Shield Of Words and Pinwheels

My Words, My Truth, My Thinking, Seeing with my own eyes, My Song,  My Beliefs, My knowing, My Decisions, My Choices, My Mistakes, My Dance, My Responsibility.  

Those were the words I wrote over and over again on my Shield of Words. Not in that order, but those words.  Writing them, again and again, made me feel like I was taking ownership of them.  And that doing that gave me a feeling of security and well being.

Protection and comfort as Donna Marie commented on my blog.

After filling in my Shield of Words with these words, I hemmed the edge with yellow thread.   Then I sewed it onto the background using red embroidery thread and making small knots to attach it.

I always have a very specific feeling about how the parts of a piece are to be attached.  Some machine stitched, some hand-sewn and now some adhered with Matte medium.  Sometimes I can clearly see in my mind what it will look like or feel like.  Sometimes I need to try different techniques to actually see what works.

The little red dots holding down the shield, and the edge of the shield popping up from the ground was something I could clearly “see” without having to literally see it.

When I finished sewing the shield down, I sewed on the red, rock beads in the center of the pinwheels.  This helped attach the shield as well as working aesthetically.

I read that the pinwheel quilt design was created by women during the War of 1812 when the men were at war.

I didn’t know that when I chose the pinwheels for the shield.  I liked the sense of movement they created, but knowing about the warrior connection I like that too.

Making My Shield Of Words

It took me a while to wake up today.  After sending out my potholders that sold over the weekend, I came to my studio thinking about the moth and shield in the fabric painting I’m working on.

I decided to focus on the shield because the idea of writing the words on the shield appealed to me.

I didn’t realize that I wouldn’t get to even begin writing the words.  The afternoon would be filled with me figuring out what to make the shield from and what I would do to it.

So I began as I often do when I’m looking for an idea.  I walked around my studio looking at the fabric in my shelves waiting to see what felt right.  It came down to two old quilts and the one with the pinwheel design won out.

I began to experiment writing with marker on the quilt then trying to get an idea of what the design would look like, depending on how I wrote on the white surfaces of fabric.

Once I knew I wanted to fill in all the white with my writing, I saw that the black marker didn’t differentiate enough from the rest of the fabric painting and the backing.  I experimented with colors and came up with a mustard yellow that worked perfectly.

Painting the shield yellow is as far as I’ll get on it tonight.  It’s hanging on the line drying now.

Tomorrow I’ll start writing the words with a fine permanent marker.  I thought of stitching the words, but can’t make them as small as I would want. I also like the idea of writing on the quilt with marker.  To me it feels like a journal entry, graffiti, and an incantation.  A declaration both private and public at the same time.

The painted shield drying on the clothesline.

 

 

Shield Of Words Coming Together

Yesterday, I sewed down the legs of the woman in the fabric painting then, using matte medium and the pieces of fabric on the left side of the quilt, I created her dress.

I drew the boots on paper to get the size right and used them as a pattern to make two red boots.  Today I sewed them down using the black thread.

Then I drew her hand out of paper and used it as a template to stitch around.

Usually I do all the thread drawing freehand, but because of the size of the piece, I was having a hard time getting the scale right.  I can’t see this whole piece, as I can with smaller thread drawings, when it’s on my sewing machine.  So it’s hard to judge size and get the proportions right.

Here she is with her dress and hand all done.  I’m very happy with how the fabrics in the dress blend together using the matte medium.

Here she is so far.  Next, I’ll work on the moth. Then the shield.

I’m thinking of using the old hand quilting from the ground she’s on, as a guide to how I’ll finish the background.  I’m not sure exactly how that would work yet, but I have a few ideas.

Shield of Words….Continued

I loosely laid down the fabric for the dress on my new fabric painting last night.  I want to get her legs drawn today then I’ll use matt medium to attach the dress to the fabric.

The matt medium seems to work perfectly for this.  It’s blends the pieces of fabric seamlessly into each other.

I’m also going to make a sleeve on the back of the piece to hang it from.  Usually that one of the first things I do, but this piece is presenting itself in its own way.

A Face For My Shield Of Words

It took all morning and part of the afternoon for me to figure out how to begin my new fabric painting. I was working from the drawing I did the other day and the more I tried the more I thought that maybe the pencil drawing was as far as I was going to get.

The pencil drawing I was working from

I had the idea in my mind that this piece was going to be similar in size and technique as my Twin Healing Trees fabric painting.  But I finally gave up on that idea and decided that I had to let my expectation of what I thought it would be go, and allow it to become what it wanted to be.

The size was part of the problem, but also the face.  I couldn’t get it “right”.

What worked is when I pulled one of the old quilts from the pile on top of my shelf and cut it up.   I had no idea if it was the “right” size (it wasn’t, later I sewed another piece on to one side and will sew some onto the bottom too) but just took it to my sewing machine and started to sew.

I had spent part of the morning drawing faces with marker in my sketch pad so I had a better idea of what the face should look like.

Mostly I trusted myself to be able to do it.  And it finally worked.

Next, I cut out her shield and her dress in white fabric just to get an idea of the sizes and shapes.  That done, I went back to working on her face.

I have an idea of what her dress will look like.  I keep seeing it in soft dark greens.  I’m thinking of using matte medium to create the dress, like a collage instead of sewing it.  That way it will blend together more smoothly.

I did an experiment using the same quilt as a ground and some scraps of fabric.  Tomorrow I’ll be able to see what the fabric looks like when it dries and if it makes the whole thing too stiff to work with.

Experimenting with the fabric and matte medium.
The template for her dress and shield.

 

Clothes of Woods, Shield of Words

I’m not ready to write about this piece I’m working on yet.  The idea came to me last week.

