Vase #4: "Morning's twilight"

My recent approach to creating with fabric has been to use leftover pieces and put them together in a semi-random way – though I do pay allegiance to colour complementarity, the contingency that forms part of the established ‘necessity’. Structurally, I like the intrigue that might come from the random piecing of leftovers, and the variety of outcomes that become possible. It seems to me this is part of the creative process: take a risk, throw things together and then stop and look at what it is telling you. It’s where creativity can be gestated, emerging from the beginning of a design, from which a narrative emerges – collaborating in some way to open up all sorts of possibilities. This is an approach I’ve been taking with the last few quilts developed around the form of vases and previously coming from the theme of seasonal and daily cycles of change in the environment.

In pursuing these nascent ideas, I’m still finding it challenging to place what have been ‘leftovers’, cut to size according to earlier ideas of a quilt, and move them into a new space for a background on which to sit one of the vases. And it has occurred to me I’ve spent as much time undoing, unpicking the backgrounds for these small quilted wall hangings as stitching the waiting strips together. Unpicking is perhaps more laborious than being able to paint over something seen to be a mistake, colour in the wrong place, or encourage a different viewpoint. The matter is not quite so straightforward when stitching, but equally as necessary to achieve the desired expression.

Often decisions coming from events in life are not necessarily planned - at least for some. I for one, tend towards acknowledging the unforeseeable in my life’s journey, choosing the experience itself over a deliberate choice – though I don’t deny they can be seen as two sides of a coin (apologies for that tired analogy). Jean Paul Sartre’s philosophy in a nutshell declares that ‘nothing happens with any necessity,’ because so much depends on contingency, over free choice. Empty fabric vases already cut out are matched with the already cut flowers. In this case the purple daisies are arranged in the white vase that has been set in front of a suitable and appropriate pieced backdrop. Vase #3 has actually accommodated the first flowers cut from my existing fabrics, now assembled, quilted and bound by a border, and sitting alongside her two sister vases - previously posted (March 1 and 18 April). It really is like arranging a bunch of cut flowers in a vase, which always gives me great pleasure. It is then that the narrative starts, guided by the contingency of what is available. In this little quilt, the creative evolution between the vectors of necessity and contingency has resulted in a perception of growth under a newborn arising Sun.

Jean and Ben’s wedding gift quilt

A3 size, this small wall quilt started with a vase – as have the others posted recently. The vase made from transparent fabric was shaped after a lovely glass rose vase, spherical and tapering in at the top, given to me many years ago by my dear sister Judi, the mother of my beautiful niece, and bride-to-be, Jean. An idea for the background on which to place the vase presented as a seascape. They live seaside. As always, ideas morphed – the fabrics used morphed more exactly and earlier ones discarded: but the theme remained: that of a full moon over Port Phillip bay.

I decided to dispense with anything resembling a cloth on a table, preferring to let the vase ‘float’. The next most important issue was to place the cut flowers in the vase, which I’d already decided would be roses. It started with layering various white fabrics to build up the blossoming of one main feature rose. Eventually that project was put to one side (no doubt to blossom into a quilt at a later date) in favour of a bunch of white roses. It was assembled from cutting up a piece of lace I had fortuitously kept amongst the container marked ‘non-cottons’. It was quite an elaborate piece of embroidered fabric that I felt gave pomp, ceremony and gravitas to the occasion. And, Jean’s bridal bouquet was of beautiful musk-coloured roses in bloom.

Usually the naming of the quilts comes after completion, though names are thrown up during the process of construction. As a quilt to commemorate the special occasion of the commitment by two people, Jean and Ben to each other in marriage, it became “Love blossoms: love blooms”, (with active verbs rather than nouns)…though I’m still not satisfied that the title covers such a special moment in life! And what a wonderful wedding it was...congratulations Jean and Ben!

vase #3: "Evening's twilight"

