As above, so below

The name of this quilt derives from an old pagan saying used to describe the idea that the microcosm mirrors the macrocosm, and vice versa. It was of course adopted by other religious and spiritual genres Put simply: the material world reflects the state of the spiritual world. It could be interpreted as the effects of celestial movements on terrestrial events, such air the moon upon the tides or the sun on the changing of Earth’s seasonal cycles. Of course, by extension, it can be a reflection on the way Earth’s warming temperatures are affecting life in the ocean. This little quilted wall hanging doesn’t have a vase in it. Nevertheless, it fits into the series I’m creating, which is really about Earth’s prolific and unstoppable fecundity, regardless of what we as humans do to her, she will survive. The concept derived from a large number of already cut items that were to be used in one of the early ‘circle’ arrangements for an underwater scene (see Dec 2021). As often occurs, they were not used there and were migrated to the ocean scape as it was developing here. As I have pointed out before, one idea’s leftovers often become part of the next quilt. Nor was the inclusion of the previously-cut Gerbera flowers that sit across the horizon between sky and sea premeditated to be position there. They had been envisaged as being part of an underwater garden, as coral platelets on the sea floor, as part of a coral reef. Through a spontaneous twist of direction, they were positioned on the horizon, with the sun beating down from a sunburnt sky holding within a Gerber, representing the fecundity of the planet we live on in symbiosis with all life. The ocean can be envisaged as a giant vase which displays the health of the gardens we so appreciate for their beauty and rely on for our very existence. The water of the oceans is the basis for all life on Earth, but that fecundity is becoming threatened as shown by the appearance of dead and dying coral in our oceans. With the addition of fish the commentary on the opportunity for addressing that very real threat are symbols of beauty and reason for hope.

"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.

There's a crack in everything...

The name for this quilted wall hanging came slowly, as did the final design. As usual, the largish vase was cut out in one piece, and attached to a chequered background, together with the celestial icon on another piece. Appropriate strips of fabrics had already been roughly selected and all had been sitting in a box for quite some time, awaiting renewal. And as often happens with such a move towards resurrection, the design started to re-order itself into a totally new form. Because the urn-like vase was already embellished with floral motifs, it seemed redundant to have it actually hold flowers; and for those I had on hand this vase would not be suitable. Time to re-view possible outcomes. I had been considering tiles for some time, from your European countries such as Portugal to Islamic designs on mosques. So with the flowers left over from the fabric for the vase I made a collection of fabric ‘tiles’. Voila – there were the flowers! But the vase was big, bold, maybe even dominating the scene. I considered inverting the vase in an attempt to reclaim the story of Pandora’s box from Greek mythology: that she poured out all the evils from the vessel she was holding onto the world. I’m not sure why she would want to do that because it certainly hasn’t served her independence. The interpretations of the beginning of evil have been laid on the shoulders of women for two millennia since the advent of Christian story of Eve tempting Adam. Vases do sometimes fall to the floor and get smashed. I have a treasured one given to me for my fortieth birthday. It was large, uniquely designed and made by a Melbourne pottery group called Monkey. One day when full of tall flowers a gust of wind knocked it over leaving an indiscernible vertical crack. The lovely vase was still intact, but it had been rendered useless for holding flowers in water. Here was my clue: I cut the vase into four sections and reconnected them to suggest the whole shape of the vase. Not long after the title filtered through: There’s a crack in everything. I’ve always loved Leonard Cohen, the precision of his words with his music. The words that complete the phrase are: …it lets the lights in. How true! There is a practice in Japan known as ‘kintsugi’, when broken vessels are reconstructed using gold to join the pieces. It comes from the idea that by embracing flaws and imperfections it is possible to create an even stronger and more beautiful vessel, and offers a reminder to stay positive when things fall apart. Can’t dispute that! The small vessel in the right hand corner has a lid that can be removed to let the light in. The fabric itself is very likely a hundred years old, having been brought back from Damascus (then part of the British mandate for the area known as Palestine) following the defeat in WWII of the Ottoman rule in this area of the Middle East. A friend’s father had been stationed there and he brought back these beautiful fabrics for his wife and daughters to be made into frocks. I treasure them.

Red poppies at sunset

For over a year now I’ve been concentrating my textile creative pursuits in one direction. That may sound limiting. Fabrics themselves of course offer limitations by the permanency of designs, colour and type of fabric itself. But they also seek to evoke a different perspective in the looking. But being only in the thematic content it is actually very liberating while being contained mainly to context. A paradox? Perhaps, in theory, but the practice has shown to be otherwise. There has been a rediscovery of older techniques and in the process, finding alternative ways of achieving the desired effect– including paint on fabric!

