“In the Garden of Shadow and Light”

If you have been reading my blogs for awhile, it will come as no surprise to you how much I like gardens and flowers. So, many of the images and dreams that come to me take place in gardens. I also often add gardens as the setting for a particularly  moving life experience. as sometimes, that’s the only “logical” place for me to be portraying what has happened to me. Such is the case with this beaded art quilt, “In the Garden of Shadow and Light”.

This piece was inspired by a vision that I had during a breath work session in which we were asked to face our inner demons. During that time, I saw the ugly, dark side of me as an unwanted little five year old girl holding out her arms to be picked up. I realized that I had been neglecting a part of me for years, and had been trying to deny that she even existed. Of course, those aspects of me had been trying to come out in other ways, even though unconsciously. In my vision, I dropped to my knees and hugged the little girl version of myself, crying that I was sorry that I had never loved her (that aspect of me that I didn’t want to own.)

When I went to create the art quilt to represent this very important vision that I had seen, I used streams of darkness instead of beams of light. These sheer, dark ribbons, coming from the upper left, appear as fingers going into the beautiful garden below. The brighter areas in between the dark ribbons, which in this case, are the “negative” spaces in between the ribbons, look almost as fingers of light, reaching up from the lower right to join hands with the dark ones. This was an unconscious result of the composition as I was in a state of connection with the piece when I was working with it, and not really aware of what I was cutting out. My take, however, is that there are no coincidences. “Fingers of darkness” were holding hands with “fingers of light”.

In the detail shot on the left, you can see more clearly the finger like quality the ribbons and the spaces in between them created. Some of the rich, extensive beading embellishment can also be seen and the lush use of dark and light shiny fabrics.

In the second detail shot below can be seen some of the commercial cloud appliques stitched in gold that give a light and airy appearance behind the “beams of shadows”. You can also see some of the twisted black and white applique strands that for me signify the joining of all aspects of me, both light and dark, sort of a spiritual DNA.

For me, this was another example of how powerful artistic work can be when you surrender the need to control the image and let the materials tell you how they want to be arranged. Magical images often appear.

Why not leave a comment of how you’ve interpreted a life changing event. Did you record it as a journal, as a painitng, or in some other medium? Why not share your experiences with us, as I find that we all grow as we move along together.

You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com

 

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