My wood quilt has been a long time in the brewing ... the tinkering.....
the carving .... and finally the assembling.
I intended to take my time with it but a part of me kept badgering that
"it ought to be finished by now, it ought to be finished by now".
"I really do prefer to give the ideas time to surface .... and I need to work repetitively with impulses to make them part of my vocabulary or language .... a way has to be found into the rhythm that works ... quite simply". - Sophie Munns
I found my rhythm as I was creating each "patch" of the wood quilt but when it came to putting them all together I lost my way and spent many weeks pondering. Eventually I decided not to "sew" the pieces together as originally planned because the quilt was busy enough and I glued them instead. Even then it was not quite right. Another few weeks of tweaking ensued. On the day I deemed it fit for the gallery it sold to a regular customer who just happened to email me on that very day. It was meant to be!
As with a patchwork quilt made of cloth this piece has memories and stories worked into each square. You can see a few of my ideas in this post here. I kept in mind that in Africa nothing is wasted and had fun using found objects and rusty bits that had been lying around in the bottom of boxes. I also wanted to use elements that reminded me of Africa. (The name for the piece came to me while I was assembling it, inspired by a favourite book ... The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner)
Shards from an old African pot.
Pebbles, driftwood and shells from Transkei beaches.
Cowries symbolizing feminine energy and wealth.
White seed beads symbolizing purity and protection, faithfulness, spirituality, holiness.
A carved wooden sun bristling with nails for protection.
Black and white patterns which represent the contrast of:
dark and light
good and evil
male and female