Addendum to “Twilight”

 This small art quilt has existed in liminal space over several years, waiting to be reinvented. It has in fact come into final form after the addition of another panel. After completing this little wall hanging by stitching along the binding another option presented itself for inclusion. 

I’d muddled around with a small strip, adding a variety of leaves from my collection, already cut out and stored in my shoebox. Created separately, I wasn’t sure whether to include it in this backyard quilt or save it for the next one that I have in mind. However, this has probably become the most ‘unpicked’ and reworked piece I have ever made. The lower boundary had to be unpicked for the addition to be made. So be it! As a result, the final manifestation now includes the ‘ground’ at the base, as though standing at the edge of the lagoon, and positions the viewer to be drawn into the entirety of the spirit of this amazing and sacred place. 

570x360mms

Twilight: between the worlds

 My visit to Kerry in her days of twilight assured me she was about to set out on a very important journey, her soul journey towards tranquillity. It is not easy to see someone at this stage of life, but on realising that she was in deep communion with her soul journey I felt relieved and comforted – privileged to be with her for a short time. It’s the same when I sit at the lagoon, or drive through those big old trees as I ask them to give me their loving Earth hug. It is the feeling of being held by the Mystery that is Life and Death. While the quilt may be a metaphor for where I am standing personally also, confronted by the likelihood of dying from a terminal cancer, this quilt holds a deeply felt appreciation for and a loving memory of my extraordinary dear friend Kerry.

The gum leaves have again presented themselves for inclusion on the surface of the calm waters of the quilt. Already cut out from hand-dyed cottons, they have been saved in another shoebox and ready to be used. I decided to cut out a few more in red. Ever since noticing the red leaves of gums, both new and fallen into the leaf litter that is ever present in my backyard, I have gained confidence in including such brightness into a bush scenario.  And at this time of the year, the magnificent spring blooms of waratahs stands in the bush cannot be ignored. They celebrate the backyard of the Australian bush that we all share.

The final naming of a quilt usually becomes obvious after it has been finished, even though it has most likely been there from the inception. As the parts are saying to me this is the Glenbrook Lagoon, a place of natural beauty, peace and tranquillity, I began to think of other words, such as twilight. The word resides between dark and light; it could apply to both early evening and morning. It is a liminal space in Earth’s traverse around Sun, and in Kerry’s transition to the liminal space between life and death. It’s a space of being, in twilight between diminishing light or diminishing dark. Hence the name for this little quilt has become: “Twilight: between the worlds”.

1'7" (480)x1'2"(360)

Here's a final thought: 

BEING AN ARTIST 

(as we all are in so many different forms) MEANS 

FOREVER HEALING YOUR OWN WOUNDS 

WHILE ENDLESSLY EXPOSING THEM.

In memory of Kerry

Two years ago at the beginning of spring, when I’d unpicked the little quilt to transform it into new life by becoming the Glenbrook Lagoon, I visited my textile artist friend in the hospice for palliative care. After surviving myeloma, Kerry had developed a malignant brain tumour that had been surgically removed. I’m now thinking that this "lagoon" quilt – little though it is might represent the strength, love and community caring threads that Kerry had woven into and throughout her life’s journey. Our connection had come about through our shared love of the arts, especially creations in fabrics, and we shared many values and visions. This resurrected quilt is for Kerry.

When I visited Kerry in the hospital’s palliative care unit I did not expect what I saw, nor to experience what I felt. She was lying completely still with her eyes closed under a beautiful, bold, bright pink quilt covered with naive floral motifs hand-stitched all over - a quilt of her own making in collaboration with a long-term fellow quilter, she was passive, speech clearly unavailable to her. Only the regrowth of her shaven head and swollen face showed above the blankets. Though I’ve been told that hearing is the last faculty to leave, I wondered if she could hear me because there was no sign of recognition - until on leaving she opened her eyes and her lips moved slightly. Nevertheless, I pressed on with my partly prepared thoughts about what I might say. It takes me very close to the bone to see Kerry this way.

