Buttons&Beads&Quilts!

While the first line of William Blake’s famous poem begins
“Tiger, tiger, burning bright, in the forest of the night”, and then goes on to talk about the creation of the tiger, I have always been fascinated with the part about “..burning bright, in the forests of the night…”. There’s something very primeval about the sight of a fire contrasted against the night’s darkness. The sound of the sparks as they spit from the burning wood can startle and surprise or have a comforting sound depending on the age, moisture content, and type of wood. Alchemists used fire to contrive their concoctions whose formulas were often disguised with various symbols, so that the uninitiated would not be able to steal their secrets. Many societies use fire as a purification ritual in their ceremonies. So, this art quilt, “Elements- Fire: is dedicated to all and any of of these traditions and experiences.

I’ve always been fascinated with the different colors of a fire, which in science I learned had to do with the different temperatures at different heights away from the fuel source. However, in choosing the main color for this piece, there was no other choice in my mind but red. Red is second only to purple as to being my favorite color, although I tend not to do very many all red quilts. I just looked up at my fabric stash and noticed that I don’t even have that many red fabrics either….must think about why that’s so at some point.

 As in all of the pieces in this series, the surface is richly covered with an assortment of embellishments. I do have a large collection of buttons and beads from which to choose. I like to use repeating colors and shapes as you can see in the stripe of simple orange buttons down the middle of the detail shot on the left. I also used a series of gold crescent moons cut from a sateen fabric. This was to honor how much fire has been used over the centuries under the shimmer of moonlight in various ceremonies. Again, in the lower left side, and half way up, you can see those white “poof” buttons that I mentioned in the previous two postings. Here those same buttons that were bird feathers or jellyfish in the previous two quilts I wrote about, are used here to symbolize puffs of smoke. In many Native American traditions, burning plants, especially tobacco and sage, were used to carry prayers up to the gods, and so I show respect for those traditions in this piece, too.

To the left, is a detail of a button given to me by a friend. It was from her father’s mother’s coat. He worked in the garment district in New York City, and probably brought a set of these home to his wife  to replace some more mundane ones she had on her coat. People often give me old buttons and costume jewelry, (whose grandmother didn’t have a button jar?) as they know I’ll give it a good home. I used this one of a turbaned chief to add subtle mystery to this piece. Arabic scholars were adept at the beginnings of modern chemistry, and Damascus steel, forged in the heat of fiery furnaces, made some of the best swords during the Middle Ages.

There are countless decisions that I make as I choose from the wealth of materials that I have in my studio. Some of them are quite conscious, as was the choice of the turbaned chief button of which I just wrote. Others seem to flow from the connection that I’m in as I flow with the work at hand. I hope that you can feel some of the joy of creation that I put into each piece as I forge my works of art.

Have you ever had a moment when the spirit of creation has touched your soul and you made something just because it needed to be made? Why not leave a comment and share what it was like for you.

You can see more of my art quilts at www.fiberfantasies.com