I clearly saw this woman wearing the woods as clothes, holding a shield of words, and a moth hovering over her right hand.

She came to me with some words, which I wrote down, but now can’t find.  I looked through all my scraps of papers everywhere they might be,  scoured Jon’s car where she came to me and looked through the paper in the recycling bin.

So I’ve given up looking, hoping that will make them appear and if not, I’ll accept that they weren’t the right words for her shield and come up with new ones.

My idea is to make her out of fabric, I don’t want to think about it too much.  I want to let the process guide me.

The Moth On My Studio Window

The sun came out today long enough to warm up this moth on my studio window.  I thought it much too cold for a moth to be out and alive.

After I took this photo the moth flew from my window. When I left my studio a few hours later I found it dead on the stone path that leads to the house.

I picked it up and put it on the altar in my studio.

Ever since I made the fabric painting Shield of Words, I have paid special attention to moths.  The moth in that piece came to me in a dream. Since then they have come to signify the idea of emerging into “light and liberation”.

Now when a moth comes to me under unusual circumstances, as this one did today, I am reminded of the importance of knowing my own truth, of being honest with myself. It is in that truth, no matter how painful it might be, that I will find my freedom.

“Trust The Changes… Freedom Is Around The Corner”

The polyphemus moth that Kelly found on our walk

We were taking a walk through the cemetery talking about how I felt like I was in transition.  After my experience last week of accepting the truth about my relationship with my birth family, I’ve been feeling things so unfamiliar to me, I’m having a hard time understanding and articulating them.

That’s when my friend Kelly stopped walking.

“Look,” she said and pointed to a big beautiful brown moth lying on the grass.  I bent down to see if he was still alive. He was on his back so I slid a few fingers under his body and turned him over.

When he didn’t move I knew he was dead.

Close up of one of the spots on the moth’s wing

Ever since I made my Shield Of Words fabric painting I’ve thought of moth as a symbol to encourage me on my path to the truth about my birth family and my place in it.

Now here he was again at this important transition in my life, to reinforce my journey.

The moth we found is a polyphemus moth. A silk moth.  I know he’s a male because of his long antennas.  they only live about a week, and don’t eat. Males spend their adult lives mating.

close up another of the marking on the wing.

When I got home, I went back to my post on my Shield of Words fabric painting to remind me of the meaning of moth. Somehow I have a hard time holding onto it, as if my brain doesn’t want to accept it.  Maybe that will change now.

When I finished the fabric painting my cousin and another reader sent me this interpretation of moth:

“Moth medicine’s meaning is resurrection and transformation. A moth represents tremendous change, but it also seeks the light. Thus, moth spiritual meaning is to trust the changes that are happening and that freedom and liberation are around the corner.”

On the website, World Birds I found this...”The cocoon of a moth represents bindings and trap, but once it emerges, the adult moth seeks light and liberation. This is very much symbolic of a soul of man that is drawn to Knowledge and Ultimate Truth.”

I think what I may be feeling, that  I haven’t completely embodied, is that freedom from the bindings and trap.  For me, trusting my truth has been the hard part, the part that kept me from full understanding.

It was only as I began writing this that I remembered that a  brown moth showed up in a dream I had a few months before making Shield of Words.

In that dream I was in a room with an owl and a big brown moth.  I wrote on my blog... “I dreamed this room last night, it was such a peaceful place I tried to hold onto the feeling of it for as long as I could after waking up.”

The dream had such an impact on me, that I included a drawing of that moth on my Corona Kimono. 

The furry wing of the moth

I don’t need moth to tell me how I’m feeling.  But finding him is affirming as if I’m in sync with the natural world.

As we left the cemetery I thanked Kelly for finding the moth.  When I got home I rearranged the altar in my studio and put the polyphemus moth in the center of it.

Curating My Etsy Shop

I Am Enough poster, postcards and magnet and my Rainy Season Potholder.  All for sale in my Etsy Shop.

“I do enough, I have enough, I am enough. All is well.” ” That’s how my yoga teacher starts off each class,” Susan wrote to me.

Susan sent one of my I Am Enough posters to her teacher and I’ve adopted that mantra.

At night, when I can’t sleep, I close my eyes, put my hand on my belly to feel my breath move in and out, and repeat those words over and over.  Sometimes, I imagine writing them with my sewing machine. The grand up-swoop of the cursive “I” the repetitive mounds of the “m”.

This morning as I was packing my “Hope” quilt into its box, I noticed I had only three potholders in my Etsy Shop and decided to spend some time this week making more. But I also noticed how the three potholders I did have went so well with some of my magnets and postcards.

It’s the curator in me that wanted to see them together.

So I arranged them on the floor and took some pictures.

They make a nice little package I thought.  And remembered how Jody bought one of my magnets and a Flying Vulva decal as part of a gift for a friend who was turning 50.

I’ll have some new Intuitive Patchwork Potholders in my shop sometime next week.  Until then I do have it stocked with reproductions of my fiber art in a few different forms.   With each order, I send one of my Shield of Words Postcards and an Owl Woman sticker.

And I’ll leave you with a message from Stephanie about Mary Kellogg’s book This Time Of Life. A five-star review in my opinion…

“I received Mary’s book a couple of days ago and was moved to tears by her poems. Please tell her thank you from me and how very much I could relate to them.” Stephanie

My I’m Not A Ghost Postcards and Magnets and my Pothotholders, Ins and Ions and Thinking of Spring for sale in my Etsy Shop. 
Mary Kelloggs Book This Time Of Life for sale in my Etsy Shop. 
Full Moon Fiber Art