imbolc for my Masters thesis, but the second version for the Southern Hemisphere is
much more daring, even bolder and wilder. The earlier one is also based on the
concept of light returning, this time through a window in the form of a square
of 16 conjoined panels with a Celtic knot influence, looking like the casement
window in a medieval building. The influence was the Goddess Brigid, (she, who
is made a saint with the coming of Christianity). She keeps the flame alive
all through winter, and as Virgin carries in her the returning life energy. After
much unexpected organic flow, the work becomes a banner for Imbolc, with
reference to wattle blossoms, warming fires, and the return of light. It has left these shores and now hangs at Letterwalton House, in county Argyll, Scotland.
[1] A cross quarter day marks and celebrates what
the name indicates: the halfway mark between Solstice and Equinox. There are
four of those in the year, and so there are four cross quarter days: Imbloc,
Beltaine, Lammas and Samhain (usually known as Hallowe’en from the Christian
Church’s apellation).
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