The main approach has been of course machine applique, placed on top of pieced blocks stored over time and awaiting resurrection as part of the background. With the theme being vases, usually containing flowers, I have used the floral fabrics collected over the past 30 years to provide me with a botanic array from the endless beauty that surrounds us in nature – though limited by my collection! (I mentioned in an earlier post that I was not buying any new fabrics, and I have broken that only once – so far!)  

I had initially placed some conditions around the design for the background that possibly had come from the influence of the ‘still life’ genre. There would be a window revealing a moon or sun scape, a curtain or frame divide, and of course a tablecloth for the vase of flowers to rest on. In this there is continuity throughout the exploration of diversity. What I wanted to avoid was the overwhelming demand for the traditional notion of perspective – what we call the ‘vanishing point’ as discovered by Renaissance painters in their quest to accurately represent what they saw before them. David Hockney has shown with many examples how the use of a grid helped in achieving this appearance of three-dimensional perceptions that we are familiar with in landscape art…the way we are accustomed to seeing it.  

It was a viewpoint that challenged those of the day. Art was bound by religious dogma and two-dimensionally flat, presenting themes not of this world but of the world to come in the afterlife from following the rules of the Church in life. The vases are my way to challenge that belief, and engender one that is relevant to our times: heaven is here on earth in all its beauty and grandeur if only we can see it. And then do all we can to protect it as our home. 

 Red poppies at sunset (20x16")

Flying high

 Again using leftover fabrics from a quilt made long ago, it was not clear at the outset whether the sky background made from home dyed fabrics fit in with the vase series currently in process. I found that the effect of the overlapping triangles and quadrilaterals was evoking a sense of perspective that had been my vision explored through my PhD thesis as it relates to the season festivals on the Wheel of the Year for the Southern Hemisphere . Although not layered – the are joined pieces, there is the illusion of distance as the eye moves across the various tones of blue and mauve patches, both coming forward and receding into the background.  

https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws%3A12868

No call for vases or flowers this time. Outlines of birds with their wings outstretched in full flight became the subject matter, flying towards or across the light of a fecund full moon. Cut out in white silk and pale blue satin, the way the forms pick up the light gives a strange eeriness of gentle movement between the perspectival views of the background due to the nap of the fabrics. Light plays with the fabrics, such that some birds drop out of visibility as others emerge into sight. A pale grey binding seemed in order to suggest the cloud patterns and sky colours stretching in all directions.

Constructing a Crone quilt, for Jan Roberts

The limitation set on the requested dimensions is presenting a challenge for me. I have been going smaller with my vases to rein in the size to make the quilting process more manageable, but the specifications are half that size. The concept of a full life to be held in such a small space seems to be pushing me into a corner, especially given that in my own years of becoming a witch and crone – a wise old woman. I feel that I’m expanding – expanding that is into who I was, to become who I always was. And at the same time, I feel that the circle is open, it is not broken, in that we do come full circle into our ‘true’ selves constantly. 

 While facing the limitation of space, and as the ideas continue to flow there is another limitation that provides me with an emotional and tangible boundary for getting to the essence of this croning period specific to Jan’s personal life. It helps to work with one image at a time: the moon phases in the southern hemisphere is the starting point. The phases of the moon visually embody the three major stages of a woman’s life: the Virgin girl, the birthing, nurturing Mother, and the wise woman Crone. Typically they are defined by the powerful stages of female sexual activity, as the names suggest. But the crone image seems to have forfeited – or more accurately, been deprived of her power in recent culture, leading her to be seen as a disempowered and withered woman, often taking on the negative attributes of the bitter, backward old witch who is out of touch. She is maligned and condemned not only as being out of date, but claimed to be malicious towards others in her community and society, for which she has been burned at the stake over hundreds of years. 

 Having recognised the overriding influence of these imposed attributions, largely unreported for centuries and uncontested except by courts designed to confirm women’s guilt for sins against Christianity, whether they be virgin, mother or old wise woman. All were hounded by Christian governmental authorities unequivocally for adhering to their practices and rituals honouring an integral and undeniable dependability on the bounty of Earth. Of course while the younger women were subjected to enforced marriage or rape for maintaining and gaining male supremacy, the old were vulnerable to the pillaging of their landholdings by the religious and civic authorities. 

 So, back to the moon imagery for these three stages. An older representation of the dark moon that had been saved from a previous project provided the initial impetus. A full dark moon sitting on a dark red background, both hand dyed, seemed to be a good place to start. It was a case of deciding whether to included a visible impact for the last stages of the moon as it wanes, unable to be seen from most positions on earth. Being intent on including the Virgin crescent moon, the full red moon of the Mother has allowed the rightful places of both Virgin and Crone, with each embracing the other, residing comfortably within each other within the all encompassing arms of the Mother. 

