Silvery moon

‘...reality lives somewhere between matter and meaning. One makes us. The other we make, to bear our mortality and the confusions of being alive.’ (Jarod Anderson, 2024, Something in the woods loves you). I’ve previously written about the visual construction of the 3D perspective during the Renaissance period, its importance in still life compositions and particularly in portraiture. David Hockney has described the ‘invention’ of a three dimensional perspective to imitate how we see. Following the symbolism and flatness of medieval religious representation, artists sought to please their patrons with life-like portrayals of their images and lives. Apart from the distant vanishing point leading the eye to the background, Hockney reveals other techniques such simple cameras projecting inverted images onto canvases that allowed outlines of subjects to be traced to give a likeness, all in search of realism prior to photography.

The design of this quilt seems to elicit looking the through the window into the outside world. In a different way to the realness of Renaissance paintings, it plays around with perspectives by allowing the eye to move forward and back through background and foreground, as though zooming in and out. There are straight lines, both horizontal and vertical, but they do not direct the eye to the imagined non-existent vanishing pinpoint. The dominant silvery moon sits on top of the background rather than being part of it. And the vase seems to float in the same plane, testing the placement in reality of what we see. When viewing David Hockney’s large Grand Canyon paintings at the NGA the avoidance of the vanishing point is ironically ‘perceptible’. The effect is to draw viewers into the physical space, rather than leaving them standing outside looking in as a voyeur - or tourist perhaps. Called ‘reverse’ perspective, it has been an historically standard viewing practice in the creation of Japanese art. Australian indigenous art has moved from the representative, both in ancient rock art and the learned Western technique of Albert Namatjira’s beautiful works of his homeland have returned to a consciousness that connects to country.

Waxed into fullness

The inspiration for this quilt emerged during the current season, spring into summer 2024, the time of year that draws blooms of all varieties into magnificent manifestation. The warratah (telopea speciosissima) in our native bush lands always evokes awe and appreciation of our environment. I’ve made several attempts to grow a commercial variety in my garden without success. It was also the time when I received the news of the passing of a very special person, a man who had come into my life in the last few years who was a special love in my life.

As part of my still life series, I was a concerned about presenting them as cut flowers, because it is not permitted to take them from the bush. Here they float with ease full of beauty-fullness surrounding a moon that has waxed into her monthly periodic fullness. No wonder she represents the creative power of women. 

The silver vase sits ready to receive the beautiful creations of the bush after they have waxed into their fullness and dropped to Mother Earth. I had created another vase based on a glazed ceramic I’d recently acquired, but it went back in the folder for later inspiration. It occurred to me that the vessel may appear to be one for containing the ashes of a cremation. But here it is collecting the Waratah seeds forming for the next bush generation, for the continual procreation of this beauty. Each piece is outwardly a design that encompasses the elements of composition, colours, and other artistic details. But they always have more to say if I look closely and listen to my inner soul story carefully. During the creative process material manifestations emerge from the personal, making the link between reality in the search for meaning. In this case it was the passing between the veils of a dearly loved man who had recently come into my life bringing home a sense of personal love and fullness I’d never before experienced. The initial peach beside the vase is a metaphor: the fruitful flesh of ripeness is not a permanent state: change is the regular cycle of birth, coming to fullness, needing to move towards decay to return to rebirth and renewed fullness. Extra peaches were added as a last thought for several reasons, from the personal to the creative process that endlessly moves through the cycle of change and promise by the waxing and waning - we feel it in our own lives and see it in all life. 

Jarod Anderson wrote: "..reality lives somewhere between matter and meaning. One makes us. The other we make to bear our mortality and the confusions of being alive." (from Something in the woods loves you). I certainly experience this loving connection when in my garden and the bushland at my backyard, which contains the cycle of life in all it's various forms - other than peaches!

Waxed into fullness: waned into darkness (19x15")

"Staying alive: threads in time" at the Upstairs Hub Gallery, April 3 - June 3

Carpe diem 

In the ‘still life’ genre, these works explore the timeless passages in a lifetime.Textiles, woven, stitched, embroidered, record personal and universal stories - as do flowers. Material fabrications and floral presentations acknowledge all of life’s rites of passage. Flowers evoke memories, giving recognition to feelings of joy and love, sorrow and forgiveness. The natural, personal and universal meld here in vases of flowers, collaged onto layers of leftover patchwork pieces, hand-dyed and commercial fabrics with machine stitchery to sketch them in place. Hovering celestial bodies register both the passing and permanence of time, pasts, presents and futures. Viewer’s experiences and perspectives are invited in viewing the works. 

Soul Seasons Quilts

Textile wall hangings 

Annabelle Solomon (PhD)

“Staying alive: threads in time”

A series of art quilts selected for exhibition

Blue Mountains Theatre and Community Hub

Springwood NSW

3 April - 3 June 2025

approx. 20”x15” (500x 350mms), 

ready to be installed.

***

PM for bank transfer details, 

 to arrange pick up times, 

to provide your postage details 

(postage cost in Australia approx. $20)

OR via PayPal @

https://www.Paypal.me/Soulseasonsquilts

2: Evening's twilight SOLD

1: Sun wise SOLD

10. Moonflowers SOLD

9. Rising harvest moon

 4: Love blooms SOLD

3: Morning's twilight SOLD

7: Under harvest moon

5. Smiling pansies

 
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6. In full bloom

8. Red rose bowl

12. The pink vase

11. A host of golden daffodils 

16. Five red apples

14. Damascus urn

           

        

17. White roses

18. Silvery moon               

           
          

           

25. Mel's vase SOLD

26. Night and day

27. Moonlight sonata

28. As above, so below SOLD

29. Blue moon roses

30 Dark new moon

31. Dawn breaks

32. Pandora's vase

33. Red pot with roses

43. At the horizon

35. Rising blue moon

36. Waxed into fullness

37. For the love of trees

39. Out of darkness SOLD

40. Pensive pansies

41. Moon shadow

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Commissions taken
for individual personal quilts,
a way to preserve your life's story
in colour, symbols and images
you choose to represent your journey.

check the links below for examples

https://soulseasonsquilts.blogspot.com/2023/11/constructing-crone-quilt-for-jan-roberts.html

https://soulseasonsquilts.blogspot.com/2020/01/going-full-circle-again.html

https://soulseasonsquilts.blogspot.com/2018/01/installment-6-phases-of-moon.html