“Peace Gardens” – Small Banners for Peace

Small beaded art quilt - "Peace Gardens 1"Back in 2003, I decided to make a “bug-out” bag to have ready in case I needed to evacuate my home at some point. (Never mind the fact that living in the Washington, DC area, I probably would not be able to go anywhere because of the traffic.) As I loaded up a backpack with essentials, including a book by Judith Montano, ELEGANT STITCHES,I thought about having to leave my home, art quilts, and my beloved gardens behind. So, in addition to a toothbrush and cans of tuna fish, I made a small separate “bug-out” bag for my art. That way, I figured I could have something to do in an evacuation camp and bring a small bit of beauty to wherever I might land. Thus, this series of small art quilts, “Peace Gardens” (about 1′ or 30 cm square) was born.

Since I wouldn’t be able to bring my gardens with me, I decided to have the start of four small gardens started in my bug-out bag with enough materials to finish them later. I decided to name them “Peace Gardens”, as my take is that our thoughts and words create our reality, and at least for me, a small cushion of peace would be around me as I worked. However, as I “started” the pieces, I kept adding and adding and rather quickly, the first three were finished. (They were so ready to be born.)

The photo above shows the first one to be cut out, “Peace Gardens 1”, although the other three were laid out side by side, and I composed all four at the same time. So as I was cutting out the dark green bushes, I was cutting for all four art quilts at the same time.

In this photo, “Peace Gardens 2”, you can see many of the same details. There are the gold, feathered cloud iron-on motifs, and the striped blue organdy in the sky. Each of them has a white sequined “cloud” cut from an elaborate lace fabric. The upright lavender spikes of liatris or lupine  flowers were done with plastic pearlized beads. There are also some of the same lavender silk flowers in all of the works. I like to pull silk flowers apart, so that I have a single layer to work with, and then I can fasten the centers down with beads to simulate pistils and stamens, but not have the flower be too puffy.

Small beaded art quilt - "Peace Gardens 3"“Peace Gardens 3”. on the left, has many more of the golden cloud appliques. By this point, I wanted to make an even happier scene, so three clouds were used. I wish that I could find more of these appliques, but they’re an example of sometimes, a great art material just isn’t available anymore. In this third version of the gardens, I also added two horizontal rows of an aqua embroidered ribbon in the middle of the composition to suggest water.

Detail of small beaded art quilt - "Peace Gardens 3"In this detail shot of “Peace Gardens 3” you can see more of the lavender spikes of flowers, the aqua “water” ribbons and in the upper right, some of the white sequined cloud motif. There are also a number of translucent olive green ribbon with gold picot edging in the lower third of the compostion.  I cut them at a slant, and use themfrequently as a rush grass along edges of water.

Since these three art quilts were finished, I’ve hung them during a number of gatherings, so they have taken on quite a lot of joyful energy. I hope that they will continue to serve as a vortex for hope and peace as people learn the stories behind them. In yesterday’s newsletter of “Cloth, Paper, Scissors“, there was a delightful blog by about how to make I do need to start some more in the series to have on hand, but my hope is that the more people claim an area for peace, even if it’s only one square foot at a time, the more peace and love will spread.

How will you claim a space for love, peace, and healing energy?

Why not leave a comment as to your thoughts on this posting. Please take a minute, fill out the form by clicking on the “comments/no comments link” at the top of the posting, and then share your ideas with the rest of us. We all grow when we share our thoughts and impressions, so why not join our growing community of those who appreciate art quilts and textile arts. We’d love to hear from you!

You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com and can find me on Google + , Facebook,  and Twitter.

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4 comments

  1. Alysha says:

    These are so gorgeous! I came across this post searching for “sequin clouds” looking for some inspiration on a future project and I’ve just found what I was hoping to find. I can’t imagine how long it took to sew all of these.

  2. Dear Alysha, thanks so much for the compliments. Sequin clouds..hmmm? It’s always amazing to me how people find me. Those sequin clouds were whole motifs of flowers cut from a lace net background and I’ll probably never find anything like them again. These pieces don’t have the heavy beading that some of mine do, but in the bigger pieces, using size 10 seed beads, 1 sq in ( 2.5 cm sq) = 1 hr’s work. Welcome, and hope that you’ll come back often to read about more of my musings… and please check me out on Facebook and tell ALL of your friends…:)

    Nancy

  3. Alysha says:

    Ah I see! Thank you for the tip! I’ve gone to a couple craft stores just curious to see if they had any sequin appliqués that I could use, but I’ve mostly found various strands of sequins, which I’ll probably end up having to use. Your posts are great to reference and I’m just amazed by all of the hard work that goes into each piece.

  4. Dear Alysha, glad to hear that you find the posts valuable. Be careful with regard to the quality of sequins as the ones in craft stores fade quickly when exposed to sunlight. I also once had some gum arabic ones (looked like clear, sandy sequins) that were made during WWII as metal was scarce. (These dissolved in the wash, so I was left with a series of little loops on the art quilt.) Old, metallic sequins don’t fade, but can be so thin that snap in two.

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