Squares, grids – important parts of how I see the world around me – for people around the world there is massive disruption at the moment to long-established patterns of rules based order. Patterns of disruption are all around for us to see at local, national and international levels. This small piece is an example of my current interest in disrupted grids as symbolic of the chaotic state of the world today. If you keep and eye and ear on the news from around the world, your own country and your neighbourhood, you know enough stories to understand what I’m talking about, and I don’t need to spell out my own strongly held political views on any particular situation in every direction we can look. These are the thoughts behind my interest in grids.
This is a 6″x8″ size textile piece, so small I can’t ever think of such things as ‘quilts’ – but members of SAQA have made and are donating small pieces this size for the Spotlight auction which will be held, online and in person, at this year’s SAQA Studio Art Quilt Associates’ annual conference. Anyone can bid – I’ll put details up later – you don’t have to be physically present or be a member of SAQA to bid. A couple of months ago I did make a very different one and sent it up with a friend traveling to USA, but it seems to have been lost in the US mail; so if I can find someone going up to the US in the next couple of days it could still get there. I simply can’t justify putting this textile snippet into a Fedex envelope and paying about US$80 to be sure it gets there next week! But no matter, if can’t find someone to take it and mail it for me up there, I’m really well ahead for next year’s auction. Whatever happens, like most of my auction offerings it is a high quality sample, and while making it I learned a great deal.
The pewter metal finish polyester fabric of course doesn’t fray – so assembling this suggested doing the same thing with some of the many scraps of leather I have, including some frog skins that could be just the thing for a large work in this style. What looks like a french knot holding each little piece in place is actually knotted perle thread tied at the back – which raises questions for the back of a larger work, and I’ll need to thoroughly think through scaling all this up, including machine sewing with honey-gold #8 perle cotton with a top stitching needle, adjusting tension in the bobbincase and on the top thread, which should all work ok, but I’ll go there another day – tomorrow’s an overdue haircut and an afternoon with the mahjong girls 🙂