Briefly Gorgeous (my mended quilts)

Sunshine and shadow quilt 1987, given to my father for his 70th bithday in 1993
He went horizontal on it throughout the day and wore the fabrics out. 
I began mending it with velvet when I visited him, until he passed away in 2017.
I finished mending it in 2022 and the family loves to use it for comfort.

My sister got married in 1976 and I made her a quilt from new fabrics.  It is my second-ever quilt and is very badly made.  It started to fall apart from age, but also because of my beginner quilt making skills.
I asked her to give it back to me so that I could mend it and plan to use velvet this time too.
I hope to finish it by July as that would mark her 50th anniversary.

 

I Saw A Butterfly is a quilt I made in 1988
and gave to our middle daughter when she went to university.
It became very soft with use and the fabrics and batting were disintegrating, so first I taught her how to mend it, and then I finished mending it myself in 2022.  (with velvet of course)

Sometimes I mend quilts that I didn't make myself, and that is the case for this one.  It was a white whole cloth quilt, beautifully stitched with thick blue thread in a hearts and flowers pattern.  
I replaced the distingrated batting with two kinds of wool batting, one of which would felt, and I also replaced the white backing with a rayon and silk one dyed with plants.  
Poet in Love, mended 2022

There were many holes in the quilt and so I covered them with large brightly coloured velvet circles and ovals.  When I quiltedthe piece, I followed the original blue threads.  And then put the piece into the washer and the distortion happened. 
Poet in Love  Mended (or something like that) in 2022 

I made the dresden plates in the early 80's, probably 1982, and appliqued them to a white background made from old sheets.  We used the long rectangular quilt as a lawn blanket for sun bathing for a long time but when the white background fell apart, I unpicked the plates and appliqued them to squares of naturally dyed wool and silk.  I like how the plates are so faded and pastel, they are remnants from my high school and newly-wed sewing projects.  Those that disintegrated have been replaced with, you guessed it, velvet.  I finished mending You are a Single Star in 2024.

We've been using You Are a Single Star on our bed, and it has been lovely.  Large and heavy.

But just this week I discovered that the backing cloth is wearing out.  
The backing cloth is an old damask table linen that was mailed to me from a Canadian textile artist who was decluttering her studio.  I loved it because of its softness, and that quality gave me the title for my Festival of Quilts exhibition in 2024, Softer and Dreamier.  Now, I see that the backing cloth is fading away.  It is disappearing. 

But part of the reason why I think that quilts are such an important and profound art medium is because they are like the human body and will not last forever.  The fact that they carry their own death with them all the time, even while they care for my loved ones and are so beautiful while doing that, is what makes them authentic and meaningful for me.

Quilts are, to borrow from novelist Ocean Vuong, who wrote the exquisite book in 2019,
 Briefly Gorgeous.   
When I mend quilts, I am continuing the work of these visible, touchable documents about care.
I may be able to extend the life of them for 50 years or so if I used new cloth,
but cloth eventually gets old and wears out, no matter what we do.

unfolding in the trees not thinking

A vertical piece, like a tower.

Like something from another century.

with stairways that go up to the attic

where there is a fairy window

where there is a daydream.

where there is poetry

where there are no storms

not really

where we stop reading

where we stop thinking

where we recognize 

yet continue upwards

past the round window 

that doesn't open

towards the ceiling

so high 

it's a narrow space

like I said, it's a tower

it's intimate, close and soft

and dreamy

the round window watches 

it sees your memory

it views your dream 

oh your serene face

I know it's a cover up

I know it's a blanket

I know you are alone

poetic

 the poetic image is sudden

psychologists and psychoanalysts can never really explain the unexpected nature of the poetic image

 the sudden flare-up of being that happens in the imagination

 it's metaphysical

when confronted with a poetic image we experience a resonance with deep repercussions

something about it seems really true
we are pushed over a border line within us
between non-knowing and knowing with all our hearts

 our soul responds

 our inner light

I brought three linen cloths to work  on
while Ned and I are in Mexico for a bit

 last night I realized that I could look at them as sculptures and photographed them hanging from the outdoor shower in the balcony

Gaston Bachelard has written about the poetic image in the Poetics of Space 

Barbara Klunder

Trojan Horse (detail) by Barbara Klunder 2018  linen with cotton and silk thread 

The text and images in this post are by Barbara Klunder about Gwendolyn MacEwen, Toronto poet (1941 - 1987)

Trojan Horse (detail) by Barbara Klunder 2018  linen with cotton and silk thread 

Gwendolyn MacEwen grew up near the junction area of the city and then lived on the Toronto Islands during the early 60's.  She and Margaret Atwood were close friends during that time. 

The Trojan Horse was the name of a coffeehouse that she and her second husband, Greek musician Niko Tsingos, opened for a few years on the Danforth in 1972.

Trojan Horse 2018 by Barbara Klunder   linen with cotton and silk thread  47 x 67.5 inches

Her poetry is full of longing

for Egypt,
for deep love

Trojan Horse (detail) 2018  by Barbara Klunder  linen with cotton and silk threads

for understanding,

and I wanted to make something for her.

Death is a Snake (detail) 2018 by Barbara Klunder

I used many images that were built inside her poems
as she wrote to explain her desires

her dreams,
her hopes

and her betrayals.

Death is a Snake 2018 by Barbara Klunder    linen with cotton and silk thread  59 x 34.5 inches

She would symbolize her love in many ways.

As lions,

Death is a Snake (detail) by Barbara Klunder

as storms,
as tigers,
as birds,
as magic.

Death is a Snake (detail) 2018 by Barbara Klunder  linen with cotton and silk threads

Everything that is in my embroideries
is based on her poems

Cape for Gwendolyn 2018 by Barbara Klunder hand embroidered velvet  

The exhibition Barbara Klunder: Tattoos for Gwendolyn MacEwen remains on view at the David Kaye Gallery until April 29, 2018

cape for Gwendolyn (detail) 2018 by Barbara Klunder

the red bird you wait for

you are waiting for someone to confirm it
you are waiting for someone to say it plain
now we are here and because we are short of time
I will say, I might even speak its name

it is moving above me, it is burning my heart red
I have felt it crash through my flesh
I have spoken to it in a foreign tongue
I have stroked its neck in the night like a wish

its name is the name you have buried in your blood
its shape is a gorgeous cast off velvet cape
its eyes are the eyes of your most forbidden lover
and its claws, I tell you its claws are gloved in fire

you are waiting to hear its name spoken
you have asked me a thousand times to speak it
you who have hidden it, cast it off, killed it
loved it to death and sung your songs over it

the red bird you wait for falls with giant wings
a velvet cape whose royal colour calls us kings
is the form it takes as, uninvited, it descends
it is the power and the glory forever, amen

Gwendolyn MacEwen  

what if

What if I wrap my beloved dog wood?
What if I layer the shibori cloth with wool and quilt it? I don't pretend to know where this is going. I'm feeling my way.

(nod to Jude for the excellent term what if)
and thanks to Morna for her attention

poetic image

In Gaston Bachelard's introduction to The Poetics of Space, he writes about the poetic image. "How can a singular short-lived event, the appearance of an unusual poetic image, react on other minds and in other hearts despite common sense?" "Exact because it is so simple." "We fill up"