There must have been a good reason, but I really don’t remember why I agreed to make a quilt for an exhibition+auction that some womens group was holding to support a worthwhile charity. Perhaps it was on my mind to make it at the time …. I do know (1) someone must have asked very nicely or compellingly (2) and at the time I was totally infatuated with the ceramic art retrospective exhibition we’d just seen of iconic Uruguayan painter and ceramicist Jose Gurvich. He did a lot of couples/Adam and Eve/lovers, and while I can’t remember why I chose a The Tree Of Life format, which is so different from inspirations before and since … I do know I started with this hand painted version, which I ditched, a good decision probably … anyway it is gone and not subject to reappraisal. (I think the snake’s pretty elegant, though)

The Tree of Life, or Arbol de la Vida…. version two. I began a draft blog post at the time, 2005, and was diverted and it remained as a draft until today. At the time I felt I could become hooked on fusing, but I’ve not done much since, until recently. Whatever original deadline I was given, it was brought forward at the last minute by three days, so that the comfortably do-able became a frantic, last-minute miracle. Maybe that was why I resorted to the fusing – anyway that worked, though the quilt was not sold to my reserve price, and is in the back of a cupboard somewhere. Another thing I totally overlooked when compiling my illustrated catalogue a couple of years ago!