This year I am reflecting on my life and on my body of work. Finding a voice that reflects who I am has taken several decades yet my starting point remains my response to personal relationships and to the passage of time. Much of my work reflects on my experience of a childhood in rural north western Ontario, Canada.
I made this quilt 30 years ago in 1985 as a way to help me understand my mother and it did help. Now as I reflect, I realize that my mother was only 59 when I made this quilt, (I was 34). I suppose that my daughters don't understand me either, but as I age, I am beginning to understand my mother.
Visit
body of work at the top of this blog for more info about this quilt.
5 comments:
How very true....we understand our Mothers better, the older we get. We may not agree with their views, but we may understand the path they have taken to get to that viewpoint.
I love to reflect, and I love to read your reflections. x
I'm finally starting to understand my mother now that it is too late to tell her. It took becoming a mother myself to really appreciate how much she did for me and how much I took her for granted.
What I notice about this quilt is how pared down it is. How much white space. I like that.
What I remember about making this quilt was emotion. I never showed my mother this quilt when she was alive. I felt that she would be hurt by it. But now that I look at it again, I don't think she would have been. I think she would have understood it even better than I did - and I was the one who made it.
We had a lone elm on our property when I was growing up.
My mother was really reclusive and didn't mix with the neighbours easily. She chose to stay home from school picnics, my piano concerts etc.
The text is about wanting to be left alone. I have decoded it on the Body of Work blog.
I didn't get why she would choose to be solitary - but now I do.
I choose to be solitary.
Thanks for your comments. x
I do not understand my mother yet, but I am starting to see the same behaviours in both she and me the older I get. Maybe one day I will understand the whys.
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