Gently stroking her hair and face, as my father had done when I was a confused teenager, crying myself to sleep, I said how delighted I was that our paths had crossed through our shared love of textile art and gardens. Kerry had twice helped me out on the final finishing touches with her free-machined details, one for a commission for a close friend and one of my own UFOs, which had lain dormant for many years since its inception. It was an important quilt for me to finish as I struggled with all the physical side effects from the immunotherapy treatment, and the emotional dramas of dealing with living with metastatic melanoma. Somewhat ironically it had begun as a ‘still life’, a vase of exuberant flowers, gleaned from a wide selection of fabrics in my stash by “fussy cutting” (- a term I recently learned, meaning to cut around shapes within a piece of fabric to transfer them for use in another work). 

The various blooms had been arranged into the vase on a chequered tablecloth, with some hand stitching into the stamens of the lilies. But it was Kerry’s meticulous attention to the separate petals and hearts of the flowers that brought it to life, each flower given detail through her skilful free-machining embroidery, bringing them forward into a low relief. The naming of the wall hanging became “Resilience” – partly because it had waited so long to be finished, and of course to echo my own physical and emotional state in the process of learning to live with Stage IV melanoma cancer. As I read recently, it's like the seeds of a dandelion being blown off to take root elsewhere.

The making of the "Resilience" quilt is in 2016 archive

Life at Glenbrook lagoon

 I have been attempting to resurrect a little 40x40cms art quilt submitted for an Ozquilt Network exhibition many, many years ago. I had submitted two; one was accepted for exhibition, the original of this one was not. It started out life as the depiction of a ‘hanging swamp’, a particular natural feature unique to the Blue Mountains, and was intended to be included in the series I was developing to celebrate this World Heritage National Park that I was calling “The backyard”(see Archive 2012). All these years later I have decided to continue the theme by unpicking and reconstructing the rejected original. In my imagination, the ‘backyard’ place has shifted to a more familiar one over the thirty years of living in the lower Blue Mountains. It will be transformed into the still, quiet, peaceful Glenbrook Lagoon. 

The ample water supply was used for the steam trains that made their way up and down the mountain. Prior to that, it was a stopover station for those settlers aiming to cross the Blue Mountains to the rich pastures beyond in order to establish homesteads and farms on property. It is often used by the fire-fighting helicopters to suck up water for the overhead bombing of the local, quite regular bushfires. But it has a much longer history than that of course – way beyond the incursion of white settlement. 

I often go there when I’m feeling the need for a hug from the big, old angophora and gum trees that over-arch the narrow avenue growing along the banks of the lagoon. On my way back up the Mountains from Penrith, this passage is often taken as a diversion from the main route, the Great Western Highway. Sometimes I stop and walk in to the public area, stand and watch the ducks and spot a carp cruising in the shallows. A refuge for ducks and birds, it is currently being rehabilitated as a breeding home for long neck turtles. It’s easy to imagine flat stone skimming across the surface in half a dozen skips.

The ample water supply was used for the steam trains that made their way up and down the mountain. Prior to that, it was a stopover station for those settlers aiming to cross the Blue Mountains to the rich pastures beyond in order to establish homesteads and farms on property. It is often used by the fire-fighting helicopters to suck up water for the overhead bombing of the local, quite regular bushfires. But it holds many more stories than that of course – going way, way beyond the incursion of white settlement.

Gazing at the remnants, I wait for them to speak to me, to tell me where to place them together. Suddenly it seems there is no need for creative negotiation. Without asking for further discussion, the parts start to form into the whole. It seems the process of deconstructing from the original, perceived whole the parts will tell me to get to where I’m going…to engage in re-creating steps for living in what resilience for the future may look like. It could be that creating in pandemic lockdown has removed that hesitation so often part of the creative process. Deadlines can do that too! As we know, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - so just do it! And it has come together thus far for the background.