Elusive

This year I began a new series partially in response to the rhetoric of certainty that seemed to surround me, partially in response to life. It is dedicated to uncertainty and  "Live Frugally on Surprise," a line from one of my favorite poems of Alice Walker's, could easily be its mantra.

One of the fruits of this series is Elusive:

The background is a product of a successful snow-dyeing session with some added silk screening and painting. The texture in the piece (the arcs or wing shapes) comes from another experiment this year--dyeing cheesecloth and hand stitching it to a background.

This piece is larger than I have been working, 43" x 25", and a judge liked it enough to put it into the Newburyport Art Association Fall Juried Members Show, where it was the only piece of fiber art. 

Since it is abstract, it is open to interpretation and I usually try not to limit those interpretations to what inspired me to create a piece. But if I am asked about a particular meaning, sometimes I try to get the viewer to look a little more closely at the piece. "Those are obviously planets. Why did you make planets?" But the piece is green, not a typical planetary color, and if the piece is about space, it is also about spaces.

It is Thanksgiving weekend and I am writing this as I sit awaiting the arrival of voices and smiles and energy with reminders of all I am grateful for. I am also feeling gratitude for those quiet spaces in between, for all the multiplicity of this amazing, ever-changing life. 

Hope your Thanksgiving gave you even more to be thankful for!

Check out Off the Wall Friday--another thing to be thankful for!