The Doctor is In

Work in progress.

It's a veritable self-portrait. Two days ago, in the midst of finishing a commission, I was suddenly seized by the desire to play with colour. (There is a spring quilt show coming up on the island that I was asked to participate in, but it wasn't at the top of my "to do" list.)

The urge to create was so strong I didn't even bother to choose fabric. I grabbed the box of scraps left over from the round robin quilt workshop I did with Barb Mortell a couple of years ago (and untouched since then.) I pulled out two piece at random, cut them with a rotary cutter, stitched them together and then proceeded to ask "What does it need?" The result is pictured above.

It's a mess, right? But it contains a lot of energy, so I decided to treat it as a therapy cloth, and figure out what it might reveal of my inner psyche.

The first thing that catches my eye is the vertical red line that splits the work in two. Off setting the line would have given a more interesting composition, and I did try, but it kept wanting to be right in the centre. I also rotated the piece as I worked, so the line could have been horizontal, or at an angle. The red line was insistent. The questions are, "Do I feel split in two, or in conflict? Are there two sides to the story? Is there a before and after here?"

Lots to chew on there, but probably boring for anyone but me. I did feel whilst working that there was a strong vertical tendency, one of growth, which would be appropriate for spring, if that's what I was thinking of. The last piece I added was the bottom strip of red, to try and ground the vertical line. Red is a very energetic colour, particularly this one, which is a pure vermillion. Positioned at the bottom, it gives a sense of something roiling beneath the surface. The question is, "What lies beneath my surface?"

Hmmn. The career, having just had a shot in the arm with the show at the Nanaimo Art Gallery, is feeling the need to build on the momentum, such as it is. As I described in my post about the opening, I did feel very conflicted about my right to be there. It takes a tremendous amount of positive self-talk for me to put myself out into the public realm. I am torn between the need to protect myself and the desire for others to see my work.

Going back to the messy, chaotic quilt piece, is it possible to read it as dynamic? Can I pull the pieces together and move forward? The yellow and grey stripe-y pieces remind me of ladders, the middle one does go to the top. Is there some comfort or a safe space to be found? It's all grist for the mill.

There should be a photo of my workspace. It was like a fabric and colour bomb had gone off while I was putting this piece together. No surface was clear. There was a box of fabric stacked on top of something else so I had to do a John Cleese-style silly walk to get over it on my way to the ironing board. I really had no space to lay anything flat. Maybe this piece reflects something of that.

Which leads me to look around my house with a familiar sense of despair at the bags and boxes of fabric stacked everywhere, the skeins of yarn I spun over the winter that have no place to go, the rug hooking project blocking the doorway. The fear grips me that I have become a hoarder. And what is the psychology behind hoarding, that one will never have enough, or that all that stuff can insulate against the world?

Maybe I need to do some therapeutic cleaning and organising and weeding. Could taming the chaos around me control the chaos within?

Ahh, our time is up. See you next time.