As I am not a particularly religious person I don't really have 'a faith' so to speak - however I do have a belief that there is something bigger than me... One of the memories I have as a very young child watching a trail of ants and trying to answer the question of 'if I am big to an ant what is big to me' and staring skywards. It also occurred to me to question what was the governing power - something so large and unseen that kept the world, indeed the universe on it orbit...
That question has remained something which I have never answered satisfactorily... So to create something that uses faith as its central theme posed an exciting challenge.
Just prior to the swap announcement I noticed an orb spider building its web between the house and the camellia tree outside our bedroom window - and while I don't like spiders - the orb spider fascinates me with it beautiful web designs. One night while standing in the dark watching the spider at work weaving its web it came to me that the spider just 'did this' every night - built its web. Did it have faith in its own spidery way? Faith that it could do it, faith that it would do it. At the same time I became aware of the night sky behind the web -with the stars seemingly 'hung' almost web like - were the stars part of a greater web - a web which was built by an unseen force. I too had faith that night would repeat itself every few hours - without a doubt - faith it would happen. Was the spider web the microcosm and the night sky the macrocosm. Was the same pattern repeated in larger and small...
When the swap list was announced I knew at once what I was going to do and so I sketched an idea of a night sky with a main star and then a 'snapshot' piece of a spiders web woven between grasses with dew drops strung on its threads... This piece would be sewn over the corner of the main piece - raw edged - as to give the impression it had been plucked out of the 'bigger picture' so to speak. I thought the idea of the 'snapshot piece' would further endorse my idea of a repeated pattern in life - like the old adage so above so below...
As luck would have it the Australasian Quilters Convention was here in Melbourne so I made sure I looked for some night sky material which I found at Dyed and Gone to Heaven - aptly named I thought... It was a mixture of blues, greys, silvers. and gold - I then used watercolour paints to emphasis some parts of the sky...
So far I have accomplished this...
I am not that happy with the main star - I wanted to give the impression of the morning star - bigger and brighter than the rest - but is early days yet and all could change... I am on a bit of a deadline with this one -it has to be in the post by next Monday 17th...
2 comments:
You are creative in more ways than one, my friend. The segment about Faith and the belief of Something Bigger is so beautifully written, I had to go back and re-read it several times, just to savor the words and meaning. You aren't alone in wondering if there is a huge Hand guiding our universe, but the way you write about it gives a unique perspective.
I look forward to seeing the finished swap product.
Brilliant concept!
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