Vases are receptacles of life and memory and offering new ideas. The attraction of archaeology has always been an underlying love influence in my life. I’m not sure where it came from, but is clearly linked to a love of unearthing history – and in the case of archaeological findings, pre-history, which I have engaged with from the perspective of women in prehistory, from my Masters and into the PhD focussing on Earth’s and women’s creations. I have not counted the number of vases that I have in my home – maybe even more than thirty if you define a vase as a receptacle for flowers. For me that includes glass candlestick holders, a carafe and other receptacles that might suit the need to bring flowers into the house. Others have history attached: a large glass one of my mother’s won as a golf trophy, and other small ones for tiny bouquets that may have gone back to her family. There is a unique tall ceramic design of the sixties, given to me for my fortieth. Then there is a wide variety of collectibles, from the small cylindrical specimen vase in cobalt blue, a 1975 souvenir from the famous glass factory in Venice and never used. Another very special and unique vase in shade of whirling blues is by the glass blower Colin Heaney of Byron Bay. The rationale for acquiring others became more personal over the years, re-visioning the significance of memories, being on the path to developing philosophies, and responding to pure beauty. My mother's blue vase formed the shape for the latest in the vase series. It contains flowers that a friend has called 'crysanthimums from outer space'.

Named after a time in the daily cycle of Earths' travel around Sun, after much contemplation of possibilities, I finally decided to name “twilight”, being the liminal times of before sunrise and sunset, when the atmosphere is only partially lit by either arising sun or the setting sun – though the usual reference is to the latter. Here there is neither total darkness nor total darkness, thereby presenting an ending, and a beginning.

Sun-wise: 'the abominable Mystery'

>Without flowers, there would be no us. No poetry. No science. No music. Darwin could not comprehend how flowers could emerge so suddenly and take over so completely. He called it an “abominable mystery.” But out of that mystery a new world was born, governed by greater complexity and interdependence and animal desire, with the bloom as its emblem of seduction. This little wall hanging (1’10”/55cms x1’3”/27cms) might look as though it is a ‘deconstruction’ of Van Gogh’s famous painting of sunflowers. It is actually a very physical deconstruction of fabrics containing sunflowers, ones that I have in my stash for many years – meaning that I have spent quiet time releasing these flowers, cutting them from their captive background in order to reconstruct them, bring them alive in a renewed context – perhaps you could say, of evolution. The contextual background was at first quite benign, bland even. The simple structure was formed by two simple rectangular shapes, each flanked by elongated and opposing contrasts of tone and provided the space in which to place a vase, again using hand-dyed fabrics while still making use of already pieced leftovers. I’d developed a concept for several works that might use different shaped vases as a starting point for a theme – or in this case to embellish the backdrop with, first of all a sun and then a vase by making use of a green stem and leaves leftover from a previous (as yet in progress) quilt. They were placed emerging from the chosen vase shape for this manifestation - many more vase shapes have been cut out to work with in the future. Nice. Very minimalist.

Then the numerous released sunflowers started to move in on the scene, attaching themselves to two points of the green stems, and a third dropped to the base of the vase. I decided to attach these before quilting through the three layers, by stabilising the background with an iron on stabiliser I had in my stash. My current mission statement is ‘use what you’ve got’ – it’s all in the endless stash! When the three layers became one by ditch stitching the main straight lines, and after adding other side margins, one of yellow and grey Thai silk and another of blue checks, other already cut sunflowers present themselves for inclusion. Minimalism was thrown out in favour of balance. The two extra sunflowers were fitted in: one across the moon/sun, the other at cross-quarters.

I’ve learned a lot in the process of constructing this little quilt, such that seams need to be pressed in the direction depending on the density of the fabrics; something I’d known but hadn’t thought about when using the already pieced fabrics I had on hand. It would have been technically much better had I persisted with practising free machine embroidery – easier to manipulate the fine U-turnings with the machine. As it was, I decided to back the top with a stabilising fabric so that I could stitch the fused sunflowers onto the background before the final stage of quilting, only two at that point. It also provided the foundation for attaching the stem of leaves and the (setting/rising) sun.

You could call it a wabi-sabi quilt, which is a Japanese term that refers to the imperfect, impermanent and incomplete, that embodies the idiosyncratic humanity of its creator. Being full of life, rather than the closure of perfection, the beauty opens up in the cracks, the worn spots and the imperfect lines, and reveals itself after the winds of time have moved on. This little quilt embodies all of those qualities as a basis for meditation on our personal lives.