 Searching for a piece of pure white fabric for the virgin crescent of the moon, my object was to find a shining pure white, suitable for a wedding dress, to represent virginity. Of course the phases of the moon are a monthly reminder of the renewal of virginity, which is always with us in our lives. Coming from this realisation, I stopped searching for the perfect fabric, instead choosing a small available piece of cream cotton printed with small flower sprigs – perfect for the new moon. The crescent of the new moon has a larger shape than that of the waning, something that indicates the continuance of life through women’s fertility, she who as virgin, then becomes mother, to move into the later stages of life as a wise old woman, having left her genealogy for future generations. 

 The full dark disc at the centre of the three-moon image seems to pull the eye into the quilt – into the Cosmos beyond our sight, understanding and knowledge. The life of every individual is a cycle, where the circles overlap as vectors holding all of life’s wonders and pain. Each aspect seems to lean into and hold the others, but the interesting aspect of the union of the three resides in the dark centre. The moon phases provide the key symbol for the quilt that celebrates a life of living with love and learning, reciprocal giving and receiving. There are other symbols that have come to mind to be in line with Jan’s request for Irish/Celtic connections 

  Sheela na gig and the Callieach 

It’s amazing where inspiration comes from. Looking into the bottom of a vase after its use holding a cloud of golden fimbriata wattle from the garden, I saw the almond mandorlas shape that I’d been intending to somehow include in the design. I glanced across at the little quilt’s moon phases, and realised the black of the full dark moon held that shape, the darkness of the fecund womb, that could simply be sketched into the space by stitching – maybe using a red thread. I wonder: could I hand stitch it with a thicker thread? I had been thinking of drawing the triple spiral into this space, so now there’s another option. Caves have been found in eastern European areas that indicate a ritual of respect – maybe worship that acknowledges the Earth Mother, the virgin and the eternity of the womb for the continuance of human life. 

The Utroba cave, also know as the ‘womb cave’ is such a destination, a ritual that involves entering into the dark recesses of the cave in order to maintain life, while paying tribute to the pleasure-giving clitoris protruding above the entrance. From what I read, these natural temples of worship and honour to woman are not uncommon across the European continent, and may serve to remind us that we come from the womb of Mother Earth, and to Her we return in death. 

 Although this image of the Sheela carved in stone has also been found throughout Europe, her image is prevalent and has lasted on churches in Ireland. Well, who is she? What dominates is a woman’s vulva that she is holding open with both hands, arms looped behind her thighs. Perhaps it is quite confronting in this day and age, in spite of the plethora of pornography available. What does she represent? There are very probable theories in the Christian era that it was designed to be a warning about where the sins of the flesh for the ‘faithful’, obviously initiated by women. Remember also Pandora’s box (there seems to be a pun there), or her ‘vase’ that supposedly poured out all the evils in the world? 

 The image of the Sheela holds within the traditions of the past, present and future, and is the kindly guardian of entrance into the Underworld. The ability to draw aside the veils and see between the worlds with the heart and soul is to see that which is invisible to our eyes or what lies beneath the visible, thereby animating the creative forces for change through an enhanced intuition and insight. 

  The Triskelion (triple spiral) 

The triple spiral is found on so many of the monuments – specifically at Newgrange where it adorns the entrance stone, but most significantly was carved into the stone of the mound’s interior chamber so as to be lit up by the first rays of each year’s summer solstice. Hence it signalled new beginnings, the promise of a resurrection of the old life afforded by the constant natural cycle: life death and rebirth. The cycles as experienced in nature, can represent repetition, progress and major changes. There are other ways of reading this special symbol, an iconic ancient Celtic symbol. Relationships for example, between the growth of the self, both outer and the inner: the individual, the Universe and the spiritual worlds, and the movement between each out from the still point at the centre. As a revolving wheel it represents the three stages in a woman’s life, as do the phases of the moon, the virginal, the nurturing mother and the old wise crone. 

  Mother Ocean and her seashells. 

Walking across shells on the beach, who can resist picking them up for a closer look? Remember the wonder of holding a seashell to your ear as a child? It’s not an echo of your own blood pumping, as sometimes is given as an explanation. It is thought that the shell is collecting the ambient noises in the air around. And what are these noises, where do they emanate from? Is it the echoing of the wider universe through the spiral chamber? The ocean as the origin of life on our planet is surely a mix of countless aeons of time held in each. 

