“Hearts, Peppers, and Butterflies”

Full shot of contemporary, beaded art quilt "Hearts, Peppers, and Butterflies"

Right before Thanksgiving, 2011, I went back to Matthews,NC, USA, for the 43rd anniversary of my graduation from Junior High. I have not been in touch with many of my high school friends, so have only attended a few of their reunions. However the idea of a junior high reunion seemed like fun, as our class ended up being split between two high schools. One woman with whom I had talked to over the years, Janet Deason Saunders, was sponsoring our class’s attendance, so I went to support her and see other old friends.

When I got there, fortunately, everybody had on name tags with very big letters, as we had changed quite a bit over the years. One person with whom I was quite pleased to see was my fourth grade boyfriend. I remember that he used to carry my books and walk me out to the bus every afternoon. (These were the same buses to which we practiced evacuation drills, as this was the scary time of the Cuban missile crisis). Anyway, he and I struck up a phone and email connection, and I decided to make him this small piece of wall art, (13″ x 13″; 33cm x 33cm) as a Christmas present.

He now lives in New Orleans, the home of the Delta Blues and the famous New Orleans Jazz Festival.  Since that town is one of my favorite cities here in the States, the images for this piece were easy to compile…. chili peppers, records and a few hearts thrown in as impending possibilities.

Detail of small beaded art quilt - "Hearts, Peppers, and Butterflies"

To use the concept of chili peppers,which is so popular in Cajun food, I was able to find some fabric on the Net at www.equilter.com, one of the best on-line textile stores there is. I scattered the cut out vegetables around the surface of the quilt, and established a shape around them with size 10 yellow seed beads so that they would stand out from the background. There’s a large, white mother of pearl button with a red star burst inlaid in it from the late 50s in the upper right of the photo on the left. Between it and the chili pepper, you can see one of my signature hummingbird buttons. I was just able to score some more of them on the Net. The original intent back in 2009, was that I thought I had bought a lifetime supply of them, but I’ve been more productive than I thought I was going to be, so I hustled and found some more.

Detail of small, beaded art quilt - "Hearts, Peppers, and Butterflies"

On the right in this photo, is a find that I am quite proud of. While very few people listen to their music on vinyl records anymore, I found a mobile in a party decorations store of 45s made out of thick plastic. They were made to look like Rock and Roll records but since New Orleans is more about jazz and the blues, I found a tiara-like, iron-on applique to cover up the words of the song title. I thought this especially fitting as New Orleans is sometimes known as the “Crescent City” and now the tiara motif is backed by a teal colored curve. At the bottom of the piece are two rows of wide rick-rack (about 1″ or 2.5cm wide). Scattered along their undulating waves are tiny gold safety pins with 3 large teal, hex shaped beads. They add an interesting texture and their color picks up some of the blue in the butterfly wings, the record label and the blue beads I sewed along the record’s edge. I do know that if I ever use those plastic records in another piece, I’m going to sew them on my machine. Doing them by hand was really hard on my fingers.

Butterflies have always been a favorite insect of mine and I have scattered them liberally in my garden pieces for quite a while. I could spend my life flitting from flower to flower, but only if I get to decorate the garden!. As for the hearts in the piece, they’re a tribute to young infatuations at the age of nine and ten, and to possibilities that could have been.

So, who would have thought that attending a junior high reunion after not seeing most of the people for over 40 years would lead to creating a piece of art.Life does make for some strange twists and turns, but often leads back to early inclinations and what we believed in when we were little. What formed us in our youth often inspires us in our future.

Where do you find the inspirations for your work?

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

To find out how to buy my art work, please check out “How to Buy my Art Work” in the “Pages” section to the right of this blog.

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