"Together apart: love always wins" (the final image)

The moon teaches me that it’s okay to go through phases. The sun teaches me that no matter how many times you go down, you keep rising.

Quilting with symbols

 Here we go, with the aim to complete posts for this quilt as I seek to complete the 'topography' of the quilt. I have already ditch-quilted the strips to hold the three layers together before adding the final binding. Yep. I know - the wrong way round. But questions remain: how best to embed the symbols I’ve chosen – machine quilted, or hand-stitched? All layers have already been ditch stitched to hold the three layers together, so there is no quilting visible. Whether to use fine threads, or embroidery thread? I’m inclined to do both, as a mirroring process; but will too much special quilting detract from the overall impact? Practical thought comes to mind: machine stitching is so much faster (and other designs are on the back burner).

Everyone knows about the pictorial ideograms of the ancients: the cuneiform developed in the times of Sumerian Empire, and the hieroglyphics of the Egyptian Empires by making marks in stone and clay tablets to record and direct behaviour. They were initially attributed to the goddesses and were less abstract than the way they developed over time to represent the sounds of a word, eventually coming to us as phonemes in lineal scripts, with limited characters. Allegories that explain these early symbols undeniably derive from the human relationship to their place, to communicate and record. 

Runes are another familiar set of ‘alphabet’ symbols originating long before lineal script, in the areas in northern European continent of Germanic and Viking peoples, who associated them with their god Odin. By expressing human qualities and characteristic emotions, they were used largely for divination – or as some say, the powers of cosmological principles. The word 'rune' acknowledges the ‘mystery’, the secret that is deeply embedded in the human psyche imparted from a relationship to the wider cosmos, as well as physical attributes related to fertility, continuity and abundance.

As symbolic sources of spiritual energies I have used Runes over the years as a form of guidance in recognising and then directing my own energies. Why not now, in the process of quilting the current creation? I haven’t pulled them out of their bag, as I used to do but have looked at them by deliberately choosing the most appropriate to represent the stage of my journey in the here and now. These symbols are perfect for straight-line quilting, being formed by various angles. The human attributes embedded in and held by the quilt in its creation are: joy, strength, warrior, opening, breakthrough, harvest, wholeness of coming to the Self. And there are other indigenous symbols, for water and 

Even older symbols are those from prehistory: the Neolithic of Old Europe gleaned by archaeologist scholar Marija Gimbutas. Her assessment is that they reveal ancient reverence for woman as Goddess, honouring the powers of woman’s body to regenerate human life. The dominant form is triangular; either inverted to form the shape of a pubic triangle (often with a short slit line to indicate labia), or as triangles joined horizontally to form diamond shaped lozenges, also symbol of the vulva. The vesica piscis symbol is formed by two overlapping circles of the same size, shown as an almond shape, or mandorla in Latin. 

Ancient symbols have carried over into other cultural institutions. The hexagram is the six-pointed star, formed by two interlocking equilateral triangles, one pointing up the other downwards. Used in many cultures and religious beliefs, it can be representing male and female in perfect harmony; as above, so below – the human position between earth and the cosmos; and the interconnection between opposites, dark and light. Overlapping hexagrams (as fractals) result in numerous intersecting points that resonate higher energy frequencies, thereby forming downward pointing several diamond shapes of the sacred vulva of rebirth.

The hexagram builds on itself, extending outwards in every direction, thus representing infinity. Hence its use in religious Judaism to represent ‘ha shem’ (God). It can also be depicted inside a circle, with the points touching the diameter. It’s a symbol of unity, union – and infinity. Known historically as the star of David, a familiar use was during the Holocaust to distinguish Jews. Today it is on the Israeli flag, though it had been used over thousands of years previously by many different peoples, groups and nations. 