 It is not difficult to accept that sea water was very important to the Celts of Ireland, being the fourth largest island in the world. Their indigenous stories are similar to Australian Indigenous lore, that women are of the sea while men are of the land, and everything is interrelated, everything. Shells have held currency, exchange value in many Pacific societies. Shells also have a personal value for many, of holding memories of place and connections to place that transcend time. As children we played with a string of tiny purple spiral shells threaded as a necklace. Such a necklace was a talisman for the Tasmanian aborigines, my mother and father’s place of birth, each a descendant of immigrants and convicts. 

 Perhaps unconsciously they remind us of departed souls. Having recently washed my collection after years of gathering dust, I see there are those that are tiny, small and then larger. Each of them is outstanding, in shape, colours and cover designs. I am in awe of the homes our Mother Ocean has produced for the tiny organisms beginning life in the raging unfathomable oceans, as tiny, vulnerable creatures housed by external protective skeletal structures, at once delicate, strong and resilient. Shells are the remnants of a life once lived, and symbolise safe passage for the soul in death. I used to own a fossil, found in Israel, a small nautilus, unfortunately stolen. It was in the form of a spiral, shaped by the chambers that are added by the growing mollusc. I don’t know how long ago this one had been a living sea creature. It is no wonder that these shells are symbols of growth and renewal in the process of finding our true spiritual purpose in life. They are beautiful gifts from the natural world that have withstood the ocean tides for millennia. It is no wonder then that they offer protection from the harshness of the various environments that challenge us on our journey. 

 Seashells have hard exteriors with soft vulnerable creatures living inside, and offer protective homes for small crabs when their original dweller passes on. They draw their power from the elements of water and the earth on which they live. They can stand for the resilient and determined mindset capable of bridging the gap between the physical and supernatural realms, offering a safe passage for our souls from this world. They can be seen as symbolic of a woman’s genitalia, the life cycle, fertility and love. Shells are the memory of a life lived and the journey that creature went through, and empty shells found on the beach is a reminder of a life, left behind in death when the soul leaves the body. 

 The conch has been used in ritual celebrations for millennia by magnifying the natural vibrations of the earth and to rid the space of negative energies. Cowrie shells are often used in divination by making connection with the ancestors where the split down the side represents the opening of the third eye. The scallop shell has many ridges that all join together at the bottom, suggesting focus on the goal ahead. They there are many spiritual pathways to the one destination: our ultimate connection to earth. The long pointy augur shell clearing relates to our masculine energy, to strength courage and resilience. They help achieve mental clarity through trusting our intuition. 

 A debate often arises about the amount of control being exercised by the artist in the process of creating. If hesitation can be used as one of the counter arguments by either side, I have been experiencing much of it in the creation of this tiny quilt. I cannot put my finger on the reason, other than due to the flood of ideas arising in the limitation of space – and perhaps, of time: everything has to come to a conclusion at some stage! While the symbols gestate, the background canvas continues to be created. Maybe this is the point where I should have started – but that’s not how my creative process works; it decides its own way, its own steps towards completion regardless of my input. It’s generally much more haphazard, by randomly sorting through saved fabrics according to colour and that may be significant to the theme and design than when it is to cut to a planned pattern. 

 Uncertainty is never absent in life in general. Why is the cut out of the red waratah flower still sitting there? It seems to be demanding inclusion, in the same way that the single white, almost skeletal tree does so. Both have been considered for inclusion, having been part of previous works. Sometimes there is an insistence – though it can take time for me to accept the suggestion after it arises. It is one of those times when the need for decision hangs about, remaining elusive, postponing any further action for the moment. Then, as if for no reason, something happens to prompt an action. It is not so much a considered decision as an impulsive action to take a step towards completion. Both the waratah and the tree outline find a place in the areas where they are feeling comfortable. Having come to this point, the backing, quilting and binding can bring completion – almost!

There is one final stage needed for the completion of ideas and image. It slightly scares me because it involves making marks onto a strip of fabric that is already embodied in the bound work. As marks having been etched into stone on monuments in Ireland, they seem to be drawing forth a suitable title, one that is related to signs in time from over five millennia ago to resonate with a life of learning and wisdom gained over a life. But on the day of finishing the little quilt off with final touches – that included a small Southern Cross, the need to make the final decision of naming seems to intuitively filter through. The quilt is a celebration of the mystery that is life, the cycle of generation and regeneration. Hence, its name: Celebrating Mystery. The name is inscribed on a cauldron, a practical item and symbol representing the Magic that is death re-generating life, embossed with the Sheela-na-gig that I’d cut out from a pair of my socks that had outworn their usefulness. What joyful fun this has been in the creation and celebration of a special and loved Crone’s life!

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.