Distillation

It seemed that quilts weren't saying anything new to me. No doubt this was just as well -- I have journal-production fish to fry at the moment. In the workroom, the sewing surfaces are cleared and it's supposed to be all-go when the journal is out of the way. But ...

I encountered this frightening state of disillusion while looking through Quilted Planet, a 2005 publication found in a remainder shop. It's a historically and geographically comprehensive - and therefore, surface-skimming - survey of all manifestations of textiles, possibly pieced, of three layers held together by stitch. I still love the basic idea inherent in quilts - the creativity, focused labour, and the love (hopefully) of doing the work. Here are the images from the book whose whispered messages did get through to me. Distilling them and gathering them here has helped amplify them.

An 8th century (Buddhist) altar valance --
Chunghie Lee's "No Name Women '04" --Pauline Burbidge's "Feather Collection" --My favourite in the book, Katriina Flensburg's "Winter Half of the Year" (1993):
Helen Parrott's "Rivers VII" (1995) --
Dianne Firth's "Cosmos" 2003 (she is a landscape artist by profession) --Surprise choice: an Australian quilt from about 1930, by Mary Hannaford (rather "gee's bend"!) And this one by Lucy Boston (whose Green Knowe books I love) - made in 1974, when she was 82, by piecing over papers --In times of creative drought there are worse things to do than busily gathering all the scraps, make yardage -- towards something like this -- It's the act of Doing Something that gets those creative juices flowing again.