On July 22 last I blogged of how in a little demo to visiting artist friend I had come up with a small group of samples of half circles inset into a contrasting background (there’s a pic in that link)  I kept them up on my board for inspiration, not knowing what I should do with them but wanting to do something, definitely.  And then I went off travelling.

Visiting USA family and friends in August, I was in Greeley, CO, the day of the recent Solar Eclipse over North America. Out on our daughter’s back lawn, equipped with eclipse viewing glasses, eclipse pizzas, gorgeous eclipse devilled eggs, solar eclipse vodka, sunkist raisins and lots of other appropriately named or labelled refreshments, we enjoyed a solar eclipse brunch party with some of her UNC Botany Department colleagues. Though we were not in the zone of total blackout, the effects were dramatic enough, including a temperature drop in a few minutes of eerie ‘dusk’ at about 11.15 am.   The whole event was awesome.

After returning from my travels, it all clicked into place – I needed to do something ‘solar’ using these samples on my wall as a starting point. I have always loved these scales or dome shapes – which first appeared in my work 20 years ago, eg Pahoehoe 1 and 2, Afterglow and recently in the Kimberley quilts. Here they have become the dark and light sides of spheres, in the loosest sense possible, mis-shappen and mis-matched. There’s no such word but there should be a made-up one I can’t get out of my mind, ‘ecliptical’.  I found enough of what to me are moonlight, nocturnal coloured fabric pieces and scraps – not my usual palette at all – and envisage lots of hand quilting in pale gold thread …   

You know I love grids – and these units are trimmed to 4 1/2″. A new project is underway, positive vibes so far, it’s lunar rather than solar, and the list of title ideas contains interesting possibilities.