only in the middle of our story

 She let her words fly forth as blessings

 like white birds cheering the heart

 In the shelter of Bear's arms she let go of her fears

ned and judy 25 years 

Her words became like birds and flew away
becoming something unexpected.

It's our 44th wedding anniversary today, and I am thinking about a card I received, a gift.  It had Denise Kester's poem (quoted above) and image (see here) on it.  The friend told me that Ned is my bear and that is true.  

I made this quilt with quote by Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet XIV to celebrate our 25th. That was 19 years ago and we were just barely in the middle of our story.  Click here for entire quilt.

sonnet XIV

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the complete sonnet that Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote to her husband Robert, click here.

The complete quilt back is here.

My hand sings red

Ned's home.

Sonnet XIV

I make two sided cloth wall pieces that are large enough to cover two persons. Thousands of hand stitches are used not only to quilt the layers together, but also to embellish the work with embroidery. Production is slow and I finish about two a year. I am currently exploring the metaphor of the quilt as a protective covering.

Splendid isolation

Many people ask me if I feel isolated. I usually answer "yes", because Manitoulin Island is so far away from larger centers in Canada and we live very privately here. However, I don't think isolation is necessarily a bad thing for an artist. I really do love solitude. I'm reassured to read Nancy Crow's comments about being alone on page 290 of her newest book. "I like it. I love it. I love being by myself. I happen to believe that the more solitude you have, the more you're able to delve inside and find those rich levels of ability that are fresh. Otherwise you're allowing all this chattering constantly coming at you and you can never reach into that part of yourself, whatever that part is."