snakes Archives | Textiles & Text

Stitching Snakes

I love snakes — real snakes, snake art, snake myths, symbols, metaphors — all snakes. In collecting snake art and stories about snakes, I find it interesting that on the eastern side of the world, snakes symbolize health, regeneration and the circle of life, while on the western side of the world, they stand for evil, harm, meanness, and sneakiness. So, if all the world’s deadliest snakes live in the Eastern Hemisphere and they symbolize goodness, but the majority of snakes of the Western Hemisphere are not venomous but symbolize bad things, how does this make any sense?

Adam and Eve is a favorite snake story. My very first Adam and Eve wall hanging takes up almost the whole wall and hangs over my bathtub.

Textiles, Text, & Terrain

From time to time, I’ll write essays here on the blog. I’ll post and repost garden profiles and how-to articles, as well as explanations of my processes of making textile art.

I craft an essay much like I do my fabric art. I start with putting words and thoughts to paper in no particular order. Bits and pieces, quotes, descriptions, and explanations, I get everything out and onto the paper, and then transcribe the words to the computer. The next day, I begin crafting the piece. I open a blank document and begin plucking out phrases and sentences out of the pile. I copy and paste the words to the blank document, rearranging order and flow, weaving the pieces together, tweaking and stitching together the words until the piece is finished. I love that the same kind of approach works for all that I do. The process is efficient and streamlined. It works for me.