…Are nearly done. Two days before I have to drop them off, nearly a year since I volunteered to do them, and at least six months after I intended to finish them.
Life in a pandemic, eh? You’d think it would give us more time to finish things. But my job never locked down, and I have a lot of other time obligations, too.
These 8×8″ constructed fabric panels are built on waste canvas scraps with juxtaposed layers of bright red and blue fabric in heavily frayed applique. From a distance, to color-sighted viewers, they are designed to blend into shimmering violet hues. Extra glitter comes from red and blue glass seed beads, sewn in a regular grid pattern across the surface.
What I learned making these? I really love the semi-controlled destruction of frayed edges. Make things intentionally ragged = artistic! At least under the right circumstances.
Also, *wash the damn base fabric twice* in hot water. Or use a non-shrinking polyester felt as a substrate. These shrank in unpredictable (exciting!) ways. To make them better fit 8×8″, I had to add some fabric along one side.
All that’s left for these is their final drying, then sewn name tags on the bottom edges, then delivery.
They are part of Ann Morton’s The Violet Protest Project, which you can learn about here.
But I’m not done with the idea. At the same time I sewed these panels, I worked on another set of red/blue smaller panels. These will be heavily appliqued, embroidered, and beaded, ultimately going into a fiber book art sculpture called VIOLET NATION.
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My VP panels (before I extended out shrunken areas to make them closer to 8×8″):
Twilight Trellis
Feather of Truth
Festival
Roads and Ripples
Fire Flower
Water Serpent
Lotus Path
Mountain and Valley
Arbor
Sea and Sky
Could I explain in ArtSpeak my motivations for the way I laid out the red and blue patterns, how I chose each image, and how they represent my hope of unity in our fractured America? The archaeology web series I was reading about ancient Sogdiana while stitching these, and how that informed my art in subversive ways? Sure. But those are largely *personal* meanings. Other viewers will get other things out of them, and that may be more important in the long run.
These squares will eventually travel to one or more American lawmakers, after a stint at the Phoenix Art Museum.
Whoever you are, whether you choose to frame these for your offices, give them as gifts, or even burn them, please remember this:
The patterns only work with red and blue vibrating together in roughly equal proportions.
It’s the same with our democracy. Compromise and kindness are not weakness. If your arguments are not strong enough to win a free and fair election, they aren’t worth following into the future.
Work together.