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.