“I Am Enough” My Fabric Painting

It was when Jon and I were talking on our Podcast that I came to see what the fabric painting I was working on was about.

Horror vacui is the art term meaning, ” fear of open space”.  So often in my art I have a need to fill the surface I’m working on so that no one part of the piece stands alone.   That there is something lacking in me, that I’m never doing enough is a constant refrain for me.  Often when I’m doing one thing, I feel I really should be doing something else.

I think sometimes I’ve tried to hide in my imagery.  To divert attention away from one image with another.   As if I’m covering my eyes with my  hands, hoping no one can really see me.

When a friend suggested that during an Open House I have a one person exhibit of my work in my gallery, I cringed at the idea. Besides that I want to support other artists, surrounding myself with them and their art feels much safer.

I was seeing this goddess in my mind before I  began creating her and she was always standing alone.

I didn’t realize that this was the first time I made a  fabric painting so large and so singular before, until I was talking to Jon about her.  Then it came clear that she, like me, was comfortable standing on her own.

And she’s even more that comfortable.  She is confident and determined.  There isn’t room for anyone or anything else in the space she occupies.  She herself is even too large for it, her legs too long, her elbows jutting off the surface, a halo of stars circling her head.

She is definitely enough.

So often when I’m making a piece of art it tells me what to do. When I looked at my goddess filling up the space around her, I heard the words “I Am Enough.”

I Am Enough is sold.  for sale.  She’s 21″x53 1/2″.  She is $400 + $20 shipping and you can buy her in my Etsy Shop, just click here.  Or you can email me here at [email protected] if you want to send a check.

I’ve been documenting my process of making I Am Enough from the beginning but now that she’s done, I wanted to show you  the original quilt that was the first step in that process again……

I cut this piece from a larger quilt that someone sent me. As you can see it’s worn and torn, and in my finished piece, there are still some places where the old cotton batting peeks through the fabric.

I pulled out thousands of hand quilted stitches to create this piece, always thinking of the woman or women who sewed them.   I then used the same fabric I removed  and  hand sewed those  pieces of fabric back onto this piece of quilt in different places.

I hand stitched every part of I Am Enough except for the eyes, nose and mouth which I drew with my sewing machine.

You can see how the original design of the quilt influenced the shape of my goddess.

Here are a couple of close-up photos  of I Am Enough.…