Travellers Blanket On-line Class

A quick post from Chartres- will share images later int he week, but until now my phone kept on going  flat every time I was near anything picture worthy and I left my camera behind in Le Triadou. The week has been busy with travelling to Chartres- necessitating quite some trains and setting up my work  at the Collegiale Saint-Andre in Chartres- a magnificent stone building dating to the 1200's , but oh so cold! Very glad  I borrowed a woollen coat from a friend!It has been a delight to meet the other artists involved and we are all hoping some sales will happen! People have been quite surprised that Textile Art can be what my work encompasses, and the response of the other artists has been very encouraging!

But firstly I wanted to remind you of the Travellers' Blanket on-line class starting on 25 March 2016. If you would like further information I have an information sheet that I can send. But basically the class is to encourage you to create your own stories in cloth using fairly simple stitches. Dyeing instruactions are given for the background and the stitches are shown-though I do use quite simple stitching.You enroll by emailing me and I will send you payment details.

And I have finally finished my tifaifai piece which  I made form the theme La Confiance- the theme for the exhibition in Chartres.It is the first tifaifai I have made for quite some time and am always delighted with  how well this design technique works!

The colour is a little off because I have used my phone to photograph the piece and it measures about 125 cm square ( it is for sale if anyone is interested).  We had to write a page long statement about la Confiance and the way we had interpreted it  ( how is that for an  artists' statement! ), and I am surprised by the number of people who have actually taken the time to read the whole statement.
La Confiance

I have chosen the pomegranate motif as it has many historical connections and was important in early textile designs. The mythical associations of the pomegranate have to do with the changing of the seasons- with periods of dormancy and regrowth, this is the ebb and flow of life, of eternity  and we have to trust that it will continue.

In the Greek myth Persephone is abducted by Hades and taken to the underworld . Her mother  the goddess Demeter ( the queen of corn and growing things) was so devastated that she laid to waste the earth in search of her daughter. After many trials and tribulations she manages to locate her daughter and asks Zeus to prevail upon Hades to release Persephone. Persephone had become accustomed to Hades and had agreed to be his wife.  It was said that those that tasted any fruit in the underworld would be destined to remain there. When Zeus insisted Persephone return to her mother Hades invited her to eat the seed of the pomegranate, which she did. Persephone returned to the world of her mother and brought with her flowers and growth, but because she ate the seed she was also destined to return to Hades for 6 months of the year.

The story is an allegory for the changing seasons, of  rebirth and growth and  dormancy in the winter period. It represents nature and the cycles within nature that we need to respect. It is a reminder that if we trust in this way, that life will continue, that it is an eternal cycle.The pomegranate it also a fruit with many life enhancing  and medicinal properties and it’s juice is rich and red. You could find it on the corner of every market when I travelled in the Middle East.

So to represent the trust I have chosen the pomegranate tree as the symbol of life- it’s circular motion suggests eternity and the border with the quadrilobe motif again  inspires eternity. If we adhere to  the cycles of nature, and trust that those are what will carry the world forth into the future then we must stop subverting nature.To trust that things will continue also means to be active in relaying the trust.