"Starburst"

This is number 21 in my vase and flowers series

This little quilt hanging eventuated from two elements: the window frame perspective and a flower that I’d constructed a year ago using non-cotton fabrics. I had made the white rose-like image to include in another textile destined for my niece for her wedding gift, but had used another. There were a few left over hand-dyed sky fabrics also from a previous quilt, which I formed into a rectangular window frame. The surrounding casement for it simply followed without too much creative friction.

Sometimes that happens, as was the obvious placement for the embellished white flower, with the rising moon sitting above. Also clear was the need for a vessel to hold the flower/star was what is commonly called a ‘specimen’ vase, which I based on a very small dark but clear blue tubular vase brought back from Venice as a souvenir of my European travels at the young age of twenty-five. The composition was taking place. Next step saw the creation of a small, lidded pot to sit beside the vase from long stored old fabrics. Here the word ‘old’ carries extra weight given that the fabrics used are from Damascus, brought back by a British soldier under the Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI. It is woven through with actual gold thread – a very special fabric, likely around a hundred years old. It feels very precious to me, and good to use it again. It made the textile hanging complete, because stars are pretty ancient too! And it seemed to give extra light to the name.