Another form of star that has evolved with significant meaning in different contexts is the five pointed star.  For example, as the Eastern Star of five points in Masonic symbolism expresses the importance of knowledge that is a guide to spiritual fulfillment and self knowledge. Called a pentacle in pagan earth-centred spiritual traditions depictions and rituals over millennia, it is often contained by a circle (reminding me of the DaVinci man), each point touches the diameter. It is also the way that I like to sign the first letter of my name 'A', which is easily struck in five strokes of the pen.

There are other maybe less familiar symbols used to quilt the quilt layers, from those used by the guild of stonemasons who built the magnificent cathedrals of the middle ages that are still standing today, using set square and compass. They are evidence of the geometric shapes that have deep metaphysical meaning behind them, used to explain the mathematics of the Universe. Besides being beautiful structures, they often have interesting mathematical properties and loads of history and symbolism. These geometric designs have been used by humans since ancient times in art, decor, and in religious and spiritual contexts that can be shared across artificial boundaries. They symbolically hold the values as they are expressed by the experiences and esoteric life-styles of individuals, while identifying and creating the universal patterns and energies that underlie and unify us all in Nature, and align consciousness to the infinite and eternal. 

I'm finding it difficult to bring the quilting to an end, but I want to hang it and get on with the next - well, the others as yet unfinished - and I can always add more as the spirit moves. Throughout the process of creation, I contemplated many different names that related to the daily cycle of dawn and dusk, sunrise and sunset, following on from the original inspiration of the magnificent colours at all times of day. The moon and sun are both present, and considering their daily romantic dance of attraction to each other, I have decided on Together apart. 

Internet is opting out for now, so will post final images tomorrow.

More on ways of seeing: "Together apart"

This is still a work in process, though coming towards a conclusion. I have started towards quilting the three layers together... for next post.

The creative process, once begun, comes into full bloom only when it is ready. And in the meantime, other ideas are forming buds and blossoms, waiting their turn but seeking attention, nurturing in both thought and form. Several other works have been gestating as I continue to bring the last quilt into final manifestation - though I often wonder if that happens. I'm want to hang it on the wall, and yet I can't seem to bring myself to let it come to completion. I'm referring to the quilt that I cannot even name yet - though ideas for the narrative it wants to share keep surfacing!

In order to construct that narrative visually, there is another need: to consider perspectives with regard to the fabric placement, and how they will tell their story. Will it have an aerial viewing point, as in many Indigenous works of the dot painting genre; or vertical/horizontal  layered perspective – taking eye to move up and down and across? Or both? Is there to be a focal point, or several? David Hockney used a technique that he called 'joiners', based on the premise that singular and unified optical vision comes about through joining a series of multiple perceptions that come together to create the unified whole of normal vision.

Hockney’s ‘joiners’ aim to create an image able to show reality as we experience it – in fragments, rather than as a completed whole, but as part of the passage of time. It is brought about by collage, using two or several separate images of a single scene by overlapping them or forming a geometric grid. As a composite of a single scene, the image nevertheless has a single narrative that is not static, but engages a roving eye that darts from one area to another. The effect is to alter the usual ‘realism’ that creates the illusion of depth of field. And the aim of his joiners is to reflect the real process of seeing, one based on visual experience as the eye moves across multiple plains, having fluid and multiple viewing points. Unlike the perspective that arrives at the destiny of the vanishing point, the eye moves around, back from the point on the horizon towards the multitudes of vision closer to the viewer, taking her in as a participator as the viewpoint shifts.

Hockney's Bigger Grand Canyon in the collection of the Australian National Gallery is a notable example of his joiners, being made up of 60 canvases joined to create a work of 7.4 metres in width. It uses a reverse perspective to draw the viewer into the environment being depicted, rather than looking in from the outside. This form of ‘reverse perspective’ creates a viewing point, one that draws the viewer into the scene that has been achieved in traditional Chinese art by using the diagonal to cut across the distance perspective attained in Western realism art. His fascinating work on the use of linear perspective is Secret Knowledge: rediscovering the lost techniques of the Old Masters (2001, Thames and Hudson), detailing the use of optical devices over the centuries during the Renaissance to create photographic images for patrons in particular. 

 

Here some focus to the narrative has occurred with the appearance of the Sun and Moon.